WordPress.org

Version 3.0.2 of the Akismet plugin for WordPress is now available.

In version 3.0.2, we’ve improved performance and fixed a bug that could have negatively affected Akismet’s ability to determine whether a comment is spam.

To upgrade, visit the Updates page of your WordPress dashboard and follow the instructions. If you need to download the plugin zip file directly, links to all versions are available in the WordPress plugins directory.

Ethan Zuckerman writes for the Atlantic on The Internet’s Original Sin, advertising.

In the realm of WordPress, there is a particular debate that has been going on for years on whether WordPress is a CMS or not. CMSCritic has a great article by Kaya Ismail, that explains why WordPress is a CMS (Whether You Like it or Not). It’s one of the most refreshing perspectives I’ve read on the subject. The definition of a Content Management System is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, edit and manage a website. WordPress fits that definition rather well and in many respects, excels at it. The problem as Ismail explains, is that the acronym has become muddied over the years.

The issue arises when the stripped down, true meaning of “CMS” is blown up with unnecessary jargon. In reality, those definitions hold very little weight, other than when they describe added marketing or administrative extras. The fact of the matter is, WordPress fits the definition of a CMS perfectly.

WordPress has grown up to be far more than just a blogging tool. It’s used to power apps, run large content heavy websites, and e-commerce. The reputation that it’s just a blogging tool and not a CMS is false.

If you’re curious on how to use WordPress as a CMS, read this guide published by Ozh Richards that contains a simple four step process. It’s a process nearly all WordPress users go through everyday.

It isn’t particularly amazing in any niche other than blogging, and it sacrifices being a powerhouse when it comes to things like digital asset management for the sake of simplicity. Yet at the same time, WordPress is a content management system, and a good one at that.

So, maybe it’s time everybody got over it.

Ismail sums it up rather well. I think it’s time to kick this debate to the curb.

Semplice has soft-launched its new WordPress-powered portfolio system. The commercial project popped up on our radar after debuting its extraordinary implementation of the WordPress content editor. Founded by German designers Michael Schmidt and Tobias van Schneider, Semplice is breaking onto the scene with high impact designs and its own radically simplified content editor.

“Semplice is and was built based on our own needs to create beautiful case studies and branded pages, mainly for designer and artist portfolios,” Van Schneider told the Tavern. “Our goal is to create a completely new high quality experience on top of WordPress, something you haven’t seen before,” he said. So far they appear to be achieving exactly that. Example portfolios built with Semplice are nothing less than stunning.

A Unique Content Editor

Semplice incorporates its own visual content editor which allows users to create unique branded pages or extensive case studies for their projects, without a single line of code. “We aim to create a flexible system, not a template,” Van Schneider said. “With Semplice you start mostly with a white canvas, not a template or theme where you just fill in the blanks.” Every project is 100% responsive and the content editor is completely tailored to creating a portfolio.

So what’s under the hood?

As beautiful as the front-end results are, we were most curious about what’s under the hood and assumed it was based on custom post types. On the contrary, the Semplice crew has taken a different route to create this unique editing experience.

“For the basic theme options we use Advanced Custom Fields from Elliot Condon,” Van Schneider said. “The Content Editor itself is a combination of a Javascript frontend that uses the WordPress Ajax functions to communicate with the PHP backend.

“As we worked on different Semplice iterations we quickly learned that we need something more than just Custom Post Types, especially since the performance suffered a lot in the beginning,” he explained. The Semplice content editor is optional and can be activated when creating new pages in WordPress. It includes a live preview as you edit on the frontend, as you can see in the video example below.

“What you build is exactly what you get,” he said. “This allows you to create very flexible editorial layouts for designers or artists who want to present their work in the best light possible.”

Semplice also allows users the ability to brand every page with a unique visual look. Instead of having pages follow a set template, elements such as background color, navigation, and typography can be customized for each.

The regular WordPress admin is still in play, for example, when a user adds new work. It starts off in the backend with branding and image options.

One unique feature of Semplice is the ability to easily add a new custom fontset to WordPress using the web service of your choice. This is especially important for designers who require unique fonts for presenting their work.

Semplice is geared toward both experienced WordPress users, as well as those who are totally new to the platform. “Yes, we do aim for people who are familiar with WordPress since they will be able to take Semplice even further than what we offer,” Van Schneider said. “But with our Semplice Content Editor we even aim at people who don’t have that much experience with WordPress itself since you don’t really need it.”

Licensing, Pricing, and Support

Introductory Semplice pricing for a single domain is $69 and $299 for an agency. Semplice will be launching without offering customer support and is unusual in that it doesn’t offer any refunds. Support is limited to the first seven days after purchase. The team will assist with anything related to the default Semplice features and is currently working on establishing a pool of video tutorials for documentation.

