You’ve probably heard that WordPress is open source software, and may know that it’s created and run by volunteers. WordPress enthusiasts share many examples of how WordPress changed people’s lives for the better. This monthly series shares some of those lesser-known, amazing stories.
Meet Amanda Rush from Augusta, Georgia, USA.
Amanda Rush is a WordPress advocate with a visual disability. She first started using computers in 1985, which enabled her to turn in homework to her sighted teachers. Screen reader technology for Windows was in its infancy then, so she worked in DOS almost exclusively.
After graduating high school, Amanda went to college to study computer science, programming with DOS-based tools since compilers for Windows were still inaccessible. As part of her computer science course of study, she learned HTML which began her career in web development.
How Amanda got started with WordPress
Amanda began maintaining a personal website, and eventually began publishing her own content using LiveJournal. However, controlling the way the page around her content looked was hard, and she soon outgrew the hosted solution.
So in 2005, Amanda bought customerservant.com, set up a very simple CMS for blogging, and started publishing there. She accepted the lack of design and content, and lack of easy customization because she wasn’t willing to code her own solution. Nor did she want to move to another hosted solution, as she liked being able to customize her own site, as well as publish content.
Hebrew dates led her to WordPress
At some point, Amanda was looking for an easy way to display the Hebrew dates alongside the Gregorian dates on her blog entries. Unfortunately, the blogging software she was using at the time, did not offer customization options at that level. She decided to research alternative solutions and came across a WordPress plugin that did just that.
The fact that WordPress would not keep her locked into a visual editor, used themes to customize styling, and offered ways to mark up content, immediately appealed to Amanda. She decided to give it a go.
Accessibility caused her to dive deeper
When the software Amanda used at work became completely inaccessible, she started learning about WordPress. While she was learning about this new software, Web 2.0 was introduced. The lack of support for it in the screen reader she used meant that WordPress administration was completely inaccessible. To get anything done, Amanda needed to learn to find her way in WordPress’ file structure.
Eventually Amanda started working as an independent contractor for the largest screen reader developer in the market, Freedom Scientific. She worked from home every day and hacked on WordPress after hours.
Unfortunately Amanda hit a rough patch when her job at Freedom Scientific ended. Using her savings she undertook further studies for various Cisco and Red Hat certifications, only to discover that the required testing for these certifications were completely inaccessible. She could study all she wanted, but wasn’t able to receive grades to pass the courses.
She lost her financial aid, her health took a turn for the worse, she was diagnosed with Lupus, and lost her apartment. Amanda relocated to Augusta where she had supportive friends who offered her a couch and a roof over her head.
But Amanda refused to give up
Amanda continued to hack WordPress through all of this. It was the only stable part of her life. She wanted to help make WordPress accessible for people with disabilities, and in 2012 joined the WordPress Accessibility Team. Shortly after that, she finally got her own place to live, and started thinking about what she was going to do with the rest of her working life.
Listening to podcasts led her to take part in WordSesh, which was delivered completely online and enabled Amanda to participate without needing to travel. She began to interact with WordPress people on Twitter, and continued to contribute to the community as part of the WordPress Accessibility Team. Things had finally started to pick up.
Starting her own business
In 2014, Amanda officially launched her own business, Customer Servant Consultancy. Since WordPress is open source, and becoming increasingly accessible, Amanda could modify WordPress to build whatever she wanted and not be at the mercy of web and application developers who know nothing about accessibility. And if she got stuck, she could tap into the community and its resources.
Improving her circumstances and becoming more self-sufficient means Amanda was able to take back some control over her life in general. She was able to gain independence and create her own business despite being part of the blind community, which has an 80% unemployment rate.
In her own words:
We’re still fighting discrimination in the workplace, and we’re still fighting for equal access when it comes to the technology we use to do our jobs. But the beauty of WordPress and its community is that we can create opportunities for ourselves.
I urge my fellow blind community members to join me inside this wonderful thing called WordPress. Because it will change your lives if you let it.
Amanda Rush, entrepreneur
This post is based on an article originally published on HeroPress.com, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. HeroPress highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories would otherwise go unheard.
Meet more WordPress community members over at HeroPress.com!
This month has been characterized by exciting plans and big announcements – read on to find out what they are and what it all means for the future of the WordPress project.
