Create Block Theme is a useful plugin that lets you save your customizations of a block theme as a child theme or as a new stand-alone block theme. A new version of the plugin was recently released and this article explores the new features.

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.

Here is a nice video by Paul Charlton showing how to create image effects using image masks. The tutorial uses the Bricks Builder, but the concepts apply for any builder.

This is Noel Tock’s presentation at WordCamp Asia. Noel works for Human Made, a top tier agency focusing on enterprise solutions. The first half of the presentation is an eye-opener and must watch if you are interested in WordPress market share.

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.

An interesting list of steps and code for better securing a WordPress site from a WordPress veteran.

When working with WooCommerce we often need some demo data. Katie Keith of Barn2 mentions two sources for Woo demo data sets.