This Week in WordPress #314

[00:00:04] Nathan Wrigley: It's time for this week in WordPress, episode number 314 entitled flaky internet. It was recorded on Monday the 11th of November. 2024. My name's Nathan Wrigley, and today I am joined by three guests by Taco Verdonschot, Verdonschot. Verdonschot, don't quite know, but you'll find out also by Marc Benzakein and by Gen Herres.

It is a WordPress podcast, and so yes, we talk about WordPress.

We talk about the release candidate for WordPress 6.7, which is just about to drop.

We talk about the Automattic suing of the Festinger Vault website, which is one of those GPL clubs which sells nulled plugins.

The Interactivity API is on the discussion. On a podcast episode I did over on the Tavern.

WordCamp Asia and Europe will soon be able to be attended by recipients of the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship.

We also look at the new WordPress Figma design library and a few new tools.

Supablox. Something called the toolkit for block themes, which is substituted the name of Twentig, and also Fluent Community.

And we also get into a conversation about whether social media should be banned. The Australian government thinks so, for children at least.

It's all coming up next on this week in WordPress.

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Hello there, and welcome to the WP Builds. This week in WordPress, episode number 314.

I am joined by two fabulous people, but lurking in the background is, is our third one. So let's, see. Yay. Oh, there I am. He is. That's Mark. How we doing? let's, and you can hear me right? You can hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. Everything's working tickety boo. perfect. Thanks for joining us.

Appreciate it. Ticket boo. I gotta remember that one. I'm sure. I don't worry if I say that in America, people will be, look at me like. I don't belong there, but no, we wouldn't. let's go around the houses and give the introduction. So first off, over there is Tacho Verden shot. How you doing Tacho?

[00:03:42] Taco Verdonschot: all good. Good to be guys. Do I ever, get your name right? Like the tacho bit? I reckon I've probably nailed, but the, ver verdon shot, close enough. So there's the SEH combination in there, which is a very Dutch sound, and we used that back in the day when we were at war with France.

we used words with the SEH combination in it to. Make sure that you were talking to an actual Dutch person. Oh. 'cause it's so hard to get right. But I'll take all the versions. Okay. Okay. So it's Tave shoot. except that one, let me, read his bio. 'cause it's nice. It's totally perfect for this day in history.

[00:04:27] Nathan Wrigley: tacho, when he signed up for this webinar, he wasn't sure if it would be public knowledge already that after 11 plus years with the company he's leaving Yost, by now we all know it, for the next 10 days. I think you said 10, right? It is 10 days still. Yeah. tacho is still head of relations at Yost leading their community team and their support team as of December.

He'll be leaving Yost, to rejoin Marika and Yost. That's not confusing, at Emelia projects with his role. yet to be decided by the look of it. We don't exactly know yet, but it will include things like advocating for their latest plugin, which is called Progress Planner. Look at that. look quick.

Little nice. Yeah. of course he'll remain active in the WordPress community and as a regular here on the, this week in WordPress show. So Wow. If you changes that is, what's that? If you'll still have me. Oh yes. We'll just have a slightly different, no doubt, a different cardigan or, hoodie or something like that.

How are you feeling about all that? Are nervous times for you or are you totally looking forward to it? Hundred percent. yes. So saying goodbye to Yost is like saying goodbye to a limb. yeah, it's, All my career in WordPress has been at Yost. I've learned all the things I know about WordPress, everyone I know in WordPress because of Yost, so it's not an easy goodbye.

[00:05:55] Taco Verdonschot: Aw. But on the other side of the street, literally, is an amazing team waiting and I cannot wait to join them. It's literally like actually on the other side of the street, literally across the street. I can see the building from here. Okay. Yeah. Oh, wow. Oh, that's nice. You're not really going that far.

[00:06:15] Nathan Wrigley: The commute is the same. Yes. Yeah. Oh, or five minute walk. Oh, I'm sure they'll be coming over bringing you, bringing you drinks and asking for favors for a little while. But thank you for joining us and yes, I certainly hope that you, managed to come on the show after, after, you've moved over to Amelia.

That'd be lovely. Okay, let's go to number two. So number two on the show today is Jen Harris. How are you doing, Jen? Good. Very nice to have you with us Jen. Jen has been extremely kind, on this particular occasion because, we, she just dropped into the show at the last minute's notice, so I'm very, appreciative of that.

you may see from the screen, if you're looking at the screen that Jen is, associated with, and you'll find out more in a minute with Easy Ally Guide. in fact, she owns it and over there she works with developers and agencies to make web accessibility easier. The Easy Ally Guide includes tools, guides, procedures, and lots of video tutorials, which are hosted on the YouTube channel for new, for people, new to accessibility and those who want to get into the details.

Jen also owns ra, where she helps clients take the frustration out of WordPress. She works with a ride wide range, even of clients from multimillion dollar. Companies to solopreneurs maintaining their WordPress sites with care plans and generally making their WordPress journey less frustrating. We're not helping clients and speaking on accessibility, she organizes the Baltimore WordPress meetup.

And she also can usually be found with her dog husband on a dog. That was a mistake. I'm gonna say that again. Husband, dog, husband. Gosh, there's a whole meme in there. with her dog and husband. Let's just start over with my husband, comma, and my dog. On a hiking trail. There is no comma, there's just an and my brain refused to see it.

her husband and dog on a hiking trail in or in the kitchen. Baking. I want pictures of this dog husband now. Oh gosh. I'm never gonna, that's the title of today's show, without a doubt. Already. Sign soon. Come on. It was gonna be the Pie episode. Okay. 3 1, 4. Oh, darn it. Okay. Okay. Anyways, thank you, Jen for.

Hopping in and, taking that one on the chin. I do apologize. That was pretty horrific. Yes. Yeah. My, be, glad my husband is, no longer with the military and Yeah, that's right. Command over aircraft. Get a knock on the door. Gosh, I'd actually just be a little nervous going on anymore hikes with him now.

There's no way I'm gonna stop laughing for the next minute or so. I've got it really deep. And the Happy Veterans Day to everyone in the us, especially our service members. Oh, thank you. We, don't have, we don't have that in the uk. we have what's called Armed Forces Day, but as far as I'm aware, it's not a, it's not a national thing.

It's done in my town. because they, do a big parade along the coast and all of that kind of stuff, but, so we, I don't know if we have a, an equivalent. We do, of course have, armistice Day. Which is today. And I dunno if there's a connection there because of, the cessation of hostilities during World War ii.

anyway, so there we go. And finally joining us at the last moment, but joining us nonetheless is, oh no, I can't, oh, hold on. I'm gonna do them mnemonic in my head. Silently. It's Mark Zaca. Very good. Very good. and, first time ever, I, now I need to come up with a great story like Taco had on the how, why my name is hard to, I don't know, Jewish people wanted people to not recognize them or something.

[00:10:09] Marc Benzakein: I don't know, but yeah. Okay. that's a great story, taco. I, didn't know that. That is a great, story. And also I want to know how you do pronounce it. God, there was no way I was gonna get that right. Was there? Yeah. Yeah. I think we should all go round and try it, right? Tacho? Say it one more time.

[00:10:29] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Okay. I'll try first. Close, close. Jen, give it a try shot. Yeah. And Mark Smith.

That's brilliant. Lovely. I like the ventriloquist way you did that as well, without moving your lips Smith. Anyway, let's get to your bio. mark has been involved in the word with the WordPress community for over 13 years. He's currently the marketing manager at Main WP and soon will be starting his own non WordPress related podcast.

Spill The Beans. What's it about? I'm getting closer to it. it is, a podcast called X versus Z. And it is basically, a podcast where multiple generations sit around and round table discussions about current day events. Nothing's off the table, but, I feel like, there's a huge disconnect between the generations.

[00:11:34] Marc Benzakein: There always has been, especially in the, states, we have, the older people who think the younger people don't know what they're talking or people don't know what it's like to be young. And I think that if we could bridge that gap and have these conversations, we could learn a lot from each other.

using, the wisdom of us older people and learning from the younger people. 'cause they're, they have fresh ideas, they're very excited. They're. Motivated. They're, they have a lot of enthusiasm that we tend to lose as we get older. And, I, just wanna have like real conversations and, for me it's a learning experience for them.

Hopefully it's a learning experience and hopefully a lot of fun. I, I'd be, honestly, I genuinely think that's a really great idea. I'm, gonna wait and see how many episodes you can get into it before you become some sort of old curmudgeon and, and just go, no, That's not, our tagline is Get off my lawn, so maybe, Okay. You're allowed to, you're allowed to whip up the hysteria. That's perfect. Yeah. by the way, I don't, if you were watching that, you may have briefly noticed, I'm gonna say Jen's dog. I'm not gonna travel that landmine. Okay. That, was, nice. Nice to bring the, pets in. Anyway, here we are.