WordCamp Asia Announced
The inaugural WordCamp Asia will be in Bangkok, Thailand, on February 21-23, 2020. This will be the first regional WordCamp in Asia and it comes after many years of discussions and planning. You can find more information about the event on their website and subscribe to stay up to date with the latest information.
This is the latest flagship event in the WordCamp program, following WordCamps Europe and US. Tickets are now on sale and the call for speakers is open. Want to get involved in WordCamp Asia? Keep an eye out for volunteer applications, or buy a micro sponsor ticket. You can also join the #wcasia channel in the Making WordPress Slack group for updates.
WordCamp US Planning Continues
The WordCamp US organizing team is excited to announce some new additions to this year’s WCUS in St. Louis, Missouri, on November 1-3, 2019. The first is that there will be an onsite KidsCamp: child-friendly lessons that introduce your young one(s) to the wonderful world of WordPress. You can register your child for KidsCamp here. In addition, free, onsite childcare will be provided at this year’s event – you can sign up here.
Exploring Updates to the WordPress User & Developer Survey
To improve the annual WordPress User & Developer Survey, a call has been made for updates and additional questions that can help us all better understand how people use WordPress.
To improve the survey, contributor teams are suggesting topics and information that should be gathered to inform contributor work in 2020. Please add your feedback to the post.
Gutenberg Usability Testing Continues
Usability tests for Gutenberg continued through June 2019, and insights from three recent videos were published last month. This month’s test was similar to WordCamp Europe’s usability tests, and you can read more about those in the part one and part two posts. Please help by watching these videos and sharing your observations as comments on the relevant post.
If you want to help with usability testing, you can also join the #research channel in the Making WordPress Slack group, or you can write a test script that can be usability tested for Gutenberg.
Further Reading:
A proposal has been made to put together a nominated WordPress Advisory Board – this is certainly an exciting development for the project.
The Core team has implemented a few changes to the PHP coding standards within WordPress Core.
The Community Team is looking for feedback on a tough decision that needs to be made regarding the implementation of the licence expectations within the meetup program.
A recent release of WordPress saw an increase in the minimum required version of PHP – the Core team is now looking at increasing that minimum further.
You’ve probably heard that WordPress is open source software, and may know that it’s created and run by volunteers. WordPress enthusiasts share many examples of how WordPress changed people’s lives for the better. This monthly series shares some of those lesser-known, amazing stories.
Meet Ugyen Dorji from Bhutan
Ugyen lives in Bhutan, a landlocked country situated between two giant neighbors, India to the south and China to the north. He works for ServMask Inc and is responsible for the Quality Assurance process for All-in-One WP Migration plugin.
He believes in the Buddhist teaching that “the most valuable service is one rendered to our fellow humans,” and his contributions demonstrates this through his WordPress translation work and multi-lingual support projects for WordPress.
Bhutanese contributors to the Dzongkha locale on WordPress Translation Day
How Ugyen started his career with WordPress
Back in 2016, Ugyen was looking for a new job after his former cloud company ran into financial difficulties.
During one interview he was asked many questions about WordPress and, although he had a basic understanding of WordPress, he struggled to give detailed answers. After that interview he resolved to develop his skills and learn as much about WordPress as he could.
A few months passed and he received a call from ServMask Inc, who had developed a plugin called All-in-One WP Migration. They offered him a position, fulfilling his wish to work with WordPress full-time. And because of that, Ugyen is now an active contributor to the WordPress community.
WordCamp Bangkok 2018
WordCamp Bangkok 2018 was a turning point event for Ugyen. WordCamps are a great opportunity to meet WordPress community members you don’t otherwise get to know, and he was able to attend his first WordCamp through the sponsorship of his company.
The first day of WordCamp Bangkok was a Contributor Day, where people volunteer to work together to contribute to the development of WordPress. Ugyen joined the Community team to have conversations with WordPress users from all over the world. He was able to share his ideas for supporting new speakers, events and organizers to help build the WordPress community in places where it is not yet booming.
During the main day of the event, Ugyen managed a photo booth for speakers, organizers, and attendees to capture their memories of WordCamp. He also got to take some time out to attend several presentations during the conference. What particularly stuck in Ugyen’s mind was learning that having a website content plan has been shown to lead to 100% growth in business development.
Co-Organizing Thimphu‘s WordPress Meetup
After attending WordCamp Bangkok 2018 as well as a local Meetup event, Ugyen decided to introduce WordPress to his home country and cities.
