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Hack Insights + Time to Learn WordPress 6.5

Hi Reader 👋🏻,

In the week of 6.5 seeing RC1 and pretty much my entire timeline going to WordCamp Asia (and not me 😭), we also saw a lot of news. And I do mean a lot. So much so that I actually had to filter hard to not double the size of my newsletter. Well, unless that's what you want me to do, Reader?!

Anyway, lot's to cover in this 109th Within WordPress so let's jump right in!

🗞️ Within WordPress News

Here’s what I saw happening this past week:

• Jamie Marsland shared 250 seconds of the majority of changes coming to WordPress 6.5

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I very much enjoyed his "this is all the wonderful stuff you can do with the Cover block" video as well. One of my favorite of his, actually.

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• Tammie Lister, or @karmatosed, has published her book. It's called WordPress Styling with Blocks, Templates, and Themes. And it's about... well, I think you can figure that one out.

Highly recommended. From a friend's perspective, but also knowing the knowledge she has on the topic. Go and check it out.

• Rafał Tomal and Chris Huffnagel (finally 😅) released their interpretation of what a perfect Site Editor compatible (FSE / Block Theme) WordPress theme looks like. It's called Rockbase and I've played with it already. It is indeed, uhm, rock solid.

I got my copy and can't wait to stack it up against Mike and Patrick's Ollie Pro!

• The first article over on Scanfully about one of our main features has also been published.

• Throw together a bunch of straight-shooting WordPress wizards, agencies, product owners, and enthusiasts in a virtual room with the Gutenberg Project's chief brains, the Lead Architect and Product Owner. We might be paving the way for breakthroughs. Brian Coords article about this meeting wonderfully translates the meeting on WP Tavern. All of us need to read this.

• Curious about all the Woo stats? Want to know how big WooCommerce actually is? Well, yeah, there's a page for that.

I sat down with Calvin Alkan to discuss every angle we can learn something about from the Bricks vulnerability, and subsequent hack. A little over 1500 folks have watched it, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. My favorite was from Paul, Mr. WPTuts himself. Paul said:

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WPTuts @WPTutz Even if you're not a Bricks user or weren't affected by the recent security issue, you NEED to watch this video by @remkusdevries as it will 100% open your eyes to website security and not just WordPress security. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7T1oJ_E54k youtube.com Everything about the Bricks Vulnerability and... The popular Bricks pagebuilder for WordPress saw a severe vulnerability in early... 11:46 AM • Mar 4, 2024 9 Retweets 21 Likes Read 1 replies

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So yeah, if you really want to understand how sites can get hacked and what you can and cannot do about it... Or, what you must do to make the impact minimal... go watch that video.

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• Figma to WordPress. Now, who doesn't need that? As always, there's a plugin for that. Did you know?

• I wrote an article about how we can get rid of Google Analytics plugins for WordPress. And why we should. From a performance perspective, as well as "this is just a smarter way". With Zaraz.

• The second part of the Block Bindings API tutorial is up. Super important you read up on this as this paves the way to use Custom Fields freely inside your content in a future edition of WordPress.

• Eric Karkovack wrote an excellent article over on The WP Minute about whether we're expecting too much from WordPress Core.

Good read. And my answer is: yes, we do.

🚀 Performance & Security

• Over on the Delicious Brains blog, Iain Poulson shared a wonderful scenario where adding an index to your MySQL database makes a whole lot of sense. Because, done right, it will massively enhance performance.

• The Performance API is a set of standards for measuring and evaluating performance metrics with JavaScript. Geoffrey Graham demonstrates on the Smashing Magazine blog how to use the Performance API to generate performance metrics directly in the DOM to create your own reporting.

• Calvin Alkan's research, the reason he found the Bricks (and others) vulnerability in the first place lead him to the release of Code Freeze.

A VERY interesting solution to limit anyone on/in your WordPress site with mal intent.

🔆 Within WordPress Highlight

• Amber Hinds of Equalize Digital shared wonderfully in-depth article about WCAG 2.2 and how you can test for it. Time to get your knowledge about accessibility expanded!

You should definitely also check out the A11y Collective's wonderful courses on the same subject.

💡 Interesting Finds

• Iveline Dimova shared a wonderful list of Git tricks.

🎁 Bonus

Check out this wonderful list of miscellaneous developer changes for WordPress 6.5. Lots, and I do mean LOTS of good little changes everywhere.

Lastly, I'll be going to CloudFest next week. Will I see you there, Reader?

That’s it for this week’s edition of Within WordPress. Thanks for reading!

Best,
Remkus

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Tjongervallei 10, Oudehorne, Fryslân 8413 CS
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