[00:12:55] Nathan Wrigley: We've managed to get like a whole quarter of an hour in and we've achieved nothing so far. So this is a bit of a record. Let's see some of the comments. Firstly, few bits of housekeeping. If you're watching this and you want your friends, colleagues, relations, pets involved, head to WP Builds.com/live.

It is now working over there. I can see it's working, so if you had a problem, I apologize, but share that URL WP Builds.com. Forward slash live. and if you want to make a comment over there, there's a couple of ways of doing it. You can either use the box on the right, if you're on a desktop, it's underneath if you're on mobile.

And for that you need to be logged into Google. If you are, if you don't like Google for some reason and you just wanna be anonymized, there's a little chat box in the top right of the video player, which you can access, on the website. Okay. Brady ho. Let's go to the live chat. Firstly, just a few people joining us.

So for example, Courtney's here. That's very nice. Jerome is here. Thank you. Tako ver he's also joining us in the comments. who else have we got? Patricia, who was on just last week. She's joining us. So is Max and struggling on the site to load? Yeah, so, hopefully it's working at the moment.

Marcus is also joining us as well. You are also silly today. You are right Marcus. and it's always a great start to the week. That's true. Let's maintain the silliness throughout this episode. And Tammy. Is joining us saying, Hey all, okay, let me get rid of that particular caption and let's start things off as we mean to go on.

Okay, here we go. Let's get stuck into the actual main content. First thing, bit of self-promotion. If you want to keep in touch with what we do, WP Builds.com. Put your email address into this field here on the form and click subscribe and we'll send you a couple of emails each week. Once when we finally put this episode out, what we do is we record it live on the Monday, and then I turn it into basically an audio podcast.

And that goes out on the Tuesday. So it'll come out tomorrow morning. and that, really is the endeavor, but doing it live, you wanna get the video involved as well, so that's really nice. So that's why we're here. So it'll come out tomorrow and you'll get an email notification about that.

And then we also do a podcast episode on a Thursday each and every Thursday. And yeah, you'd get an episode, a email about that as well. The other thing to say is we have a pretty barnstorming, black Friday deals page. this year so far it's been sponsored by WS form, real cookie, banner and gravity forms, as well as gravity flow.

and at the moment I'm just gonna scroll right here we go. You ready for this? Right here? We, here it comes. I'm gonna scroll, I'm gonna have to go fairly quickly 'cause if I don't go fairly quickly, we're not gonna. Yeah, okay. You get the idea. there's about 200 and I think 270 something on there at the moment, which sounds really overwhelming and it is a bit overwhelming.

So if you wanna have the Black Friday deals searchable, filterable, just scroll down a bit and click this. And then you can say, oh, I don't know. I want theme E type things. Or I want things that are themes and blocks. And you get the idea and then you can reset it all and what have you.

So the URL for that is WP Builds.com/black, and you can bookmark that for all of your, word pressy deals during the run up to Black Friday. Have you, dare I ask panelists? WordPress or otherwise, do you have your eyes on Black Friday? Is this a significant time of the year for you? Do you actually, put things in the calendar and say, I'm gonna buy that on that date?

Or does it come and go and then you have that three weeks before Christmas regret that you didn't buy a ton of things that were obviously gonna be loads cheaper? I know that's basically what happens to me. I have a lot of renewals that are coming up back Friday from previous years where I grabbed the special and now they're, renewing and I of course have my own specials, which are hopefully up on the page by now.

Yeah, they should be. If you sent me the link, everything that is in fact, let's go check it out. Let's have a quick look. So what would I type in? Let's go for ally. Easy. Yeah, let's go for easy. So if we type in easy Yeah. Or just ally, that'll work too. Just type in easy and then we'll have to scroll a little bit.

Not really. Very little scrolling. There we go. Excellent. Yeah, it's there. So you can see that Jen is gonna be offering, I can't actually see the amount there, but, you get the idea, you'll be able to go get the deal using the coupon club Black Friday. And it looks like it's live already until the 30th.

It is, yes. November. Yeah. Great. Great, Okay, so there's that page. Back to the question though. do you have anything I've got my eye on a telly, my telly's kind of dying. I think I'm gonna get a tell in terms of WordPress. I have nothing, that I'm putting in a bag anywhere.

There's nothing this year around which has peaked my interest enough to think about it ahead of time. But, tacho anything? Yeah. I've been eyeballing, a remote controlled car on Amazon for a while, so I'm gonna hold off until Black Friday to see if that does anything. Okay. but I must say that.

[00:18:03] Taco Verdonschot: Today for those watching us live today, it's singles day because it's 1, 1 1 1. and that is a huge sale in Asia, is it? yes. Alibaba and Ali Express and all of the, Asian shops have insane discounts today, so I've been eyeballing some of those already as well. So that's the thing. Every year there's, on the 11th of November, they like the Oh, okay.

And it's size wise, if you look at the sale, it's about the size of Black Friday, but then mostly in Asia. Interesting. Yeah. So you go to Yeah. Sites, which are typically from that part of the world, like Alibaba and what, okay. Yeah. Gosh. Okay. Alright. What about you, mark? I got eight kids, so everything is about Black Friday and, none of it's for me.

[00:19:06] Marc Benzakein: but that's okay. It's all, it's yeah, e even the children who have got birthdays in October, you are stocking up for 11 months from now. I, gotta tell you, I'm in massive declutter mode right now. Like speaking of things you do when you get older and the get off my lawn thing, I am like, I just, I want everything to be able to fit in a tent at this point that I own and just leave it at that.

Yeah. Is it at least a large tent? Yeah. yeah. I mean What's, what size tent? It's a 12 bedroom tent, but it's still a tent. Okay, I, I once went traveling and, I spent quite a lot of years traveling and, I had a, like a fairly hefty rocks act, but I met this Danish guy. Who had been traveling for a decade, right?

[00:19:56] Nathan Wrigley: He'd never been back home for a decade. And he had, a rock sack, honestly, like the size of my two hands. It was, the size of a shoebox, and that's what he'd been carrying for a decade or more. And I thought that was the most profound, just decluttering of life. He had enough ch basically in his bag was enough clothes to get him through the following day.

So whatever he wasn't wearing was being washed and was dangling off it. That's insane. And he didn't have any technology, he didn't have cameras, cream. Yeah, just, and it was, I don't know. I, found it quite impressive actually, that kind of lack of attachment to bits and pieces. Patricia, you'll be pleased to know, mark says that she's, hanging out for Maine, WP.

but she's got some presale questions. the main WP is already live. Yeah. Yeah. The main WP deal is already live. Thank you Patricia, for bringing that up so that I can talk about it. Yeah. It's already live. it's $50 off on the annual, subscription and that $50 recurs every single year. So technically in four years you get your first year free if you wanna do that kind of crazy accounting map kind of stuff.

Nice. Nice. there you go. That was introduced apropos of, Patricia, thank you for mentioning that. Get a nice little, thank you, Patricia. Appreciate that. Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah. And I, thanks for letting me plug. Yeah. And I forgot to say I saw Marcus's comment and I didn't make the connection tacks on it for me.

Thank you so much, TKO. congratulations, Marcus, on the new job. Marcus is leaving. I dunno if he, if that has already happened or if he is about to already happened. Yeah. Yeah. And, joining a, like a, sister company, I think you call it, don't you? Of, Yost, a blue host. Yes. yeah. Congratulations, Marcus.

Long, long may continue. I hope you, hope you're still able to come on, shows like this. That'd be really nice. Okay, so there is our Black Friday deals page, WP Builds.com/black. Let's get into some actual WordPress stuff. WordPress 6.7, release candidate three is around, typically I just mentioned this in the hope that one person hears it and goes and gives some constructive feedback, tests it, makes the effort to then, I don't know, contribute whatever they found, whether there be a problem or something.

And, and interestingly, when we, before we hit record, gem was saying she has in fact, done this on this particular release candidate. Was there any gotchas? Did you test it thinking something would be wrong, or did it all go smoothly? So I have an open source theme named Kaya that I maintain, and it's available on GitHub, and I typically do in fact, relate, sorry.

[00:22:42] Gen Herres: Wait for release candidate number three. Okay. Because rarely does anything actually go wrong. It's a classic theme, so there's not normally any breaking changes happening, but I just go through, I grab release candidate three and run through test things. Make sure nothing looks weird. And everything ran smoothly.

