WP Tavern

On the podcast today we have Daisy Olsen. Daisy works for Automattic as a Developer Relations contributor on the WordPress Project, and she's on the podcast today to talk about Block Themes. These new themes bring additional possibilities for WordPress users in what they're able to build in the Block Editor. Now, non-technical can start to add and style things like headers, footers and navigation menus. Daisy talks about how this all works as well as what's not quite ready. We also get into what new skills you'll need to learn, as well as what new tooling might be required. It's an interesting subject and a good primer on Block Themes if you're considering jumping in.

On the podcast today we have Milan Ivanovic. Milan is a WordPress Developer at Valet.io, and is a WordCamp volunteer, speaker, and organizer. He’s the WordPress.org global translation editor, WordPress Serbia lead, and is now part of the WordCamp Europe alumni. As if that weren’t enough, Milan is one of the lecturers of the WordPress Academy in Serbia, where he has given talks and WordPress Workshops. He’s also a member of the Theme Review and Community Get Involved Teams. It’s pretty clear to see that WordPress and WordPress events play a major role in Milan’s life, and that’s what this podcast is about. We talk about the importance of the WordPress community as a whole, as well as exploring what the situation is like in Milan’s home country of Serbia. We also get into the subject of diversity and how Europe as a continent might face diversity challenges which differ from other parts of the world.

On the podcast today we have Matt Mullenweg. Matt is the co-founder of WordPress, and as a result, he has been a user for as long as anyone. We recorded this podcast whilst at WordCamp Europe in Portugal a couple of weeks ago. It’s a wide-ranging discussion, covering a lot of ground. First, we cover the topics of what's happened to WordPress over the last 19 years, and which aspects he likes and which would he wish to alter. We then get into how the last two years have changed the WordPress community. Towards the end we get into the possible stall in WordPress's market share, and how Matt views the future of the platform in an era dominated by artificial intelligence.

On the podcast today we have Remkus de Vries, and he's kicking off what might be described as a mini series on the Jukebox podcast. Last week almost 3,000 WordPressers from all over the world gathered together in Porto, Portugal for the first in-person WordCamp Europe since 2019. Expectations were high, and the event did not disappoint. It really was excellent. Remkus is one of the founders of WordCamp Europe, just over 10 years ago. I wanted to get him on the podcast to talk about how the community's largest WordCamp got started. I also wanted to find out how the current event compares in terms of size and organisation. What's changed over the years? We talk about the importance of events like WordCamps for the community, and how over the last few years the lack of in-person events altered the community.

On the podcast today we have Mark Root-Wiley. He’s on the show to talk about why he thinks that it would be useful for WordPress to adopt some CSS standards. Mark thinks that it’s time for WordPress to lay out some simple standards which are easy to understand, and if they became universal, would save us a lot of time and head scratching. He’s not proposing anything radical, just some basic advice for the most commonly used CSS, and it’s quite a compelling idea which would need a lot of community buy-in, and possibly some top-down approval if it were to move forwards. It’s very much the kernel of an idea at present, but thought provoking nonetheless.

The Pattern Creator is a online tool which allows you to create block patterns for inclusion into the WordPress Patterns Directory, a place where you can access freely available patterns for your websites. On the podcast today we have Ana Segota and Kelly Choyce-Dwan, who share two different perspectives. Ana is a themer and Kelly is on the team building out the Creator. We talk about how the Creator works, how you can submit your patterns and what constraints are there for having your submissions accepted. So, if you’re curious about how patterns can speed up your website building workflow, this episode is for you.

On the podcast today we have Courtney Robertson. Courtney is a Developer Advocate at GoDaddy Pro who has a passion for teaching and learning, specifically about how to use WordPress. Her work involves outreach to developers but it also includes time to help contribute to WordPress as well. Courtney uses this time to assist with the WordPress Training Team as well as Learn WordPress. We talk about what the Learn Project covers as and how the content is curated and maintained. We also talk about how you might get involved with the team if you’re keen to help others learn more about WordPress.

So on the podcast today we have Joe Casabona. Joe is a podcaster and educator, which makes him perfect for the discussion today, ‘Why WordPress Is a Great Choice for Your Podcast’. We talk about a broad range of podcasting topics including why WordPress and podcasting are such a great fit, what equipment do you really need to get up and running with your first podcast, are podcasts only for entertainment and what tips and tricks has Joe learned over the years as a podcaster. So if you’re curious about how to set up a podcast, or if you’ve already got one going and just want to hear some fresh perspectives, this episode is for you.

