Weekly WordPress News: WordPress 5.6 Release Candidate

Hey, WordPress fans.

This week, WordPress 5.6 gets ready for prime time with its first release candidate. The official release is currently scheduled for December 8th – mark it on your calendars.

Beyond that, the WordPress.org theme previewer might finally get starter content (no more ugly demos!) and WordPress.com kicked off a popular blog for TOS violations.

Let’s get to all of this week’s news…

WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES

• WordPress 5.6 Release Candidate – 5.6 is almost ready for prime time – release is scheduled for December 8.
• Should WordPress Notify Users of Plugin Ownership Changes? – what do you think? I think that this could be useful.
• WordPress To Combine Its Long-Neglected Theme Previewer With Starter Content – this has always been super frustrating so this is exciting to see.
• Why Gatsby Chose Headless WordPress for our Blog – why Gatsby went with headless WordPress.
• Announcing WPGraphQL v1.0 – an interesting option for building headless WordPress sites.
• WordPress.com Gives Conservative Treehouse the Boot, Citing TOS Violations – an interesting topic that might kick up some controversy.
• Large-Scale Attacks Target Epsilon Framework Themes – pay attention if you’re using one of these themes.

TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS

• WordPress SMTP Tutorial: How to Configure WordPress to Use SMTP Server – how to configure your site to use free SMTP from SendGrid.
• Resolve CORS Errors with WordPress REST API – some tips from WebDevStudios.
• Advanced PHP localhost development on a Mac for mere mortals – as the title says.
• Exit-Intent Pop-ups: Why and How to Use Them on WordPress – how to use these popups on your site.

RESOURCES

• 3 Best WordPress Security Plugins to Lock Down Your Site – we rounded up the best security plugins.
• Twenty Twenty-One: A Deep Dive into the New Default WordPress Theme – Kinsta digs into the new theme.
• DigitalOcean vs AWS vs Google Cloud vs Linode vs Vultr: Which is Best for Hosting WordPress? – helpful if you’re hosting WordPress in the cloud.
• Building a no code business with Corey Haines of Swipe Files – a new episode of Matt Report.