As one of the WordPress Translation Day organizers, he realized that his local language, Dzongkha, was not as fully translated as other languages in the WordPress Core Translation. That is when Ugyen knew that he wanted to help build his local community. He organized Thimphu’s first WordPress Meetup to coincide with WordPress Translation Day 4, and it was a huge success!
Like all WordPress Meetups, the Thimpu WordPress Meetup is an easygoing, volunteer-organized, non-profit meetup which covers everything related to WordPress. But it also keeps in mind the Bhutanese Gross National Happiness four pillars by aiming to preserve and promote their unique culture and national language.
Big dreams get accomplished one step at a time
Ugyen has taken an active role in preserving his national language by encouraging his community to use WordPress, including Dzongkha bloggers, online Dzongkha news outlets, and government websites.
And while Ugyen has only been actively involved in the community for a short period, he has contributed much to the WordPress community, including:
becoming a Translation Contributor for WordPress Core Translation for Dzongkha;
inviting WordPress Meetup Thimphu members and WordPress experts from other countries to join the local Slack instance;
encouraging ServMask Inc. to become an event sponsor;
providing the Dzongkha Development Commission the opportunity to involve their language experts.
When it comes to WordPress, Ugyen particularly focuses on encouraging local and international language WordPress bloggers; helping startups succeed with WordPress; and sharing what he has learned from WordPress with his Bhutanese WordPress community.
As a contributor, Ugyen hopes to accomplish even more for the Bhutan and Asian WordPress Communities. His dreams for his local community are big, including teaching more people about open source, hosting a local WordCamp, and helping to organize WordCamp Asia in 2020 — all while raising awareness of his community.
This post is based on an article originally published on HeroPress.com, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. HeroPress highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories would otherwise go unheard.
Meet more WordPress community members over at HeroPress.com!
June has certainly been a busy month in the WordPress community — aside from holding the largest WordPress event ever, the project has hit a number of significant milestones and published some big announcements this past month.
A Wrap for WordCamp Europe 2019
WordCamp Europe 2019 took place on June 20-22. It was the largest WordPress event ever, with 3,260 tickets sold and 2,734 attendees. The attendees came from 97 different countries and 1,722 of them had never attended WordCamp Europe before.
The event featured 60 speakers who delivered talks and workshops on a variety of topics over two conference days, most notably Matt Mullenweg’s keynote that included an update on the current status of WordPress Core development, along with a lively Q&A session. The full session from the live stream is available to watch online.
A proposal this month suggested bringing XML sitemap generation into WordPress Core. This is a feature that has traditionally been handled by plugins, which has resulted in many different implementations across different sites. It also means that many sites do not have XML sitemaps, which can be a problem because they are hugely important to having your site correctly indexed by search engines.
The proposal details how core sitemaps would be structured and how the team would build them, as well as what aspects of WordPress would not be considered appropriate information to be included.
The WordPress community of Spain has worked hard to make the es_ES locale the first in the world to fully localize all of WordPress Core along with all Meta projects, apps, and the top 200 plugins. This is made possible by having the largest translation team out of any locale, consisting of 2,951 individual contributors.
On June 18, v5.2.2 of WordPress was released as a maintenance release, fixing 13 bugs and improving the Site Health feature that was first published in v5.2. If your site has not already been automatically updated to this version, you can download the update or manually check for updates in your WordPress dashboard. Thanks to JB Audras, Justin Ahinon, and Mary Baum for co-leading this release, as well as the 30 other individuals who contributed to it.
On June 27, e2e (end to end) testing was introduced to WordPress and included in the continuous integration pipeline. E2e testing, which has been successfully used by Gutenberg, is used to simulate real user scenarios and validate process flows. Currently, the setup requires Docker to run, and a number of e2e test utilities are already available in the @wordpress/e2e-test-utils package, in the Gutenberg repository.
Following a proposal for theme feature repositories, an update to the features package was announced. Two new packages have been created that require code review and testing. The first is an Autoload Package, a foundational package for theme developers who are not currently using Composer (although Composer is recommended instead of this package). The second is a Customizer Section Button Package that allows theme authors to create a link/button to any URL.
There are other proposed ideas for packages that require feedback and additional discussion. Want to add your suggestions and thoughts? Join the conversation on the Theme Review team blog and join the #themereview channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.