On the podcast today we have Aki Hamano. He's a fan of creating WordPress blocks and currently has five available in the repository. We talk about the WordPress community in his home country of Japan and then give deeply into what all of this blocks do, and why he's been creating them. It’s an interesting discussion, and you never know, perhaps you’ll find yourself using Aki’s blocks at some point yourself.

On the podcast today we have Cate DeRosia. Cate is a familiar face in the WordPress community. Along with her husband, Topher, they run the HeroPress Network. She describes herself as a 'serial volunteer in the community'. In early 2022 Cate was hired by Automattic to be a sponsored member of the Community Team, and it’s this role which finds her on the podcast today. We talk about her recent ‘blue sky thinking’ post, which is a forum for people to engage with her and her team, so that future WordPress events can be made different. What does the community of 2022 want from WordPress events? Are we happy with how things have always been done, or do we want something new, something different?

On the WP Tavern Jukebox podcast we're talking about how the block editor is being used by Daniel Schutzsmith and his team. We learn about the transition that they underwent after they'd decided to use the block editor on their government websites. What procedures did they have to put in place to make the transition as smooth as possible and what learning materials were needed. We talk also about his thoughts on where WordPress and, more generally, the web is headed, which can be summed up by the words AI and automation.

On the podcast today we have Chris Coyier. Chris has been a user and educator in the WordPress and web development space for many years. He’s an author, podcaster, developer, but is perhaps best known for his website CSS-Tricks. CSS-Tricks has been a valuable source of information about CSS for over 15 years. Updated multiple times a week, the site has articles about every aspect of styling your website. It’s gone through several iterations over those years. A few weeks ago Chris decided it was time for CSS-Tricks to find a new home and it’s now owned and operated by Digital Ocean, a popular cloud computing service provider. This podcast is all about the journey that Chris has had running CSS-Tricks.

On the podcast today we have Oliver Sild from Patchstack. Patchstack is a product which is designed to help you identify plugin vulnerabilities in your WordPress sites. We talk about how, over the past couple of years, Patchstack has released an annual report concerning the state of WordPress security. What are the broad security trends which have emerged over the past 12 months in WordPress Core, plugins and themes. Listen now...

On the podcast today we have Evangelia Pappa & Bernhard Kau. They're two of the WordCamp Europe 2022 organising team. They are here to talk about the upcoming event, happening during June, in Porto, Portugal. We talk about the measures that they've put in place to ensure that the event is as safe as possible. We also get into a discussion about the diversity of the organisation of the event, following a recent debate about whether or not more needed to be done in this area.

On the podcast today we have Leonardo Losoviz. He’s here today to talk about The Block Protocol. This is a new project which aims to make blocks all over the internet interoperable. This might lead to a situation in which WordPress blocks could communicate with blocks in other apps. We talk about how it might work, who stands to benefit and how likely it is to gain traction. Listen to the podcast...

On the podcast today we have Destiny Kanno and Joe Simpson. The goal of BlackPress is to bring more creators of Black African descent into the WordPress community, and also provide a community space for those already there to connect, learn from, and support each other. It’s still in the early stages and they are trying to grow with a dedicated Slack channel and regular Meetups. It’s intended to be a safe space for people who share their vision to work together and try to figure out what such a community might look like. It’s a really thought provoking discussion, and shines a light on a very important issue.

On the podcast today we have Jonathan Bossenger. He’s here to talk about WordPress notifications and how they are managed. He wants there to be a unified space in the WordPress admin which handles all notifications, so that users are in control of what they see and when. Go listen to the podcast.

Morten Rand-Hendriksen wants open source to be governed differently. From paying contributors to making access more universal. Find out why he thinks this overhaul us needed on the WP Tavern Jukebox podcast...

On the podcast today we have three guests… Dave Smith, Isabel Brison and Joen Asmussen. They’re all employed by Automattic, and recently they’ve been working on the new Navigation Block. Find out what it is and how it's going to alter the way that you create your WordPress menus.

On the podcast today we have Chris Lubkert and Rich Tabor, from Extendify. Extendify is a library of block patterns and full page layouts which you can use inside of the Block Editor. Chris and Rich, as you will hear, decided a few years ago that they were going to dedicate themselves to working with blocks. They each had their own projects, but Rich recently joined the team because his vision aligned well with Chris’. That vision is to provide designs which you can import directly into WordPress with just a few clicks. From there you can edit them in your own way. And that’s the thrust of the podcast today. What is Extendify? How does it work? What can you achieve with it? What do they plan to build in the future?

