Bricks 1.9.8 beta has been released. Some of the features of the new version include a CSS Variables Manager, support for dynamic data in the Code Element, the ability to duplicate pages and templates, and the yellow dot notification helper when there is a change has been added to the Style Tab and Breakpoint Settings Indicator.

Many plugins add rows to the WordPress options table that are set to auto-load. On old sites where a lot of plugins have been installed/uninstalled there can be orphaned options set that are still being loaded, even when no longer needed. This plugin, named AAA Options Optimizer, helps to address that issue.

Advanced Custom Fields wins the Torque Plugin Madness competition for the third time. Congrats to the ACF team.

Automattic has changed the JetPack Stats feature from free to paid. It is always unhappy when a freemium product claws back features that were free to add them to the pro version. According to Davinder Singh Kainth’s newsletter, the WP Weekly, users are submitting 1 star reviews on WP org in protest.

WordPress core – There is a proposal to add the ability to rollback from plugin auto-updates. This looks useful and might encourage the use of the plugin auto-update feature.

Stuart Carbery of the Dollie team asked that I share their announcement about a partnership with Atarim. It looks like a good opportunity for synergy.

The latest version of Meta Box adds support for registering Gutenberg blocks using block.json, as recommended. If you use the Meta Box Builder it will create the JSON file for you.

Congratulations to the Spectra team for reaching the 700,000 active install milestone.

The topic of WordPress security is timely. WordPress 6.5.2 is a security and fix release just dropped.