[00:23:03] Nathan Wrigley: So that is the normal process is wait for release candidate three, just 'cause it's kinda like the last, that is my process last in chain process. I see. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Wait, till it's, probably stable and probably bug free. Yeah. and WordPress 6.7 with all of the bits and pieces that are coming, is gonna be out very, soon.

I can't remember the date, but, oh, here we go. There. It's tomorrow. It's tomorrow. yeah. So last chance, basically if you wanna go and test it, and, if not, then hopefully this time tomorrow, if you've got things automated, they should start to, switch over to 6.7. Yes. If you, have either, older hosting some of that very inexpensive hosting, that's definitely been a gotcha.

[00:23:45] Gen Herres: In the past. Yeah. yep. I remember there was I think a curl issue. that happened with, some of the older operating systems that were Yeah, on some older hosting. and of course, plugin and theme authors. You, gotta go in and test. If you have a pretty stable system, then you have to test less, but.

If you're doing a lot of active development, a lot of changes, or especially if you're doing anything with a block editor, you really have to get in earlier on the release candidates and test. Yeah, that's true. if you do have some product in the WordPress space and you haven't tested it, you do have basically a day, in order to do that.

[00:24:26] Nathan Wrigley: And the easiest way to do it now, I think at least anyway, is with playground. if you're just testing this one thing, a plugin, which you own, then you can obviously, upload that into the, playground instance. But you can just click this button. And, and your WordPress website will appear magically in a browser.

So anyway, there's that. And then we're gonna move on to this piece, which is interesting. This came from, Ray Morrie on the repository. and it's about an organization that I've not heard of before called Festinger Pre, I presume you pronounce it like that. festing A Vault. and the title is Festing A Vault Crowdfunding Legal Battle with Automatic After Contentious Site Shutdown.

Now, I know that in the more recent past, automatic has been, the word automatic has been associated in many people's minds with the recent WP Drama. This is disconnected from that, although there are some, I guess there are some sort of similarities in some ways. and it's to say, I'm just gonna quote various bits of it.

Martin Grut, the developer behind Festinger Vault has launched a public campaign to fund his legal fight against automatic. After the company forced the temporary closure of his website and seized his assets, and if you just read that paragraph, you might. You might be thinking a totally different thing, and it might align with what's been happening over the last month.

But read on dear, listener. 'cause it gets interesting in September. First thing of all, unexpectedly sh shot down after automatic issued a cease and desist letter accusing GR of trademark infringement and GPL noncompliance launched in 2019. Festinger cells, Festinger vault cells, access to 25,000 no premium plugins and themes under the GPL license.

So you can see the twist. The story felt like it was going in one direction. And then it took a sharp left and went, elsewhere. now the idea really here is that we know how WordPress works and we know a bit about the GPL. I confess I'm no expert in the GPL, but my understanding is that if something touches WordPress, then it's under the auspices of the GPL.

And so long as you, say that your code that you may have, let's say in air quotes borrowed, unless you say where that has come from, then you are not breaking any conventions. Let me rephrase that. If you do say where you've taken it from, then you can fork that code and do things with it.

However, I guess we're in like a slightly weird gray area here where the, this person's business, is entirely selling. Premium plugins out into the marketplace. And I, don't know the exact number of plugins. it, okay. Yes, I do here, 25,000 old plugins. So it brings up this kind of moral question.

is it morally wrong to do this? Certainly, my understanding is it's legally not wrong to do that one thing, but the argument here is all around trademark infringement, which led to a sort of slightly different article posted by Matt, because Matt had to clarify something. Matt Mullenweg had to clarify something.

But, anyway, there's this ongoing dispute. this chap, Martin Gru, is trying to crowd from $10,000 to fend off this legal action. And apparently at the point of writing, he's raised, $945 so far now. What do you think three of you, all three of you have got, you've got a plugin business in some way, shape or form?

What's the deal? Is this kind of like offensive or what? Yeah, I find it very offensive, morally wrong, ethically wrong. The legal area gets a bit gray. A few of these have been taken down in the past and it's usually on a trademark violation because trademarks, even recently with the whole automatic thing, the author on very good plugins used their trademark to get their plugin removed from wordpress.com because they were having issues with that.

[00:28:40] Gen Herres: So trademark is usually where it gets taken down. Unfortunately, these GPL clubs have been A problem within the WordPress community for many years and I don't think they're totally gonna go away regardless of how this case goes. Yeah. I imagine there's more than festing a vault out there.

[00:29:03] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. I imagine there's many of them. And I guess if you are a, if you're a plugin developer, mark, I dunno if you know from the main WP and Tacho, whether, from the yo side of things, do you end up kind of getting support requests from people who believe that they've bought like a premium version from you guys?

So in other words yes. Is there a confusion with people thinking, I have bought this? Yeah. Absolute. I've paid somebody money, I need support, give me support. Yeah. Absolutely. And, what we see is because clubs like Festinger Vault and I, hate saying their name because that also gives them a stage and they really shouldn't have, and I really hope he won't be able to raise that 10 grand and just goes down.

[00:29:49] Taco Verdonschot: but, the clubs typically sell those premium plugins at a very low price, which means that their customers are, Not the kind of developers that are, building the big projects. And what we see in support is that the less people pay, the more demanding they get. Huh. And especially if they've paid a very tiny little bit because in their opinion, they're a paying customer.

they feel that they're entitled to the world and completely custom coding their website to make our plugin that they didn't buy from us, work on their projects. Gosh, wow. So yeah, these sites are a real problem, not just because they're, costing us, taking away those, potential customers, but also because they're adding a load to our support team.

[00:30:56] Nathan Wrigley: do you know, mark, we can come to you in a minute if you've got something to add to that. Do you, know, tacho, is it legally allowed what they're doing? Because my understanding and it is honestly the most rudimentary understanding, my understanding is that if they were to just offer the code, they can do that and they can pay for it.

But it's, it is, as you say, it's all the wraparound things like the, the trademark things and the, fact that they're obviously not gonna be able to offer support for it and things like that, which make it morally wrong, but legally, are they, allowed to do it? Do you know? if they're violating a trademark, then obviously they're not.

Yeah. and I'm not enough of a legal expert to know what the boundary is exactly, of what's legal and what isn't. And I hope that we're gonna find out in court, with automatic confessing or fault. Yeah. mark, anything to add? I dunno if Main WP have to deal with this ever, or, I, suspect we're in a, slightly different boat, than what taco's talking about, only because pretty much everything that main WP does, our, core product is free and like Taco says, most of these people, our people are not gonna work on big projects and things like that.

[00:32:15] Marc Benzakein: And so the premium extensions that you would get with the Pro package, they may not be even interested in. So we don't really get, I don't think a lot of support, but I don't deal with support, so I can't speak to that. I can tell you it's server press. We did have a few every now and then. That would pull something like that.

And what was interesting is, I would just contact the companies that were pushing our product and say, Hey, stop. I wouldn't even go through legal channels. And they would pull it off. they would just do it. So I don't know if it's just gotten worse since two or three years ago, but, but I agree with what everyone else says.

It's morally and ethically. Questionable at the very least. And it's interesting to me. 'cause when you get to the level of 25,000 plugins, no, nobody can be doing that work with a mouse and a keyboard. There's, it is, you've gotta have written some script to go out there and do all of this thing and, present the pages and the whatever license key or download options you've got on that site.

[00:33:21] Nathan Wrigley: pre presumably at some point somebody's, I don't know, either buying a license and then that just gets shared around. So the, I, don't even know how that works, but, we'll find out. it's supposed to go, interestingly, this is done in Rotterdam. the court decided to lift the freeze on Groks bank accounts, which maybe was a bit of a setback to automatic, and the case will return to the Rotterdam District Court on the 27th of November.

So in just a few days time for a decision on whether to lift the, the Festing of Vault website, ban, it does seem that there was a fair degree of success on the automatic side because, this person, again, I've forgotten their name, Martin Grt did have their, their life upended by the legal decision in that their, assets were, frozen and their bank accounts frozen and all that kind of stuff.

So anyway, they presumably know what they're getting into. And the idea though, they definitely wanna win it and they hope to come back 'cause they're crowdfunding. this, court, yeah. Appeal. Yeah. What's really interesting here is that for the longest time, this person remained anonymous. So it was on the website, you couldn't find who was behind Festinger fault, and now that automatic is taking legal action and he's, been affected, he's publicly crying about how tough his life is and, that, they just can't take away his vehicle because of, health conditions, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:34:59] Taco Verdonschot: yeah. Yeah. I'd probably be doing the same in his position. but it is a little bit pathetic. It's certainly an interesting story and not one that like, I think everybody knows that this part of the ecosystem goes on, whether or not it's legal, it is, yeah. Everybody has to realize that if somebody's job is to create a plugin and they're monetizing that, that is what is putting the food on their table.