Further Reading:
Development continues on the Gutenberg project, with the latest release including layouts for the Columns block, Snackbar notices, markup improvements, and accessibility upgrades.
This year’s recipient of the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship for WordCamp US is Carol Gann.
The Amurrio WordPress community hosted their first “mega meetup” – this is a great event format that bridges the gap between regular meetup event and WordCamp.
Have a story that we should include in the next “Month in WordPress” post? Please submit it here.
WordPress 5.2.2 is now available! This maintenance release fixes 13 bugs and adds a little bit of polish to the Site Health feature that made its debut in 5.2.
WordPress 5.2.2 is a short-cycle maintenance release. The next major release will be version 5.3; check make.wordpress.org/core for details as they happen.
You can download WordPress 5.2.2 or visit Dashboard → Updates and click Update Now. Sites that support automatic background updates have already started to update automatically.
JB Audras, Justin Ahinon and Mary Baum co-led this release, with invaluable guidance from our Executive Director, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and contributions from 30 other contributors. Thank you to everyone who made this release possible!
This month saw the 16th anniversary since the launch of the first release of WordPress. A significant milestone to be sure and one that speaks to the strength and stability of the project as a whole. In this anniversary month, we saw a new major release of WordPress, some exciting new development work, and a significant global event.
Release of WordPress 5.2
WordPress 5.2 “Jaco” was released on May 7 shipping some useful site management tools, such as the Site Health Check and PHP Error Protection, as well as a number of accessibility, privacy, and developer updates. You can read the field guide for this release for more detailed information about what was included and how it all works.
327 individual volunteers contributed to the release. If you would like to be a part of that number for future releases, follow the Core team blog and join the #core channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.
A Successful WordPress Translation Day 4
WordPress Translation Day is a 24-hour event organised by the Polyglots team where community members from all over the world come together to translate WordPress into their local languages. For the fourth edition held on 11 May, 183 brand new contributors joined the Polyglots team from 77 communities across 35 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Oceania.
While the WP Translation Day is a great time for focussed contributions to localizing WordPress, but these contributions can happen at any time of the year, so if you would like to help make WordPress available in your local language, follow the Polyglots team blog and join the #polyglots channel in the Making WordPress Slack group.
Updated Plugin Guidelines Proposal
The Plugins team has proposed some updates to the guidelines for developers on the Plugin Directory. The majority of the proposed changes are intended to address significant issues faced by developers who do not speak English as a first language, making the Plugin DIrectory a more accessible and beneficial place for everyone.
The proposal will be open for comments until late June, so the community is encouraged to get involved with commenting on them and the direction they will take the Plugin Directory. If you would like to be involved in this discussion, comment on the proposal and join the #plugin review team in the Making WordPress Slack group.
Continued Gutenberg Development
Since the block editor was first released as part of WordPress Core in v5.0, development has continued in leaps and bounds with a new release every two weeks. The latest update includes some great incremental improvements that will be merged into the 5.2.2 release of WordPress along with the other recent enhancements.
In addition to the editor enhancements, work has been ongoing in the Gutenberg project to bring the block editing experience to the rest of the WordPress dashboard. This second phase of the project has been going well and the latest update shows how much work has been done so far.
In addition to that, the Block Library project that aims to bring a searchable library of available blocks right into the editor is deep in the planning phase with a recent update showing what direction the team is taking things.
If you would like to get involved in planning and development of Gutenberg and the block editor, follow the Core and Design team blogs and join the #core, #design, and #core-editor channels in the Making WordPress Slack group.
WordPress 5.2.1 is now available! This maintenance release fixes 33 bugs, including improvements to the block editor, accessibility, internationalization, and the Site Health feature introduced in 5.2.
WordPress 5.2.1 is a short-cycle maintenance release. Version 5.2.2 is expected to follow in approximately two weeks.
You can download WordPress 5.2.1 or visit Dashboard → Updates and click Update Now. Sites that support automatic background updates have already started to update automatically.
Jonathan Desrosiers and William Earnhardt co-led this release, with contributions from 52 other contributors. Thank you to everyone that made this release possible!
The fourth edition of WordPress translation day is coming up on Saturday 11 May 2019: tomorrow! Get ready for a 24-hour, global marathon dedicated to localizing the WordPress platform and ecosystem.This event takes place both online and in physical locations across the world, so you can join no matter where you are!