While the Semplice team cannot yet offer full product support, they are committed to delivering critical free updates to existing customers. The software is licensed under the GPL. Although Semplice hasn’t launched yet, early adopters can purchase the software now for a reduced price.

While the Semplice content editor appeals to new WordPress users, they will still need to overcome the hurdle of installing and setting up a WordPress site on their own domains. Even with 1-click installers, the process can be more difficult than you might imagine for designers and artists with no WordPress experience. Without a fully hosted Semplice platform, the software is going to have to appeal to seasoned WordPress users who appreciate its unique take on building a fullscreen branded portfolio. Do you think Semplice can win out over other theme and plugin-based options?

WordCamps are excellent opportunities to learn WordPress and have of face-to-face interaction with a lot of different people. They can also be exhausting and possibly stressful for first timers. Carrie Dils has an awesome WordCamp Survival Guide filled with tips and information on how to get the most out of these events.

Tip number five (don’t sit by yourself at lunch) routinely happens to me at WordCamps.

When the last morning session breaks, there will be a mad dash to the lunch line (did someone say “food?!”). You’ll grab a sack lunch lovingly provided by some volunteer and then you’ll stand there, possibly awkward and not sure where to go. It’s lunch on the first day at a new school all over again.

Try this: Head over to any table with open spots and simply ask to sit down. Unless you just really need that lunch break for personal time, don’t miss an opportunity to meet folks over lunch!

I struggle with introducing myself to people I’ve never met before. At WordCamps, I’m generally extroverted but I’ve noticed at larger camps, I become introverted. It’s a personality thing I’ve been fighting with for the past few years with mild success. I keep telling myself that I’m going to introduce myself to everyone I see at a WordCamp but it never works out that way. I end up finding a group of people I’m familiar with and stick with them. Does anyone else struggle with introversion at WordCamps?

The survival guide is filled with great information but I think the most important point is the last and that’s to have fun.

Pippin Williamson of Easy Digital Downloads joined Marcus Couch and I to discuss a variety of topics. Williamson tells his story of how he got involved with WordPress. Later in the show, we discuss what it’s like to be a remote worker. Williamson tells us which tools he uses for project management and how important it is for him to have a disciplined routine.

As a volunteer moderator of the WordPress.org plugin directory, he’s seen his fair share of plugin submissions. He tells us which types of plugins are automatically rejected and what it’s like being a gatekeeper for the plugin directory.

Stories Discussed:

WP Site Care Acquires Audit WP
New WordPress Plugin Spell Checks Post Titles Before Publishing

Plugins Picked By Marcus:

HTML5 Slideshow Presentations – With this plugin, you’ll be able to create a presentation in no time using WordPress’ familiar built-in toolset and the best part is, you won’t need to upload to slideshare when you’re done! You host your own presentations allowing you to share or present them at anytime.

Sidebar Automizer – This little plugin will remove the last widget or widgets from the sidebar if the content area height is smaller than the height of the sidebar area.

Update from Bottom – This plug shows two extra buttons (Scroll to top and Publish/Update) in the bottom of the screen when a user scrolls near the bottom of the site. Suitable for posts and pages with a lot of meta boxes or when edit.php just tends to get very long.

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Listen To Episode #158:

SmartThings announced (on their WP-powered blog) that they’re joining forces with Samsung to continue working on their mission of becoming an operating system for your home. I’m both an investor and a fan of the company, which I even let take over my home in SF earlier this year for CNN. As a tinkerer most of what I do with SmartThings so far is relatively basic, I feel like it’s still the very early days of the platform and what’s going to come down the line. Samsung makes so much technology (and appliances, and TVs, and…) I can’t wait to see how they open it up and connect. I also wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate other Audrey companies Divide which joined Google and Creative Market which joined Autodesk earlier in 2014. I wasn’t as good about blogging before and didn’t get a chance to publicly congratulate those teams.

Here’s a quick tip for WordPress.org plugin authors and users, courtesy of Paul de Wouters: With the help of a task automation service like Zapier or IFTTT, you can automatically send out a tweet every time an updated version of your plugin is available. Simply set up an RSS -> Twitter action, like this one with Zapier:

Users of IFTTT can do the same by creating an RSS to Twitter recipe. You’ll want to use the development log feed on the developers tab of the plugin page. Connecting RSS to Twitter via a service will automate the little tasks involved in promoting your plugin and keeping users up-to-date.

Get Notified When a Plugin is Updated

Plugin users can also harness the same feed URL to send themselves updates via email. Let’s say you’ve got a few specific plugins that you are watching intently for an update. Perhaps you’ve notified the plugin author of a bug and are waiting for a fix or a new feature that’s in development. Instead of checking your site or the plugin’s page on WordPress.org for updates, you can set up an RSS to Email automated task to pull from the plugin’s development log feed and shoot a notice to your inbox.