On the podcast today we have Amber Hinds. We talk about what online accessibility means, and how it ought to influence any website build. We consider the situations people who need an accessible website might find themselves in. What are they experiencing as they browse the web and what tools are they using? What tools can you use to help in this endeavour, and what tools you might want to avoid?

Blocks are the future of WordPress. They offer an easy way to create content and display it on your website in interesting ways. The only problem is that, although they are easy to use, blocks are hard to create. There's a fairly high level of technical concepts and processes which you need to master if you're going to start building your own blocks. Unless of course you can find a block builder plugin like the one that today's guest, Vinny McKee, has created. In the podcast we learn about why Vinny built the plugin, as well as how it works. What problems does it overcome, and are there any limitations to what you can build?

On the podcast today we have something new. Until now I’ve interviewed one person at a time, but today there’s three people on the call, Birgit Pauli-Haack, Marcus Kazmierczak and Zack Krida. So WordPress 5.9 is just around the corner. Initially scheduled for release in December 2021, it has now been pushed back until January 2022. There's a lot in this release, most notably Full Site Editing and we chat through the highlights. The we move on to talk about Openverse, which is a search engine for openly-licensed media. We get into how media is licensed and why this project is a good fit for WordPress, and we round off with some thoughts on how it will integrate with the Block Editor in the future.

On the podcast today we have Tara King. Tara has recently begun working for Automattic in developer relations, and it’s an important role within the WordPress community. Tara will lead a newly formed team who will get out and about; trying to understand the pain points which people are having with the new editor and full site editing. They will then report this back to the developer and contributor teams, and hopefully establish a feedback loop to make the editor better. They are also creating blogs, podcasts, courses and many other content to help people get up to speed, and perhaps use, or better understand, the Block Editor. If you're interested in, or concerned about, Gutenberg, then have a listen to Tara on the podcast.

On the Jukebox podcast today we have Lee Shadle. Lee is a WordPress developer at WP Draft, and by his own admission is obsessed with building block based themes, plugins and websites. He’s been using WordPress for many years and as soon as the Gutenberg project was announced, he decided he was going to explore it and learn how it worked. We talk about what he has been building with blocks and why he thinks that they represent a bright future for WordPress. For Lee, it's about the extra capabilities which they bring for end users. We discuss the difficulties developers face learning new skills, and how Lee overcame this. Have a listen to Lee Shadle on the podcast.

On the Jukebox podcast today we have Ajit Bohra. He's a full stack developer based in Mumbai, India. He's been working with, and committing to, WordPress for many years. We cover three main topics in this podcast. First a conversation about his thoughts on Gutenberg. Then we discuss Full Site Editing and how it will change WordPress for non-technical users. We finish off chatting about how React development is becoming increasing important for WordPress development.

On the Jukebox podcast today we have Cory Miller and he's here to talk about the WordPress Mergers and Acquisitions Landscape. Recently there's been a uptick in the number of companies being bought. But what do we make of all this? It is a good thing, showing that the WordPress economy is thriving, or should we be concerned that a few big players are buying so many things? Find out what we think on the podcast.

On the podcast today we have Robert Jacobi. Robert is Director of WordPress at Cloudways. He’s been working with open source software for almost twenty years and so today we have a broad discussion about his 'Gutenberg First' approach as well as how the project is evolving. We also chat about WordPress events and Openverse.

On the podcast today we have Dan Maby. Dan has been a user of WordPress for many years. As an agency owner he’s used it to build client websites, but, as is so often the case, he came for the software and got caught up in the community. We talk about the importance of the community for Dan and the WordPress project as a whole, and how Dan has set up online events like WordFest to keep people connected. Listen now.

So today on the WP Tavern Jukebox podcast we're talking to Benjamin Intal from Stackable, which is suite of WordPress blocks. We talk about why he's betting his business on blocks and how the company have evolved their product line over the last three years. From a period in which the adoption of blocks was uncertain to now, in which blocks appear to be gaining more momentum. What problems did they encounter along the way and how they iterated their offering. Listen now.

In this, the second episode of the WP Tavern Jukebox podcast, we talk to Anne McCarthy. Anne is Developer Relations Wrangler for Automattic. Her work is focussed on the WordPress.org space, and she is leading the Full Site Editing Outreach Program. She explains what Full Site Editing in WordPress is all about. Why it's needed, what it hopes to achieve and how you can get involved to shape the direction of the project.

In this, the first episode of the WP Tavern Jukebox podcast, we talk to Josepha Haden Chomphosy. She is the Executive Director of the WordPress project, and discusses WordPress' past, present and future. We talk about how WordPress has changed over time and what needs to be considered in the future, to keep the community engaged.