The WordPress Polyglots Team has a mission to translate and make available the software’s features into as many languages as possible. As WordPress powers more than 33% of websites, people from across the world use it in their daily life. That means there is a lot that needs translating, and into many different languages.
On 11 May 2019, from 00:00 UTC until 23:59 UTC, WordPress Translation Day aims to celebrate the thousands of volunteers who contribute to translation and internalization. The event is also an opportunity for encouraging more people to get involved and help increase the availability of themes and plugins in different languages.
“At the time of the last event in 2017, WordPress was being translated into 178 languages, we have now reached the 200 mark!”
WPtranslationday.org
What happens on WordPress Translation Day?
There are a number of local meetings all over the world, as well as online talks by people from the WordPress community. More than 700 people from around the world took part in past WordPress Translation Days, and everyone welcome to join in this time around!
Everyone is welcome to join the event to help translate and localize WordPress, no matter their level of experience. A lot is happening on the day, so join in and you will learn how to through online sessions!
What can you expect?
Live online training: Tutorials in different languages focused on translation and localization, or l10n, of WordPress. These are streamed in multiple languages
Localization sessions: General instruction and specifics for particular areas and languages. These sessions are streamed in multiple languages.
Internalization sessions: Tutorials about optimizing the code to ease localization processes, also called internationalization or i18n. These sessions are streamed in English.
Local events: Polyglot contributors will gather around the world for socializing, discussing, and translating together.
Remote events: Translation teams that cannot gather physically, will connect remotely. They will be available for training, mentoring, and supporting new contributors. They will also engage in “translating marathons”, in which existing teams translate as many strings as they can!
A number of experienced WordPress translators and internationalization experts are part of the line-up for the livestream, joined by some first time contributors.
Whether you have or haven’t contributed to the Polyglots before, you can join in for WordPress Translation Day. Learn more about both local and online events and stay updated through the website and social media.
Version 5.2 of WordPress, named “Jaco” in honor of renowned and revolutionary jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. New features in this update make it easier than ever to fix your site if something goes wrong.
There are even more robust tools for identifying and fixing configuration issues and fatal errors. Whether you are a developer helping clients or you manage your site solo, these tools can help get you the right information when you need it.
Site Health Check
Building on the Site Health features introduced in 5.1, this release adds two new pages to help debug common configuration issues. It also adds space where developers can include debugging information for site maintainers.
PHP Error Protection
This administrator-focused update will let you safely fix or manage fatal errors without requiring developer time. It features better handling of the so-called “white screen of death,” and a way to enter recovery mode, which pauses error-causing plugins or themes.
Improvements for Everyone
Accessibility Updates
A number of changes work together to improve contextual awareness and keyboard navigation flow for those using screen readers and other assistive technologies.
New Dashboard Icons
Thirteen new icons including Instagram, a suite of icons for BuddyPress, and rotated Earth icons for global inclusion. Find them in the Dashboard and have some fun!
Plugin Compatibility Checks
WordPress will now automatically determine if your site’s version of PHP is compatible with installed plugins. If the plugin requires a higher version of PHP than your site currently uses, WordPress will not allow you to activate it, preventing potential compatibility errors.
The minimum supported PHP version is now 5.6.20. As of WordPress 5.2*, themes and plugins can safely take advantage of namespaces, anonymous functions, and more!
With the addition of webpack and Babel configurations in the wordpress/scripts package, developers won’t have to worry about setting up complex build tools to write modern JavaScript.
*If you are running an old version of PHP (less than 5.6.20), update your PHP before installing 5.2.
The Squad
This release was led by Matt Mullenweg, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and Gary Pendergast. They were graciously supported by 327 generous volunteer contributors. Load a Jaco Pastorius playlist on your favorite music service and check out some of their profiles:
Also, many thanks to all of the community volunteers who contribute in the support forums. They answer questions from people across the world, whether they are using WordPress for the first time or since the first release. These releases are more successful for their efforts!
This release includes the final About page design. It also contains fixes for:
Proper translation of the recovery mode notification emails (#47093).
Improvements to the way Site Health works with multisite installs (#47084).
Plugin and Theme Developers
Please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 5.2 and update the Tested up to version in the readme to 5.2. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post to the support forums so we can figure those out before the final release.
If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.
It’s the start of May and the release is coming. We all give a cheer!