The fourth and likely final beta for WordPress 4.0 is now available. We’ve made more than 250 changes in the past month, including:

• Further improvements to the editor scrolling experience, especially when it comes to the second column of boxes.
• Better handling of small screens in the media library modals.
• A separate bulk selection mode for the media library grid view.
• Improvements to the installation language selector.
• Visual tweaks to plugin details and customizer panels.

We need your help. We’re still aiming for a release this month, which means the next week will be critical for identifying and squashing bugs. If you’re just joining us, please see the Beta 1 announcement post for what to look out for.

If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums, where friendly moderators are standing by. Plugin developers, if you haven’t tested WordPress 4.0 yet, now is the time — and be sure to update the “tested up to” version for your plugins so they’re listed as compatible with 4.0.

This software is still in development, so we don’t recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 4.0, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the beta here (zip).

We are working hard
To finish up 4.0
Will you help us too?

Clear Tranquil is one of the cleanest, most elegant blogging themes to hit WordPress.org in recent days. The theme was created by Woo Themes designer James Koster as a child theme for his responsive Highwind parent theme.

Clear Tranquil lives up to its name, inspiring a light, peaceful reading experience that is clutter-free. The design puts your content in focus.

Koster gives meticulous attention to typography and highlights the first character of each post with elegant block letter styles. The theme includes a sticky, understated top navigation menu (optional), and zero widget areas. That’s right, Clear Tranquil is a completely widget-free zone.

The theme includes a handful of customization options built into WordPress’ native customizer. You can personalize it with a custom header, background, and your own color selections for text, links, and backgrounds.

Clear Tranquil includes no additional features, because everything has been intentionally stripped back to keep things simple. Koster hasn’t set up a live demo of the theme. Ordinarily, the WordPress.org demo gives an unrealistic representation of what a theme will look like. However, in this case, it’s fairly accurate.

One of the things that I love about the WordPress theme installation process is that it will automatically install the parent theme for a child theme, if you don’t already have it installed. In this scenario, if you install Clear Tranquil without Highwind already in place, it will be automatically downloaded for you.

If your blog has gotten bloated with widgets and is in need of a minimalist makeover, Clear Tranquil might be just the ticket. Download it for free from the WordPress Themes Directory.

Everybody knows that animals need homes. There are far more pets available for adoption than there are people lining up to adopt them. Call your local animal shelter and they’ll probably tell you that they’re at or over capacity. That’s where foster homes can help to provide quality care for animals in the interim, until they find their forever homes.

Foster Me is a new WordPress plugin designed to help rescues and shelters make available pets more visible and easier to search. It was created by Stephanie Chow, a front-end developer and animal advocate located in Asheville, NC. Her Lending a Paw site features open source plugins and graphics for animal rescue organizations.

Foster Me makes it easy to list and manage animals in WordPress where they can be searched with advanced pet-specific filters, such as age, type, gender, temperament, special needs, etc.

When a visitor clicks on an available pet, the listing launches in a modal window. Individual pet listings display a full description, a slider with multiple photographs, and any applicable pet categories.

The plugin also makes it easy to list fostering information and to post your foster application. Chow has made every effort to make Foster Me a user-friendly plugin for rescues and shelters that may not have a WordPress expert on staff. The settings page allows you to easily customize the color and appearance of the header, pet options, pet grid and modal window.

Foster Me also includes an image widget for showcasing foster pets as well as a Recently Added widget to display new additions.

The plugin adds a whole suite of pet listing features that are general enough to be used in any kind of shelter or rescue website:

• Filterable – filter by Type, Age, Size, Gender, Temperament, and Special Needs
• Searchable – list is narrowed with every letter you type into search bar
• Click On Any Pet – to view more information and photos
• List Your Fostering Info – show how it works what to expect when you foster
• Colors – are completely customizable to match your brand
• Image Widget – place in sidebar to display a linkable, rotating image of foster pets
• Recently Added Widget – place in sidebar to display your most recently added fosters

Check out a live demo of Foster Me to test out the pet searching and filtering capabilities.

Chow’s first plugin, Petfinder: Search and Rescue, is very similar to her latest release, except it requires the animals to be listed on Petfinder. If you already have your shelter or rescue pets listed on Petfinder, then this alternative will be a better option for automatically pulling in your existing listings.

Saving Animals with WordPress

The Foster Me plugin is an awesome open source tool that any shelter or rescue can use for free in combination with an existing WordPress site. When it comes to helping animals find their forever homes, open source software may not be the first thing that comes to mind, but Stephanie Chow is knocking it out of the park with her user-friendly tools designed to serve people who are rescuing creatures in need. Open source tools are more accessible to shelters and rescues that are spending every last dime to help animals find homes. If you have WordPress skills and are able to hook up a shelter with a website, then the Foster Me plugin will put you well on your way.