Weekly WordPress News: WordPress 5.5 and Astra Theme Drama

Hey, WordPress fans. In the biggest news this week, WordPress 5.5 “Eckstine” is officially out with a bunch of new features and improvements. Give it a try (after thoroughly testing it on a staging server).

In the second biggest news this week, the massively popular Astra theme was suspended from WordPress.org…before later being reinstated, with some penalties.

Let’s get to all of this week’s news…

WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES

• What’s New in WordPress 5.5 — A Deep Dive Into an (Epic) Release – Kinsta shares what’s new in WordPress 5.5.
• WordPress.org Version 5.5 Field Guide – the official WordPress 5.5 Field Guide.
• WordPress 5.5 “Eckstine” Introduces Block Directory, Block Patterns, and Automatic Updates for Themes and Plugins – WP Tavern’s post on the new release.
• Astra Theme Suspended and Reinstated, Themes Team Works Toward Delisting Strategy for Guideline Violations – information on the Astra theme drama.
• Astra Theme Suspension and Reinstatement Raises Important Questions for the WordPress Community – more thoughts on the Astra theme.

TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS

• How to Disable Sitemaps in WordPress 5.5 – what to do if you don’t like the new feature in WordPress 5.5.
• How to Enable Frontend Editing with Gutenberg Blocks (Part 2) – the second part of a tutorial that we posted last week.
• How to Create a Multilingual Sitemap for Your WordPress Site – how to make your sitemap multilingual.
• Set Up Visual Studio Code and xDebug as the Ultimate Editor for WordPress Development – a tutorial from Delicious Brains.

RESOURCES

• 5 Best WordPress Backup Plugins for All Budgets and Needs – the best plugins to back up WordPress.
• Major jQuery Changes on the Way for WordPress 5.5 and Beyond – developers might want to pay attention.
• Oribi Review for WordPress: Actionable Web Analytics (No Developer Needed) – a really neat (but pricey) web analytics tool.
• Banned for affiliate links in a free WordPress theme – a new episode of Matt Report on the Astra issue.
• Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode AppSumo Deal – get lifetime access for $39.