WP Builds Newsletter #16 – WordPress in 7kb, malware eating malware and an underwater datacenter

This weeks WordPress news – Covering The Week Commencing 4th June 2018:

What’s new in Gutenberg?
“Arguably, one of the key pieces of the new editor UI is the block library or inserter. Unifying the way users can insert content has been one of the main objectives of the whole project. It has gone through multiple iterations and testing; balancing clarity, usability, flexibility, and extensibility. This release offers the result of some very fruitful collaborations between designers and developers…”

Delivering WordPress in 7KB
“Over the past six months, I’ve become increasingly interested in the topic of web sustainability. The carbon footprint of the Internet was not something I used to give much thought to, which is surprising considering my interest in environmental issues and the fact that my profession is web-based…”

Simple:Press Forum Plugin Is Up for Adoption
“Simple:Press, a forum plugin for WordPress that has been around for more than a dozen years, is available for adoption. Developers Andy Staines and Steve Klasen announced their plans to shutdown operations last August on their customer support forum and have had little luck finding a suitable replacement…”

BabaYaga: The WordPress Malware That Eats Other Malware
Recently, Defiant’s analysts have been tracking a particularly sophisticated malware infection responsible for generating spam links and redirection, while still remaining relatively difficult for victims to detect. Dubbed “BabaYaga” by our team, this infection is notable for containing code capable of removing its competition. BabaYaga actually has the ability to remove other malware.

Wallace inline updates
I love it when I see that I plugin that I’m familiar with is getting regular updates. Bradley from Wallace Inline reached out to say that he’s been pushing out some updates and also that his lifetime license has only a few spots remaining. Time to check it out?

Introducing Image Gallery with amazing features!
A nice new addition of the Ultimate Addons for Elementor plugin. This is an image gallery with some really nice features such as Categorization (Great for building portfolios), Show lightbox; or open a custom link on click, Grid, Masonry, Carousel layout options, Instagram like filters effects, Caption & hover effects, Responsive options…

How Toolset’s Post Relationships and Repeatable Field Groups Help Build Advanced Websites
“Post relationships allow you to create connections between your custom post types. Using them means you can eliminate data duplication, meaning each element only needs to be edited once. Once you have created your post relationships you, of course, will need to add content to your custom post types which will be useful for the user. One of the easiest ways to do this is by using repeatable field groups. Repeatable field groups let you add a set of fields to a custom post type as many times as you need without having to recreate them one by one…”

BigCommerce Integrates with WordPress
“For the many sellers who use WordPress to host their websites, there’s now BigCommerce for WordPress. BigCommerce launched its first “Commerce-as-a-Service” offering – meaning sellers don’t have to host their product catalog on their own servers…”

Facet WP – Using the Layout Builder
I’m liking the things that you can do with Facet WP. It reminds me of the days that I used Drupal and the wonderful Views module. This point and click interface allows you to create some complex displays from data contained in your posts and CPTs. Nice.

AWS translate now available for WordPress
“It’s no longer strange for someone to request information from their cell phone, ask the “assistant” in their car for directions or order new products verbally, through a speaker in their home. Voice-enabled technology is here and it’s quickly becoming one of the leading ways people expect to interact with the Web. It’s also creating new ways for content to reach broader audiences…’

Wordfence – New Feature: Premium Development Subdomains
“For our premium customers using staging, development, or test subdomains for managing their site’s updates and development, we are happy to announce the ability to utilize premium licenses across subdomains for a premium installation of Wordfence…”

Non WordPress, but useful anyway…

Samsung’s Chromebook Plus now supports Linux apps
“Google began bringing Linux app support to Chrome OS almost exactly one month ago, but it only started with a single device, the very expensive Pixelbook. Now, that’s changing: Linux support is becoming available for Samsung’s Chromebook Plus as well, as spotted by users on Reddit…”

Why Microsoft wants to put data centers at the bottom of the ocean
“Earlier this week, Microsoft  announced the second phase of Project Natick, a research experiment that aims to understand the benefits and challenges of deploying large-scale data centers under water. In this second phase, the team sank a tank the size of a shipping container with numerous server racks off the coast of the Orkney islands and plans to keep it there for a few years to see if this is a viable way of deploying data centers in the future…”

Be My Eyes – Bringing Sight to Blind and Low Vision People
This is just a personal one from me. It’s a great idea. Using your sight and your phone to assist someone who has issues with their own site. Very cool and useful implementation of technology. Go get the app after you watch this YouTube video.