The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 17th June 2024 with Remkus de Vries, Birgit Pauli-Haack, Birgit Olzem. You can find the show here: https://wpbuilds.com/2024/06/25/this-week-in-wordpress-299

Today we discuss advancements in web image standards and new CSS features. Topics include object fit, aspect ratio, border images, filters, clip path, mask-image, and backdrop filters, which offer alternatives to traditional image editing tools like Photoshop. The episode also covers HTML and CSS considerations, such as img and picture elements, alt tags, and loading attributes. New image formats like WebP and AVIF are examined, along with the use of SVGs for accessibility and performance benefits. Go listen...

In Podcast #376, guest Piccia Neri, a seasoned designer and long-time collaborator with WP Builds, discusses the evolution of her career and the critical role of accessibility in web design. Initially a book designer, Piccia adapted her skills to the digital age, emphasizing accessibility as essential for good UX. The episode explores the importance of starting web design with content and typography, driven by ethical considerations and upcoming legislation like the European Accessibility Act. Piccia shares actionable insights on accessible typography, HTML structuring, and how accessible design can boost SEO. Listeners are offered valuable resources, including a free accessibility primer and workshops.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 27th May 2024. You can find it here: https://wpbuilds.com/2024/06/04/this-week-in-wordpress-298

Today we\'re talking to Marcel Bootsman from Kinsta, discussing Kinsta\'s static site hosting. We get into the benefits, technical nuances, and environmental sustainability of static site hosting, highlighting its potential to enhance WordPress website speed and efficiency. Marcel explains how Kinsta leverages Cloudflare\'s global infrastructure and discusses the complexities involved. The conversation also touches on the developer expertise needed and the possibility of integrating dynamic elements into static sites. Kinsta\'s static hosting emerges as a cost-effective and high-performing alternative to traditional methods, offering insights on getting started and associated costs.

So this is like no podcast episode I\'ve ever done. Normally it\'s me talking to one, perhaps two, other people... but not today! A few weeks ago I was on a call with Adam Warner and Marcus Burnette from GoDaddy, and we were trying to come with fun ways to celebrate the 21st birth of WordPress, which is on May 27th 2024. This podcast is the result. It\'s 21 voices from the WordPress world who recorded themselves speaking about their experiences of WordPress; the software, the community, the things that it\'s enabled for them. And it\'s wonderful. It\'s varied, it\'s interesting, it\'s encouraging, it\'s fun! I truly hope that you enjoyed this episode, I enjoyed making it!

Once more we bring you a podcast hijack in which the No Script Show takes over the WP Builds podcast, perhaps for the last time? I confess that I\'m enjoying this new project very much indeed! We get into some of the new features that have been added to CSS and what they enable you to do, and how widely supported they are. If you\'ve not listened to the previous 9 episodes, then you won\'t know that your browser is getting more capable and instead of hacking things together with frameworks and scripts, we can now do many of the \'cool things\' with just a smattering of CSS. But what are these CSS things, and how do they allow the user of a web page to have some control in what they see, and how do they enable you, the website builder do do things with less dependencies and in shorter amounts of time? Listen to find out...

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 6th May 2024. You can find the show notes here: https://wpbuilds.com/2024/05/14/this-week-in-wordpress-297

Today we have the pleasure of hosting Alex Borto, a WordPress developer from France. Alex has been part of the WordPress landscape since 2011, educating and inspiring through his popular blog, wpmarmite.com, and a thriving YouTube channel with over 69,000 subscribers. In this episode, Alex will delve into his innovative project, WP Turbo Dev, which has been making waves by significantly enhancing the workflow for WordPress developers through the integration of AI technology. As the founder of WP Turbo Dev, Alex shares insights into how this tool not only accelerates development processes, but also ensures that, even as AI takes on more routine tasks, the art of development remains irreplaceable for more complex demands. We explore the current features, the projected roadmap, and how the tool integrates with popular plugins and themes to provide a comprehensive development experience. Alex also talks about the broader implications of AI in WordPress development, reflecting on how developers can leverage AI to improve their coding efficiency, whilst still maintaining a high standard of creativity and functionality. He’ll also touch on his initial motivations for starting free WordPress code generators, and how incorporating AI has expanded the capabilities and resources available to the community. For both new and experienced developers interested in the future of WordPress and AI, this discussion with Alex Borto promises to be worth a listen.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 29th April 2024. You can find the post here: https://wpbuilds.com/2024/05/07/this-week-in-wordpress-296

Back in the day, all the browsers were enemies. They all went off and decided how they would do things with no regard for what their \'rivals\' were doing. This was fun and gave us website developers the joy of having to make sure that what you\'d built looked decent in most of the popular browsers. If you\'re as old as me and have been in this game for a while, you\'ll remember shouting at your monitor when things did not work out as planned - which was all the time. I even had a soft rubber mallet, called \"The Hardware Hammer\" with which I could beat my computer without the costly repair bill! Fast forward to today and things are much better. Browser vendors all seem to be working towards a common goal, a common spec. But, and there had to be a but... they don\'t ship all of the feature at the same time. Some browsers support this thing, others don\'t (yet). In this episode we explore where we can go to find out what new features are available in which browsers, so that you can be sure that the site that you\'re about to ship works well for everyone, no matter how they\'re viewing it.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 22nd April 2024. You can find the episode here: https://wpbuilds.com/2024/04/27/this-week-in-wordpress-295