[00:35:30] Nathan Wrigley: For the people important in their lives. And then to just piggyback off the back of that code, and offer it, wrap it up in a sort of credible website. It does seem a little bit difficult whether, or not it's legal. We'll find out, but this, lawsuit is all about trademark, and various other things.

So it isn't actually about the, the infringement of the no code. I don't, my understanding is that whole GPL code thing has never been actually sent through the court. So one day maybe that'll actually happen, and we'll see how that goes. We appear to have lost mark. I don't know if he's gonna come back.

Maybe his internet connection has gone, but if he does come back, must have been a rage quit. Yeah, that's right. He, I'm furious with this. oh. And on that bombshell. There he is. He's back. you dropped off for a minute there, mark. I don't know what happened. I don't know what's going on today. Nevermind.

if you do drop out, refresh the browser and I'll just drop you back in as soon as you can. Yeah. Okay. So that story, is available on the, repository, website. Just a couple of things to add to that. So first thing, apropos of the previous thing, Marcus is saying thank you, to everybody.

Yeah. Still happy to come on the show. That's lovely. Nick Wilmot is saying, hi. Hello Nick. Nice to have you with us. And then Tammy, I'm guessing he's talking about Festinger. Many of us wish that we'd never heard of them. they also had mailing lists without asking people to be on the, okay. So now we're definitely stepping into sort of shady territory, aren't we?

And, in that case, specifically in the European Union, at least totally illegal. and Michelle Ette from Stellar WP, who's often on the show, says they undersell your products for a pittance and buyers expect to be able to get support. but they didn't buy support. Yeah. And of course, in the WordPress base, that basically is what you're buying, isn't it?

The updates and the support. and then little bit else to carry on. Usually they buy a license, get a refund once they have your code. Oh, I see. That's how they go about acquiring it. They get the code, buy a license, invoke the 14 day money back guarantee, or whatever it may be that you've generously offered on your site.

Okay. Okay. And then Dennis, which, Dennis Dornan, who is from, is he the founder? I think he's the founder. he's the founder. Yeah. So he would know for sure. So yeah. Take, what he said over what I said. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Dennis Stone and from main WP the founder, said, we stopped chasing GPL clubs at main WP a long time ago.

And the few times we did do something in support, we use it as a chance to educate the user and sell them directly. Interesting. turning a bad thing. Good. Interesting. Okie dokie. Okay. I, recognize that though, that we always try to tell people what happened and where, how they ended up in this situation, and try to help them out of it.

Yeah. Because a legit. I can totally imagine a scenario where everything you've done as the purchaser of the no plugin. Is totally legit. You have no conception that you've bought a, rogue copy. and you just presume that because you've paid money for it, it must be, 'cause you can't walk into a high street shop and, buy something and it not be something that you bought.

you can Oh, can you? Okay. Because there's, how many people who are selling, counterfeit handbags. Oh, I see what you mean, yeah. Watches. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's, but no, you can't go take your, counterfeit Rolex and go to Rolex. They're not gonna repair it for you. no. That's right.

Oh yeah. Can I get a refund, please? Exactly. Yeah. Or a replacement would be better. Can I have the, that'd be great. okay, so that was that story. check it out on the repository. And I just wanna mention, we're not gonna get into this, but I just want to mention that I did a podcast episode about the interactivity.

API, if you're a developer and you want the skinny. On the, new hotly baked interactivity. API, this is an API in WordPress, which is will in the future be a single point of contact for developers aiming to alter something on a website by doing something else. So for example, oh, I dunno. You, click abin, add to cart button on the cart number goes up by one or what have you.

Something like that will all be handled by the interactivity API. And in the past, developers have rolled their own, which is fine, and in many cases we've seen it working all over the place. But the idea of having this one, API, which anybody can use to put anything interactive on the, on your WordPress website is cool.

So go and listen to Damon and Seth talking about that. Don't suppose anybody's got anything they wanna add about that. I doubt it if you do speak up. If not, I'll just press on. Okay, thought so. this is nice. This is nice and exciting. WordPress events, word Camp Asia and Word Camp Europe have been added to the Kim Parel Memorial Scholarship Program.

Now, it used to be that only attendees of Word Camp US could apply for a, a scholarship, let's call it that. and the scholarship is particularly, there's some very specific constraints around it. And in the past it was attending Word Camp us, and was for women. It says on the site here, the scholarship, assist women facing financial challenges attending these flagship word WordPress events.

So now if you are attending Word Camp Europe, as well as Word Camp Asia, you'll now be able to, apply for this. I'm presuming that there's now three scholarships. Instead of one, which is gonna go across all three events. But I could be wrong about that. I didn't actually read that. but anyway, nice, piece of news.

Anybody wanna add anything to that? I Ms. Kim. She was awesome. Yeah. I confess, I didn't know Kim. sadly. But this is a memorial scholarship as in dedication, in memoriam of, so I think, it's great. It's the work. Yeah. So I'm, curious because, you can also see to qualify, applicants must have never attended Work Camp Asia or Wamp Europe before.

[00:41:53] Taco Verdonschot: I'm curious if it goes for all three. So if you've ever attended us, Asia, or Europe, that you no longer qualify. Oh, I see. As opposed to if you've attended one of them. So in other words, if you've been to Word Camp Asia, you cannot qualify for Word Camp Asia. And if you think well, or yeah, or if you've attended any of them.

[00:42:14] Nathan Wrigley: All three. Yeah. I don't know. But, it's awesome that they, do this for also Asia and Europe. I'm not sure who's funding it. Yeah, that was the bit that I didn't quite follow as well. Might be automatic maybe. I didn't, automatic fund. It says the WordPress Foundation. Okay. Okay. Fair? Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. I missed that bit as well. So the qualifications, requirements are, identify as a woman actively contribute to the WordPress project. I don't know on what level that means, but, read into it what you will. and as Tacho said, had never, has never attended a word Camp Asia or Word Camp Europe before.

And the word or in there is a bit tricky, isn't it? Maybe. And or something like that. and require financial assistant to help attend either of those two events. You've got a little bit of time to think about it. If you meet those criteria and you are thinking of attending, you've got until the 30th of November.

I should have said that. This, is on the WP Tavern website, so if you go wp tavern.com. Just search for this. It was published on the 5th of November, so you can check it out there. But anyway, nice, kind of addition and it seems to make sense. We've got these three flagship events and having equality over them, in terms of that funding option is really nice.

tacho brought this to my attention. It was you, wasn't it, tacho? Yes. Yeah. Just, before we hit record, you can lead it if you want. Tell us what's going on. WAMP Asia is the next upcoming flagship event, but Wamp Europe is already planning ahead for June next year. and they've launched their call for sponsors this week.

[00:44:03] Taco Verdonschot: if you want to, sponsor work in Europe, they use a first come first serve, solution. There's only, I think, four spots for the top tier sponsorship, which comes in at, 90,000 euro. Then there's 12 spots that, at second tier, which is 45,000. And after that, I have not studied it enough to remember exactly what the numbers are.

but what's really nice is that they have both a small business and a small business plus sponsorship. So if you scroll down a little bit further, okay. for those watching today. There's the packages. because in the last couple of years we saw that there was a huge demand for the small sponsorships.

yeah. That's smaller than editor. Even smaller than author. Keep going. Yep. Going all business. There we are. So business plus is, slightly bigger, but still doable for a starting business or a smaller business. but it's a little step up from the next plan, which is the regular small business, which comes in at 25, 27 50.

yeah, that's, that's an interesting, that is a really interesting development. I'm glad you brought my attention to that. So this small business plus option, which is five and a half thousand euros, they've got eight of those packages available. And it's interesting because it says that you get a six square meter and it calls it a booth.

[00:45:49] Nathan Wrigley: Now normally the, you would maybe call it a stand normally, wouldn't you? You get, something that you can stand next to, but it's not really, something that you can stand inside of. It might be a desk with some, I don't know, screen behind you or something. And that feels, it's a little bit more like the small business, which is 2,750 euros, because that one just said, a point of presence four meters.

So for this one, you get a six square meter booth, which obviously for one or two people is actually. That's actually doable, isn't it? You could yeah. Get quite a bit in there. Yeah. So that, is interesting. Small business, plus, but the very limited number of seats, so the small business plus as there's 31 of those, I dunno if that's left.

