This Week in WordPress – August 12 to 18

It’s Friday, folks, and you know what that means, right? Of course you do! It’s time for This Week in WordPress with your roguishly handsome host…me!

Every Friday I round up the best of the best WordPress topics that the internet has been buzzing over, give you my take on them, and then we have a discussion in the comments. It’s fun and informative. And it’s about WordPress, which we all love (obviously), which makes it even better.

Before we get to the topics, remember that next week is going to be our first live-stream of This Week in WordPress. You can find Nathan B. Weller and me at our Facebook page or our YouTube channel at 3:00pm Eastern, talking about next week’s topics, taking questions, and just having a jolly old time hanging out with you, Divi Nation, the official Divi podcast. Make sure you mark your calendars to tune in for our inaugural broadcast, would ya?

With that said, let’s get started with this week in WordPress.

News

DreamHost Stands Up For Privacy

This week was a big week for internet privacy because of domain registrar and hosting provider DreamHost. After the United States Department of Justice filed a request for information on ~1.3 million people (including IP addresses of visitors) related to a site hosted by DreamHost, the company took a stand and fought back. Regardless of politics, DreamHosts’s “We Fight for the Users” stance is something you should check out. I have a feeling this issue is going to only grow larger in the coming months, and it’s going to affect all of us techies in some way.

PostStatus also has a good write-up regarding free speech, privacy, and the web and how both hosts and businesses need an action plan in place for their customers’ privacy issues. It’s worth a read.

Doc Pop and How to Use the WordPress Trademark

Figuring out when and how you’re legally allowed to use the term WordPress can be a little tricky. The WordPress Foundation is the guardian of the property, and Doc Pop explains exactly what you can and can’t do, and how you can work around the trademark while still keeping your brand intact (such as when you can use WordPress in your URL and when you have to use WP.) And did y’all know there are counterfeit WordPress logos floating around the internet that you shouldn’t be using? Me, either. We also wrote a a great guide to using the WordPress logo and trademark if you are interested in even more information.

Bootstrap 4.0 Beta Released

It seems like we’ve been waiting on this forever, but the Bootstrap 4.0 beta has finally been released into the wild. Many designers have been looking forward to this release for a while, though it will take a little getting used to if you’re hardcore into Bootstrap 3. The toolkit is moving from LESS to SASS and embracing Flexbox. The grid structure has also changed some (for the better, if you ask me, but don’t take my word for it–check that out for yourself.)

WordCamp US is Going to Experiment with Community Bazaar

First off all, I love the word bazaar. I love typing it and saying it. Second, I love WordCamps. And this year, WordCamp US (to be in held in Nashville, Tennessee) is going to have a community bazaar. WP Tavern puts it like this: “The idea is similar to that of a science fair where each community chosen will have a space to highlight why theirs is awesome.” Ain’t that just the best?

So if you’ve got a WordPress community that wants its own spot to shine, throw in an application to reserve your spot. I can’t wait to see you and hang out at the bazaar in Nashville this December!

WordPress 4.9 Goals

Last week, we talked about the release schedule for WP 4.9, and this week, we’ve got their list of goals for the release itself. Changes range from code editing improvements, better theme switching, and plugin updating, all the way to making it safer to edit files and working with the REST API for Gutenberg. It’s good to know there are going to be improvements for everyone, users, designers, and developers alike.

WordPress Mobile Apps’ Login Has Been Updated

I do love the WP mobile app, but the interface leaves something to be desired. Automattic agrees with me, apparently, and the experience is becoming much more pleasant. From on-boarding new users to just making finding all your sites easier, this update is a welcome change to the mobile experience.

Resources

• You have to take a lot into consideration when changing themes (to Divi or Extra, right, folks? Right?), and WPLift has a great article on making sure the transition goes smoothly.
• You can never have too many places to check when you’re looking for jobs. And when it comes to WordPress, we all know that all jobs are not created equal. CodeInWP put together a fantastic list of places around the internet that you can use to look for work.
• Your designs may be the best in the world, but if they’re hard to implement or use, they’re essentially worthless. Lucky for us, Smashing Magazine has put together an article to teach us all how to do it right. And if you can’t trust them, who can you?
• Put simply, you should be using a CDN for your sites. Here’s why.

Tutorials

• Mobile, mobile, mobile. The world has gone mobile, and it isn’t looking back. If your website hasn’t been updated lately for the mobile web, it’s time you should. Between Google penalizing non-mobile-friendly sites to just losing visitors because of bad UX, getting your WordPress up to code isn’t that hard to do.
• Bro, do you even MAMP? Well, you probably should. It’s kind of technical to set up, but if you follow these instructions, you’ll have a fantastic local development server for WordPress. If you’ve never done local dev before, give it a shot and MAMP it up.
• I am by no means a REGEX master. In fact, I am barely literate in it, parsing what other people give me at the rate of a small child reading Tolkien. Part of the reason why is because the REGEX documentation out there is super-ultra-mega dense. But Zeeshanu, a wonderful Github user, has broken it all down into bite-sized nuggets even total newbies can understand. You should totally bookmark this one.
• Remember when I said Bootstrap 4.0 was going to embrace Flexbox? Well, now is the time to get really good with it with the help of the folks at Flywheel.
• I first learned what parallax was back in the ’90s on a Nintendo Power VHS tape that talked about Donkey Kong Country’s newfangled side-scrolling backgrounds. They were just so pretty! Since then, I’ve always loved the effect and wanted to see it everywhere I could. Divi users can already do this with a few clicks of the mouse, but if you’re using another theme (for whatever unnatural reason), WPBeginner can put you, too, on the track to being as awesome as Donkey Kong.
• You may know how to add a video or an audio file to your site already. But do you know how to add a playlist? Maybe? Maybe not? Either way, you can, and now you know how! You’re welcome.

Don’t Forget about the Next ‘This Week in WordPress’

That’s all for this installment of This Week in WordPress, but we’re just getting started, really. Don’t miss the weekly live-stream that starts next Friday (August 25th at 3:00pm Eastern) on Facebook and YouTube.

Until next time, Divi Nation! Have a great weekend!