On the podcast today we have Stéphane Menet, a seasoned expert with a 20-year background in web strategy and business. He\'s not only the founder of WP Connect, but also heads a web agency that collaborates with freelancers to build dynamic project teams. His experience runs across a multitude of frameworks and CMS\'s, it\'s not all WordPress. We get into the evolving realm of no-code tools, and their impact on content management and web development. Stéphane has crafted a plugin, the Airtable to WordPress plugin, that demonstrates this shift, catering especially to non-technical WordPress users who require an intuitive way to manage their website data. You\'ll learn about the specific process of setting up the Airtable to WordPress plugin, from generating a token for secure connectivity, to mapping your data with pretty granular control. Episode here: https://wpbuilds.com/2024/04/25/370-airtable-meets-wordpress-uniting-airtables-power-with-wordpress

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 15th April 2024. You can find the episode here: https://wpbuilds.com/2024/04/23/this-week-in-wordpress-294

So we’re back with another ‘podcast hijack’, in which the WP Builds podcast is temporarily taken over by a new podcast that I’m doing with David Waumsley. It’s called “The No Script Show”, and we’re getting back to the basics which we feel we’ve lost touch with, namely HTML and CSS. This week, it’s all about something called ‘component based web design’, but before that, a few words about what this show is about… Over the years our reliance on tools like Page Builders mean that we’ve not kept up with the new technologies which are becoming available to us via the browser, HTML and CSS… and that made us sad! Sad because there’s real power in what can now be achieved, and it’s an exciting time, where CSS can do much of the heavy lifting which used to be the domain of Javascript. Does this mean that WordPress is not in view, not for me, but WordPress uses all-the-things we discuss, so they’re tied together in so many ways! The hope is that you’ll enjoy the podcast enough to subscribe to it and enjoy the podcast as we get into this new subject. There are the show notes that you’ll find on the noscript.show website for this episode. Today we are talking about… designing an effective homepage.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 8th April 2024.

Today we\'re joined by Chris Badgett, who is a WordPresser with a rich background in e-learning and WordPress development. Starting in 2008 with a leadership blog, he transitioned to freelance work and eventually ran his own agency focused on learning management systems, memberships, and coaching. Identifying a lack of integrated tools in the market, Chris founded LifterLMS, a learning management plugin for WordPress that blends e-commerce, gamification, and membership functions. Now, nine years after launch, LifterLMS is a testament to his dedication to providing WordPress solutions for educators and learners within the WordPress ecosystem. In this episode, we talk about Chris\'s journey from humble blogging beginnings to crafting a comprehensive, integrated LMS platform that democratises online education for experts and novices alike. Chris, a non-developer by trade, has leveraged the capabilities of full site editing to empower his customers to design online education experiences without the need to write any code. We get into the milestones of LifterLMS, detailing the significance of their evolution towards full stack learning solutions. We talk about how the platform can be customised, and the recent launch of the SkyPilot theme, designed to significantly enhance the user experience for course creators and learners. We also explore the shift from traditional themes to full site editing, how it\'s reshaping user expectations, and the role of templates and blocks in simplifying the creation of course content.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 1st April 2023.

So we’re back with another ‘podcast hijack’, in which the WP Builds podcast is temporarily taken over by a new podcast that I’m doing with David Waumsley. It’s called “The No Script Show”, and we’re getting back to the basics which we feel we’ve lost touch with, namely HTML and CSS. This week, it\'s all about something called \'component based web design\', but before that, a few words about what this show is about... Over the years our reliance on tools like Page Builders mean that we’ve not kept up with the new technologies which are becoming available to us via the browser, HTML and CSS… and that made us sad! Sad because there’s real power in what can now be achieved, and it’s an exciting time, where CSS can do much of the heavy lifting which used to be the domain of Javascript. Does this mean that WordPress is not in view, not for me, but WordPress uses all-the-things we discuss, so they’re tied together in so many ways! The hope is that you’ll enjoy the podcast enough to subscribe to it and enjoy the podcast as we get into this new subject. There are the show notes that you’ll find on the noscript.show website for this episode. Today we are talking about how do we start a website project?

Today we have a conversation with Jonathan Jernigan, the co-creator of the Pie Calendar plugin for WordPress. Jonathan has been working with WordPress for many years. For 5 years he worked with Oxygen, and within the last year has made the switch to full-time GenerateBlocks and GeneratePress as his tools of choice. As if that were not enough, he\'s also the co-founder of Pie Calendar, which is the reason that he\'s on the podcast today. This episode gets into the philosophy and strategy behind creating a WordPress plugin that champions a less-is-more approach. Jonathan, alongside his colleague Elijah Mills, took the decision that they wanted Pie Calendar be minimal and adapt to the needs of its users, be affordable, and concentrate upon a feature set which they could maintain. If you\'re interested in a lightweight calendar plugin for your WordPress website, this episode is for you.