There's eight of the small business plus ones. And then we go up author 13,000 and as Tacho mentioned, editor, 25 grand administrator, 45 and super admin, $90,000. I am interested to know what the interest will be given everything that's been happening in the WordPress space, and I don't wanna go into that, but I am interested in, I am interested whether or not the events are gonna be as well attended from an attendee point of view, but also I'm, interested to see whether there's the same sort of clamor for the sponsorship things or whether some of the companies that were definitely, shoe ins for being at those events, whether or not they're putting the brakes on and thinking let's just see.

How this goes. Only time will tell. I dunno if any of you three wanna mention it. I have, as things are looking now, we won't see WP Engine as a top tier sponsor. So that's one slot that's available now. Yep, And what about you like Tako? do you know if you can speak to that then and you are willing, that's fine, but if not, don't worry.

[00:47:44] Taco Verdonschot: Yeah. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share that, but what are they gonna do? Fire me. but they might pursue your non-disclosure. Yeah, Yos will be an, an admin if work in Europe will have us, of course, we'll be an admin level sponsor. Okay. So in, in the case of Yost, it hasn't affected anything. So that's an interesting data point. Yeah. Jen, do you, before we been. Yes. So I'm a moderator in the dynamic WordPress group, and so I've been chatting with some product owners, people who would fall under the, like the small business or the small business plus that kind of level.

[00:48:26] Gen Herres: And several of them are now completely on the fence about if they're even going, like they had, if when I talked to them, in, in August, they, were planning, they, weren't sure maybe which sponsorship level they were gonna go for, but they were definitely planning, to go, planning to sponsor.

And now they're like, we're not even sure if we're going. Okay. So not just like pulling out of the sponsorship, but just the mere attendance of Yeah. I, gotta say I, I'm. Nervous is the wrong word, but first of all, I dunno if I'm gonna attend any of those flagship events next year. If I do, that would be lovely.

[00:49:09] Nathan Wrigley: But if I did attend, I would be, I'd be really interested to, to read the room a little bit and see who is there, who typically does go, who didn't go. and whether or not there's anything in that, whether the, they can sell the number of tickets that they typically do or not. We'll just have to wait and see.

And, I think Jen, yeah, I'm sure there's that. I've heard similar stories. Yeah. Yeah. There's, I'm, I've also talked to a couple of Meetup organizer, meetup organizers and also Word Camp organizers of the smaller word camps. They're already putting the breaks on 25. They're like, Nope, we're not doing it.

[00:49:46] Gen Herres: and quite a few meetups are. Significantly scaling back. They're like, we had plans. We're just gonna pull those plans back. Yeah. go into a holding pattern. Okay. Yeah. So I, and I don't think you can speak for each and every one of those, oh. No, no people, but, people I've spoken with, I, yeah, I'd, be interested in why people hold back because, yes, there's a legal dispute Yes.

[00:50:17] Taco Verdonschot: Lot there. No, that's not it. There's a lot of stuff going on in our community, but if we all drop out, if we stop contributing, if we stop going to our events, who's gonna win Close source software? The Wix is gonna win. Square Safe Space is gonna take our place. And I think that as a community, I.

We've all been advocates for open source for such a very long time. That, to lose all of that over things that may look completely different by June next year, I can only ask people to reconsider and to continue building WordPress. Let's continue releasing, the software that we all work with, that's, how we win open source.

[00:51:10] Gen Herres: But that's the concern that people have. It's not the lawsuit. They're not concerned about the, lawsuit is lawyers fighting over trademark issues. They're not actually concerned about that. What they're concerned about is who owns wordpress.org, who owns and controls the distribution channel, and they are concerned about are they going to have continued.

Guaranteed use of this distribution channel. This distribution channel is really what matters to them. And they want this distribution channel to be something that they can truly trust. Yeah. And that's, I get that, but that's the concern. At the same time as we, when we all stop contributing, there's nothing to distribute.

[00:52:02] Marc Benzakein: Yeah. But I think that there's a very practical consideration here, which is these companies, they're small businesses, they could be 10 or less employees, I don't know, but they have to come up with their plan B also. So they have to put their time, resources into what happens if everything blows up here and and, I've got these.

X number of employees that I have to take care of plus put food on my table. I need a plan B. Is that plan B going to be, we have to retool for DUIs or we have to, of all things, but that's, it's not just the money resource or, the, uncertainty of where WordPress is going as a community.

It is also that very practical reality of the amount of time that it takes to put into having that plan B and plan C and redirecting their focus. So it's, I agree that unfortunately, closed source can win. In this situation, but people have their own very practical realities of putting food on their table.

They don't have billions of dollars sitting in a bank account to, to support themselves. They're living paycheck to paycheck. So I, and, I fully get that. It's more than that. Appreciate it. it's just that I would hate to see, it become a self-fulfilling prophecy where people say WordPress is going down, so I'm walking away.

[00:53:31] Taco Verdonschot: and that being the cause of WordPress going down. Oh, speaking of going down Mark's, incident at that exact moment seems to have gone down. no, he's back. He's back in the room. He's back in the room. that might be the signal to move on then. Yeah, actually just again about Word Camp Europe and, not connected to that particular issue, the.

[00:53:54] Nathan Wrigley: One thing, which I think was always gonna be interesting, even when they just, when we were all in Torino, if you went and they announced it's gonna be in, Switzerland, I remember even at that moment thinking, gosh, my impression of Switzerland is it's very, it's an expensive place to just go anyway.

So I wonder if, I wonder if even that will have a sort of compounding effect, if because it's, it can be quite an expensive destination, certainly for somebody from the uk. It's, I always, think it's quite an expensive place. So that compounded with all the other bits and pieces, but there we go.

the point being that the, call for sponsors is now open, and if any of those seem attractive to you, especially that new one, maybe that's fits in a little sweet spot. That's interesting. okay, let's just click over here. Okay, so this is for the designers out there. I confess, I'm not a designer, so this really doesn't affect me in any way, but I, there's been quite a bit of excitement about this.

So I'm gonna link to, I'm gonna show two things. The first one is, James Costa on Make WordPress, and the article was the 7th of November and it's called Announcing the new WordPress designed system, Figma Library. and it says. Then I quote today, I'm excited to announce the launch of the new WordPress design system library for Figma.

The intention of this resource is to streamline the design process for folks working in the WordPress ecosystem. And it just a few bullet points. It's supposed to streamline your workflow with a vast array of components, styles and components, match the code base as closely as possible, and so on. And then if you follow it, actually the link to it is buried here.

it's not immediately obvious, but there it is halfway down. Then you end up on figma.com, at the WordPress design system. And I know that all the cool kids seem to be using Figma these days. And so another tool like this, if you're working in the WordPress space and you wanna, mock some things up in Figma in a way that looks word pressy, let's just call it that, then, then this is quite cool not being a designer.

It, didn't capture my attention, but I saw a few people who I would consider to be designers who seem to be going absolutely knots about this. maybe it is truly important for those people. oh yeah. If you're a block builder, this would be. very helpful. Nice, nice, let us dwell on that just for a moment longer if Tacho or Mark wanted to add anything.

I dunno if you did. If not, I'll just move to the comments quickly. I, know that the UX team at Yost is using Figma as well, but that's all I know about it. Yeah, I think it's become like the default, hasn't it? It's a bit like it is shop was back in the day. and the collaborative nature of it all and the fact that you can see what everybody else is doing in real time, like Google Docs, but for, design.

And it's just so seamless in the, I've just, I've played with it a couple of times, but nothing particularly, difficult. Let's move on. Nick is saying, so just back to the previous article, sorry Mark, I've just completely chopped your head off. the recent issues brought the weak governance of the project structure into sharp focus.

That's the issue for me. Couldn't care less about the trademark dispute. Andrew Palmer says Tacho makes a good point, but people are concerned as to what they're contributing. Two and tacos responded. I get that. I just want to be overly optimistic to count, to balance some of the, often the overly pessimistic voices.

Also really want to go to Basel to meet my word. Yeah, there you go. To meet my WordPress friends. That only happens if we're able to fund Word Camp Europe properly. okay. Let us move on. So a couple of new interesting tools. I thought we'd seen the end of new whizzbang page builder kind of things.

[00:57:44] Gen Herres: never. No. No. Is that never, happening. Okay. Alright. I, assumed we had, and everybody was going in some sort of variant of, blocks or, no, I get that. Or that the tools that were out there already were saturating the marketplace. So it was crowded already.

