WP Builds Newsletter #57 - Gutenberg mandatory, evil plugins and stand up more

This weeks WordPress news - Covering The Week Commencing 1st April 2019:

WordPress Core

WordPress 5.2 to Make Gutenberg Block Editor Use Mandatory for All WordPress Sites
"Since its initial release in WordPress 5.0, WordPress fans have used the new Gutenberg block editor to publish billions of posts on millions of websites. Third-party developers have also latched onto that success to create hundreds of plugins and themes that further build on the power of Gutenberg..."

Minimum PHP Version update
"Beginning in WordPress 5.1, users running PHP versions below 5.6 have had a notification in their dashboard that includes information to help them update PHP. Since then, the WordPress stats have shown an increase in users on more recent versions of PHP..."

Security

Pipdig Update: Dishonest Denials, Erased Evidence, and Ongoing Offenses
"In the days since we published that report, Pipdig has taken a series of increasingly questionable steps in their attempts to mitigate the fallout of their actions. Their team has issued baseless accusations that facts have been fabricated, collusion between their competitors had taken place, and that no wrongdoing of any sort had occurred..."

WordPress says iOS app bug exposed account tokens to third parties
"WordPress said it has fixed a bug in its iOS app that inadvertently exposed account tokens to third-party sites..."

Malware Campaigns Sharing Network Resources: r00ts.ninja
"We recently noticed an interesting example of network infrastructure resources being used over a period of time by more than one large scale malware campaign (e.g redirected traffic, cryptomining). This was discovered when reviewing sources of the various malicious domains used in a recent WordPress plugin exploit wave..."

Community

Automattic Launches Happy Tools Product Line for Distributed Teams
"Automattic has released Happy Schedule, the first in a new line of products called “Happy Tools,” created to solve problems for distributed teams. The products have grown out of internal tools that Automattic uses with its distributed team of more than 850 employees in 68 countries..."

WordCamp Asia Proposed for 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand
"The organizers of WordCamp Asia, a brand new regional WordCamp, have published a proposal for making Bangkok, Thailand, the host city for a 2-3 day event in early 2020. They are currently planning for February or March to avoid clashing with other regional WordCamps (WCEU, WCUS). The camp has been informally discussed since 2015 while organizers focused on growing new city-based WordCamps across the region..."

Plugins

ProjectHuddle 3.2.0 Beta
"We are just wrapping on a slew of new features coming soon to ProjectHuddle! Here’s a summary of what’s in store: PDF Support, Multi-page PDFs, Zero Configuration, Versions Support, Mix PDFs and Images..."

Brizy - Keyboard Shortcuts are Here
"Starting today you’ll be creating client websites with Brizy even faster if that’s possible. We’ve added a bunch of keyboard shortcuts that will improve the speed you work with Brizy and make your life much easier when it comes to copy-pasting styles, duplicating content and more..."

Beaver Builder Updates
"Check out what's new with Beaver Builder..."

Introducing Tour feature in the Hotspot module for Beaver Builder!
"Imagine you are Interior Designer and have wonderful case studies that you want to showcase on your site. Let’s say you have designed this beautiful interior for the hall and highlight every part of it along with some lines of information..."

Performance Improvements in WooCommerce 3.6 to Speed Up Stores
"Alongside the new product blocks available in WooCommerce 3.6, we made a series of performance improvements in the front and back end to speed up performance..."
and this article...

Jetpack Is Promoting Paid Upgrades on Plugin Search Screen, WordPress Plugin Team Says it “May be a Violation” of Directory Guidelines
"Yesterday the discussion surrounding Jetpack’s implementation of feature suggestions in the plugin search screen became heated after developers pointed out that Automattic is also using these suggestions to promote paid upgrades. You can test this by searching for “backups” where you find that Jetpack’s commercial offering takes the place of the first result, pushing all other results further down one slot..."

WP Builds

Is our marketing all wrong?
"When you sell your WordPress websites to your clients, do you push the logical or the emotional? Do you talk about technical details or how easy and beautiful it will be? It’s so easy to go down the route of the technical details, the SEO and caching that you’ll put in place – this will all be good, but maybe your clients want to hear about cool it’s going to look and how it’s going to make people stop and marvel at the design. David has a problem and we try to solve it…"

How Lifter LMS and WordPress can power your online course
"Have you ever wanted to launch your own online course? You’ve got something that you want to share with the world but did not know how to get started? In this live webinar replay the founder and CEO of LifterLMS will show you how you can use WordPress (the #1 system on the planet for creating websites) and LifterLMS to do just that..."

Not WordPress, but useful anyway...

Take your passwords everywhere - Firefox Lockbox
New password manager from Firefox

Sitting down for too long may be causing 70,000 UK deaths a year
"Extended sitting or lying down in daytime increases risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer – and costs NHS £700m – says study..."