[00:57:59] Nathan Wrigley: No, but no, apparently not. here we go. So here's a couple for your dilatation. The first one is called Super Block. it says here, get early access. So this I doesn't appear to have been built. It's Super blocks.com, S-U-P-A-B-L-O-X, dot com. And it says, bring super blocks. Brings you speed, control, and unified building experience to WordPress core.

Now when I look at it. I just think, is that not editor, it's a block editing. Is it just a block editor? So if that's the case, are we not just dealing with blocks? And then if you, go a little bit further down, there's a, read the announcement, little link here, buried right at the bottom.

And you get here and they give, us their credentials. They are the, the people who founded the flat sum theme and UX Builder heard of Flato. I've not heard of UX Builder. and it says, our vision for Superbox is to make building WordPress websites using blocks as enjoyable as possible. sorry.

And powerful as building with modern tools like framer and web flow. So at, this point, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm presuming it's using the, the built-in full site editor, in which case I don't quite understand what their UVP is, if it's just the, block editor. Anyway, there you go. There's one tool, it's called Super Blocks.

It looks like they're building on top of the block editor though, right? To make some things easier and, more useful. Yeah. In which case it's hard to market that message, especially for somebody with the attention span of a gnat like I have. Trying to differentiate yourself is gonna be really hard to cop through.

and then the other one was this one, and this is called 20. And it says the easiest way to create stunning WordPress websites. and this, I, again, I'm not entirely sure, but it, it's making the position that it's using like block based themes and what have you. it's got a plugin, but again, it looks like it's using the, block editor and it mentions patterns and things like that, so I don't really know.

but here they go. It looks like it's a block enhancement tool. Yeah. Like it adds more features and options to the blocks. Yeah. And there's several of those out there. On that point, Mark's had enough, again, the mere mention of the, the full site editing has got him all under the collar, and he's gone bless him and his internet.

It's really not working out for him. Anyway, there you go. A couple of new tools. So you can Google these no doubt. super blocks.com and he's back. Your internet is really misbehaving, today. I think I'm gonna go back to bed after that. Let's just skip today. Mark. Yeah, just skip today. I think so. Go back to bed and come up on Tuesday.

Smiling. Yeah, that's probably the best way to do it. So super blocks and 20, go and check 'em out at your dilatation. I haven't, really had a time to play with them. However, something that I have had a, fairly decent look at which, tacho wanted to mention because, it's been popping up all over on socials.

Is this one personalized? WP with a Z or a Z in it. tell us about this taco. Do you know anything about it or is it just that you'd seen it here, there and everywhere? I know that they went through a rebranding to get two personalized wp and I think they were last year at work in Europe. one of the, or was it the year before even?

[01:01:28] Taco Verdonschot: I can't remember. it was, yeah, it was Athens. Yeah. Yeah, Athens. They, did the Shark Tank with Emelia Capital, and won an investment, from them. but other than that, I haven't really tried the product yet. but it, seems to be popping up everywhere, yeah, a lot of sites on social, so they're doing something right, at least to get the attention.

and so I was wondering if you'd seen this before and played with it, because I know that Paul pretty well. Yeah, I, have actually, in fact, Paul and I have spent a few, we did like a webinar series, not necessarily around this product, but I have had a play with it and it's really nice, having everything tucked away inside the block editor.

[01:02:24] Nathan Wrigley: I should add that it's, the kind of plugin that, it's like a, an if this, then that kind of thing, whereby if this condition is met, do this thing. So it might be, oh, I don't know, hide this block unless you are in. Australia, in which case show this block. Or it might be, if it's 10 days before the 25th of December, pull this block but replace it with this one.

That kind of thing. So it enables you to, pull certain user conditions like, I dunno, it might be which browser you're using or something like that. And then do something with that information. And, you're right, it is very, savvy job on the PR lately. And I dunno if they've invested a lot of time and money into investing to, to get it be known.

But a bit like you, tacho, I've seen some people who I would describe as influencers in air quotes. not that they've got a YouTube channel, just people who have that level of like kudos and importance in the WordPress community. Quite a few of them, apropos of nothing, they, just piped up and said, oh, I've just tried this thing and it's really cool.

so it's definitely worth looking out. It's by, the guys over at Filter. I dunno if it's built by the company itself, but, Paul Halfpenny, who is one of the people behind it, works with an agency in the UK called Filter. And, they're, in, in, and so if you, if you wanna personalize your website, this is, this is definitely a credible way of doing it.

All done inside the, block editor. I think there's a free version. Yeah, it says here Download for free, but there's definitely, a paid version as well. And, yeah, you can go and check it out if you want. Anything you wanna add to that, Jen or Mark? they could improve the accessibility on their website.

Oh, you don't like, what Is it the colors you're not fond of? Is that what, a keyword users can't even download it because the mo the, it opens a modal window and it doesn't grab any focus and it doesn't support, focus states and. Oh, there's a few issues I can, I, can connect you with Paul, half Benny, and Yeah, go ahead.

[01:04:33] Gen Herres: Send, us a note and, yeah, 'cause that's, definitely, the reality is people, have, people aren't perfect and we need to build websites for imperfect people because. As, Taco has discovered, you can become injured very quickly with no prior planning. Yeah. Oh, are we really going here?

[01:04:55] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Taco is apparently quite good at falling in a hole. we've You've all done it. We've all been there. let's, move on though. Not talk about medical stuff. Let, but this one, I've not put this in the show notes, but it just occurred to me this was a really, like a perfectly similar story to the last one.

Personalized, WP doing a great job with kind of, it felt like gorilla marketing. I dunno if you've come across this one. I know Jen has, dunno if you've come across this one. I did the accessibility work. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Yeah. So this, this is, Calvin Elkin. So the, company is called Sneak O and in the past they've had this product called Fortress, which they sell to primarily hosting companies, to, to harden their security posture on their hosting environments.

But he was, so this is such an interesting story, right? Couple of months ago, he decided to rebuild the Fortress website, and, he's not, he's not the, he doesn't play much with WordPress on the inside. he, knows code and he's a developer, but he doesn't build websites. And he got so, so frustrated with clicking around in WordPress that he decided, why isn't it more like my IDE?

He uses PHP storm and they've got this command palette where you click command K and this modal pops up, which is basically a text box. And it's kinda what do you wanna do? So you start typing and and you tell it, I don't know, I, wanna do this particular thing, or I wanna, build something around this function and it prefills it all for you.

So he thought, what, could I do in, WordPress that's the same. And he within a few hours? Yes. A few hours, two hours. And he had an m BP built couple hours. He had a, mockup of it, which did a whole basic ton of stuff. And then he saw what was happening in the WordPress community and he thought, okay, maybe things are gonna slow down on the fortress side.

Why don't I just devote a bit of time? So he did. And this has gone nuts, like really nuts. It's been absolutely everywhere. And so it's a bit like spotlight on your Mac or Ray cast. Or something like that. And I've had a play within, I reckon five minutes. You're gonna throw the mouse in the bin on your WordPress site because it doesn't, not quite.

[01:07:09] Gen Herres: There's still a lot of things to do with the mouse. No, I'm joking. Yeah, I'm joking. But the, point being that literally everything you wanna achieve, you can do with a, simple, you just start typing and you don't have to fulfill the word. And he said to me, there was a good example and he, Calvin, I did a podcast episode with him and he said to me, okay, imagine some w be weird thing inside of the settings menu that you, I dunno, you're in a post, you wanna get to it.

[01:07:35] Nathan Wrigley: 'cause you suddenly realize you want to change a particular thing. You've gotta click out of the editor, you've gotta click into settings, you've gotta find the sub section of the settings, make the amendment and click save. And then, but with his product, you just start typing the thing. So it might be, I don't know, permalinks, you just type PER and by the time you've got to m it's there and you hit return and it takes you right to it.

It's really cool. and I imagine from an accessibility point of view, 'cause you're using text, it's pretty good. But Jen, you did a bit of work. you produced a YouTube video, but also went inside the product to help them, right? Yes. So the, initial command palette part of it was if you've ever tried the actual built-in WordPress palette that's there, it only works when you're in the block editor.

Yeah. Which, quite frankly, a lot of us are not using block themes. Even if we are using block themes, there's still times when you're not in the block editor, so you still can't access it. It is terrible on accessibility. it just, the, screen reader is, it does not handle focus. It does not manage things as a dialogue should.

[01:08:50] Gen Herres: There's a lot of problems with it and. There's another, tool out there, turbo admin, which for some people is also a, great tool. That one's a browser extension and they also have a lot of issues with the focus management, refreshing, completely losing access to the box. And then, Calvin basically had the one month crash course with me on accessibility and, get, we got into a lot of the weeds, a lot of the details.

even, making sure that on his website where once you create an account you can actually, copy the license key, even if you're using just the keyboard or just a screen reader, it's still easy to do. it's at command ui.com. Look, there's, Yoast. he says it's quite good, which is, he's, been about a bit that, that chat, amongst other people.

[01:09:56] Nathan Wrigley: Honestly, definitely worth watching the videos. It's profound and if you, have that frustration of clicking out of things to find the menu and it's buried. And the neat thing is it doesn't need to do any weird crawling or anything like that. if, there's a setting somewhere inside your WordPress, it will know about it immediately.

So if you install a new plugin and it's got 150 settings. It will immediately know about all 150 of them. And then you can start typing and change them. And, obviously you can do things like add a post, add a custom post type, create a post, delete a post, whatever, you can interact with whatever it is on your WordPress website.

And, yeah, it's really good. so command ui.com is where to go. And I should say thanks to the, the hat tip from the people inside the, comments there is, a different product, which takes a, very similar approach. Mark's having a real fun time now he's, all of his lights have gone off. It's just what the heck?

mark, sorry. Not Mark. Ross Winkle from the UK built a very similar product called, and I want to say Turbo Admin. Yeah, turbo Admin. Yeah. Yeah, the difference being, it's not a plugin. It's a browser extension. And the unique thing about that is if you've got the browser extension in, let's say Chrome, you don't need to be in a WordPress website with the plugin installed.

You just go into the WordPress website and it becomes available because it knows that it's a WordPress website. And so it's a, different take on things. And, and yeah. So Andrew Palmer, thank you, is also a WordPress plugin Turbo Admin? yeah, it's, a Chrome version. Oh, has it got a plugin as well?

Okay. I didn't realize that it, yeah, it, has a plugin and it also has a Chrome extension. The Chrome extension's a lot more popular since you can grab it across all of your websites. Yeah. One of the limitations on the Chrome extension is it can't get into all of the API accesses that a plugin can reach.

Got it. Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it, So the downside, Nathan for Command UI is that you don't seem to be able to buy it. Oh, is it, has he gone through his, his allotment? Has he sold out? There's, a another claim now. Claim now, but if you click that you end up in Nope, nope, it's been Friday.

[01:12:17] Taco Verdonschot: Oh, okay. So this is a product of, oh, it's back on Saturday. Yeah. So we will go bug Calvin about that. Yeah, I know which Saturday. But one of the things I'm saying, which one, he, he launched this product with no expectation of it being, a big success and he actually, I think the words he said to me was, I thought maybe at the outside I'd be able to pay a couple of months rent.

[01:12:43] Nathan Wrigley: and I think he's done considerably more than that. Let's put it that way. He, can now pay a couple years rent. Yes. Yeah. More like that. Yeah. So it's been a, real, one of those perfect storms of, he created a product. he went into a few of the Facebooks groups and said, I've got this thing. What do you think?

Here's a video. And everybody went, yeah, right now I want that now. And so then he built it out and he is obviously got this sort of special pricing going on, which at the moment he looks to have sold out of, and then I presume it's gonna, normal service will resume at some point. Maybe he's on a trip to The Bahamas or something, just enjoying, it's a supply chain issue, I think.

Yeah, that's right. There's not enough bits Yeah. Outta stock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not enough, plugins. He sends you the license key on paper. it's really great. Both of them. Totally credible. Go and check 'em both out. Turbo admin. Yeah, definitely depending on, your use case. Yeah, but just a lovely story of success, in the WordPress community and it's nice at the moment to have, a bit of success.

So speaking of products as we are. Here's another one. from the guys at Fluent, they're actually managed WP Ninja, but they, everything seems to have fluent attached to it. So they've got fluent boards, fluent forms, fluent, SMTP and more. There's more, at least a dozen others. Yeah. Yeah. And, a really credible company re releasing, I think, really credible products.

And so they've got this new one, which they've put into the market space. it's called Fluent Community, honestly, beyond its name. I, don't really know much about it. I haven't taken it for a spin. I don't even know if it's ready to, 'cause it says get early access. I dunno if that means you can buy it or if you're beta testing at the moment.

But the, it very much looks like Facebook groups, but done on your own hardware. So think something like BB Press or something, it's similar to Buddy Press. yeah. Think something like that. But significantly less bloat than something like Buddy Boss, which can be just. A nightmare to deal with. I find, I find, it's a, an interesting thing.

I think the promise of building a community is so alluring, but I think the reality of it, just because you bought the plugin, people will not necessarily come. But having, yeah. Having things away from those platforms, the Facebook groups and the LinkedIn groups, that has some appeal to me.

Having it inside of your own, work. it's especially good for people who want more privacy. One of the, works groups that I work with is a, sobriety group, and so they Oh yeah. They really want separate and private and not tied to anyone's socials and all of that. Yeah. So it seems to have all of the different bits and pieces that you would want, maybe, be good for, I don't know, some sort of intranet type thing for your business or something.

Anyway, it's there. Go and check it out. It's, fluent community dot. Co. and I'm sure if it's like any of the other products they've released, it'll be, it'll be well worth a look. yeah. Oh, sorry. We're not helping, fomo. sorry, Andrew. okay. Right now then, does anybody have any WordPress stuff still or can we move on and do non-word pressy stuff for a minute?

Yeah. Should we move on? Okay. That's the end of the WordPress stuff. So here we go. Tacho, is best aligned to talk about this. This feels like it could be one of the most disruptive things. I don't know. obviously, chat, GPT came around, everybody dropped everything that they were doing and went and played with that for a month or two, didn't they?

And, and so now they're getting themselves firmly into the search engine market. it's called chat, GPT search, believe it or not. And at the minute it would appear that you have to pay to access it. It says plus, and team users can try it. Now, I haven't played with it, but my assumption is that this will be an out and out success.

I, have no reason other than just. The fact that I assume it will be, 'cause everybody, you say chat GPT and everybody goes nuts. Something on that website isn't loading, so I'm just gonna reload it and we'll be able to see the video. So it's a chat interface, what do you expect you go through this sort of chat process, so you're asking it questions, it feels like more than just wanting a website in return, and then it gives you the answers with the, what you'd expect.

Really, the thing is I don't really understand is how is this different from what we've got at the moment? Is it just that it's got a website? what's the difference? It's a live internet search. Okay. A lot of the chat GPT is from the archived internet that it already indexed. Got it. So this is actually getting the live internet.

So if you ask it a question about, I don't know, flights to, Switzerland, it will be able to give you real time information. Whereas the chat GPT was plumbing, was it 2021 or something like that prior to that. it was before, I don't remember the exact year. Yeah. But it, was definitely old and it was stale and it hallucinated because of that very constraint, didn't it?

Okay. So this is live, my supposition is that this is potentially Google's worst nightmare. I don't think anything's come along that potentially could have toppled Google. and maybe it will be the case that this doesn't, and Google's, will roll Gemini ops successfully into its own offering.

But I don't know. I, feel this has got the capacity to do, the work of Google, but also get like public, buy-in and people using it. I don't know. Would you use this, any of you three? I, would probably, yes. and I'm wondering, doesn't, doesn't Google now return Gemini answers sometimes when you put.

Yeah, I'm gonna go to Google now. I use Duck Do Go and I have done for quite a few years. Yeah. I, use Duck, Go too, which is why I'm asking is, I actually returns. Yeah. So I use Brave and it gives me AI answers for everything. Okay. oh, brave can be annoying when it comes to that. Some of them are actually really good.

[01:18:55] Marc Benzakein: Yeah, I am. Don't ask it to give you recipes though. It's abs the, ais do not ask them to bake. Baking is both an art and a science and it has given some absolutely ridiculous ratios. Like that episode of Friends Lasagna with one to one. no. Or Joyful with Be. One to one water to flour ratio for baking bread.

[01:19:22] Gen Herres: And I'm like, that's how you make paste. That's how you make wet bread.

[01:19:29] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. So I've just gone to Google, google.co.uk and they seem to be certainly, so I'm logged into Google, it knows who I am. it's given me the normal interface, but underneath it is occupying that prime real estate. Underneath the search bar is Tri Gini. And so I hit that and it completely upends the UI that it's nothing like the Google.

So the, chat is so that the, box, if you like, that I'm editing is at the bottom. And, yeah, I'm off to the races. So there's no doubt that Google are gonna be in this race to compete. I don't know, maybe open AI and chat. GPT won't be able to compete because Google's just, miles out in the lead at the moment.

And obviously everything will be baked into Android, I would imagine as well. Who knows. Yeah. that's the, thing. Yeah. But Apple. Apple, yeah. Sorry. Let's let T have a go. Yeah. Even if they, managed to get 10% of the whole search market, which is huge, Google's still gonna own 83% So yes, it will definitely, be a changer, a game changer for some target audiences.

[01:20:45] Taco Verdonschot: but I don't think that people over at Google lose their sleep over it just yet. I think also Google has such a, well credible in the sense that it's profitable, whether or not it gets in your way or annoys you. They have this perfect financial model, don't they, where, they've got the ad network tied up, they've got, the Android operating system, they've got Gmail where they can figure out what it is that you want and all of that.

[01:21:14] Nathan Wrigley: whereas OpenAI have just got, you open your wallet and you get an API key and pay for it. I still feel people paying for search is not something that most people would be willing to do. and obviously Google can circumvent that with all the other revenue streams that they've got. But yeah, I could be wrong about that.

Yeah, apple. I don't see my mom buying. Plus or anything anytime soon to do a search. yeah, let's go ahead Jen. I was interested. Yeah, sorry Jen, go ahead. Yeah, so Apple has been announcing a lot of the partnership stuff with Open a ai, right? And if they can start getting people in the habit of using the chat GPT on their phone and they have a rather substantial portion of the phone market that could definitely transition into desktop use.

[01:22:05] Gen Herres: people now are spending a lot more time on their phone than on their desktops. It's interesting Google Pay, apple and eye watering amount of money every year to be the default search on iOS. I'm, gonna pluck a number out thin air, but for some reason this number is coming into my head. 20 billion, I think is the number that they pay Apple each year to have that.

[01:22:27] Nathan Wrigley: Space, and I don't know what the revenue stream for OpenAI looks like, but with the amount of investment that seems to be flooding the AI space, it wouldn't surprise me if OpenAI could come with a similar or perhaps even better offer, or maybe, the incentive for Apple just to derail Google is enough.

we'll, offer you it for far less money because we just wanna, we wanna kill off Google and Android and all of that kind of stuff. Anyway, there it is. Introducing, yeah, apple and Google have not historically had a fantastic relationship. No. and I think that one of the things that, that chat, open AI could, do is one of the big, I think, concerns that people have with Google is of course the privacy issues and all that.

[01:23:17] Marc Benzakein: and, if chat GPPT, it capture some of that somehow, then maybe it would benefit them. But, it's a matter of what makes them different. And if Google's already doing it, it's gonna be hard to get people off that if it's not intuitively easy. Yeah. I'm just not really, I just don't really wanna chat with a.

[01:23:37] Nathan Wrigley: An internet search. I, think I'm old enough to know what I want to do and, I want to get the answer back. I don't really wanna have a, back and a forth and a conversation, but I imagine that, the young kids out there will be doing it all differently in chat, is the Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. Perfect episode for your new podcast, mark that the, that's it, you're my first guess. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. But, they're not gonna be doing the likes that I'm doing and, I still think Google is pretty remarkable, although Max, max will disagree. He said Google is dumpster fire. I hate using it.

Yeah. I'm trying to disconnect from Google where I possibly can, but, I've realized that. It is a question of where I possibly can. It's just got its hooks in so deep, in so many parts of my life. Android has 71% of all my mobile photo ship. Gem Gemini will do just fine. I'm sure that you are right.

Okay, last one very quickly 'cause we're running outta time and I'll make it this one. Wow. Wow. Australia. Wow. so this is on the BB. C and BBC tend to be a credible news site. So I'm imagining there's some truth in this Australia plans social media ban for under 16 Australia. I'm gonna quote, Australia's government says it will introduce a world leading legislation to ban children from under 16 from social media, the Prime Minister, so it's not just some sort of junior cabinet spokesperson.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the proposed law to be tabled in parliament next week were aimed at mitigating the harm. Social media was inflicting on Australian children. While many of the details are yet to be debated, the government said the ban would apply to young people already on social media.

So you. You 15 year olds who've been using TikTok for the longest time. Yeah, you're gonna be in the dragnet. No exemptions on age limit for children who have consent from their parents. And the government says the onus will be on social media platforms to show that they're taking responsible steps to prevent access.

I am conflicted about this. On the one hand, the libertarian kind of in me is saying, hands off government, we can do what we like. On the other hand, the, sort of slightly more, I don't know, concerned Father in me is thinking this is not a bad idea. So I'm a bit on the fence, but I, you only have to drive down the road in any urban area in the western world now, and you see every single person staring at the rectangle.

I call it the rectangle. Now I've given up even calling it a phone. It's just like this void. It just sucks you into it. so I dunno, we seem to be unwilling to decouple ourselves. So maybe the sledgehammer approach from the Australian government, because by the time, what, I guess the intention here is by the time that you get to 16, you've you've got loads of habits in your life already.

Like you're doing things. And so if you can get to 16 and not have that habit, maybe you'll be immune from it anyway. Debate very quickly. We don't have much time. we didn't have Oh, go ahead, Jen. I'm, very glad that social media did not exist when I was in middle school. Yeah. I have to tell you that.

Yeah. I, it, would've been exceptionally worse and it was already pretty bad. I can't, I just can't even imagine how awful it is. I For, a lot of kids and especially those formative growing years with the hormones going crazy and pettiness and yeah, it can definitely be toxic and damaging.

[01:27:21] Gen Herres: So that part of me likes it, but also I don't want the government involved in everything, but also who else is going to put limits on these mega corps? Yeah. Yeah. Who, and I think it's fair to say that the profit incentive is, to get to the, is to get you engaged as long as possible. That, is the business is to keep you fixated on it.

[01:27:44] Nathan Wrigley: And, I think often the algorithm works very well when it's content which shocks you or alarms you in some way. So Tacho, sorry. Yeah. I have two daughters, a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old. the 8-year-old is now, starting to ask for her own phone, her own tablet, stuff like that.

[01:28:09] Taco Verdonschot: access to YouTube to follow some of the content creators that, in my old man's opinion, are barely worth the word content. and me saying no is still possible because she's only eight. Yeah, the day will come, but I, can't even imagine the social pressure five years from now. And if I'm the only one saying no, then that's also going to affect her social life in a very different way.

So having a government that says no to everybody, makes it a whole lot easier to say no as a parent because it's the law. So yes, government interference, meh, but in this case, I feel it would be helping me as a parent to say no. Yeah, that's an interesting thing, and I can tell you, I've got children who grew up in this era where it became popular and also they grew up in an area where we just didn't know the harms that were going to come.

[01:29:20] Nathan Wrigley: So I would say that period was probably as bad as it could have been. it's, not so much the social media in the traditional sense of go and consume endless amounts of scrolly content on TikTok. It's more the, it's more the, chat apps. and I wonder if they'll be caught up in this drag night, Snapchat and so on, and just name them all WhatsApp and what have you. I don't know because they're not really, there's no algorithm trying to game your attention there, but it, it's, in, it is fairly insidious. and, what you'll discover Tacho, is that the children who don't have it are pariahs because they can't be involved in the decision making process, which, when you and I were at school, you'd figure everything out like the day before and stick to the time that you said and meet in the town center or whatever, 9:00 AM at the shop that you all agree.

Now they just invent everything on the fly. It's like, where are you now? Okay, I'll, I'll be there in 10 minutes. Oh no, we've moved, we're going somewhere. so it's, it does make you a bit of a, bit of a pariah. So it's interesting. Try to delay it as much as possible. Says Max. yep. And, also enforce rooms being kept reasonably tidy, asking for a friend.

Can they also, sorry. no. They, they can't do that. That unfortunately is out of the remit of almost any government, I would imagine. that's very analog. I, yeah. You only have to look like two feet that way. And to realize that I can't do it either. It's, hysterical. It's just total chaos over there.

that's it. We're done. We're a bit late. I'm sorry about that. But we started off fairly, slow to the, to the race today. But thank you so much. If you joined us in the chat, thank you to everybody who joined us. I really appreciate that. And obviously it goes without saying thank you to Tacho.

Probably the last time I'll be able to say Tacho from Yost. Yes. I can say that t I'll say Tacho with Yost next time, but with a, that's true. Different spelling. Yeah. thank you to Jen and thank you to Mark. Where's Mark's over there. Hopefully your, internet connection will survive during the rest of the day.

Hope it's that humiliation time of the day. Hope. But we have to do the hands. I do apologize for this. It's terrible, isn't it? But there we go. That's it. We'll be back, I think next week. Hopefully we'll be back next week. But, we're, if not, then, we'll see you the week after. Take it easy. Thank you very much for joining us today.

See you next week, on this week in WordPress. Take care. Bye bye bye.