NetON Melbourne

Category: Wordpress

  • Great new features of WordPress 5.5

    Great new features of WordPress 5.5

    Welcome to the second major WordPress update of the year! As expected, WordPress 5.5 has released and is now available. Our WordPress team have been busy testing all the new features and developments on this release and have complied a list of new enhancements available on this Major Release.

    Released less than 5 months after the 5.4 version updates, WordPress is coming in again with some hot new features that are mostly focused on aligning with their goals to make the block editor better and better. Let’s take a look at the most notable changes that are in the update quickly! It’s great to see Automattic understand that there is a lot of work required for the block editor and move towards fixing that in the last year.

    Summary:

    If you don’t want to read the whole lot, here is a quick summary

    Core updates

    • You can now enable auto plugin updates

    GUI Improvements

    • A lot of improvements to the block editor/Gutenberg editor making it easy for non-experienced WordPress users to use the block editor.
    • Block editor plugins library so that you can add all sorts of new blocks
    • Inline image editing capability in the editor WYSIWYG view itself

    Customisation updates

    • You can preview how the site looks on desktops, mobile and tablets

    SEO Updates

    • Native Lazy Loading , so images load only when you scroll to them
    • Native XML Sitemaps functionality (finally!!)

    We are excited to uncover the hood and look at all the new fancy engine upgrades on this release 🙂  Lets jump into it.

    Block Editor Improvements

    The block editor aka Gutenberg has come a long way ever since it was introduced back in 2018 with WordPress 5.0, and they’re not yet done improving the feature to make it more user-friendly and convenient for everyone to use.

    But what kind of improvements are in 5.5?

    Improved User Interface

    Good UI (User interface) is a must for CMS. That said, I can count numerous CMSes who are still stuck with a single WYSIWYG box. hmm…. That’s why with every update, WordPress is trying to make the block editor look and feel much greater than the previous version. This update is no different. In this update, they added some changes such as borders and focus highlights when moving across blocks. You will also notice that they changed the way the “+” button looks.

    Initially while the block editor was good for WordPress developers and experienced WordPress users, the new updates make it easy for the average user to use the block editor easily.

    Introducing Block Directory

    When we say WordPress wants you to have the most convenient experience in their platform, we mean it.

    The block directory will be including searchable plug-ins that you might want to use for your designing needs and definitely makes the whole process faster.

    Easier Block Movements

    Say goodbye to Gutenberg’s hideous up and down arrows.

    No more having a hard time moving your blocks as WordPress 5.5 makes that much, much easier by finally allowing you to drag-and-drop your blocks inside the content editor.

    You can even set a “parent block” and select multiple blocks at once!

    Introducing Block Patterns

    Block patterns are pre-made blocks that helps you design your page instantly within just a few clicks.

    WordPress already added a couple of default block patterns in the editor with 5.5, but we can’t wait for the options to grow as developers catch up with this awesome, new feature!

    Inline Image Editing

    Before the WordPress 5.5 update, you have to go to the media library first before you can crop, rotate, resize, and etc. your images.

    With the new update, you no longer have to leave the editor to make such changes!

    Desktop, Mobile, Tablet Preview

    WordPress 5.5 gives you a faster way to see how your pages are going to look like on desktop, mobile, and tablet by allowing you to preview them through the editor.

    No more having to go through different devices just to see if your design is mobile or tablet friendly!

    Auto Updates for Themes & Plug-Ins

    WordPress 5.5 gives you a new update management system!

    By going to the admin dashboard, you may now allow WordPress to automatically update your themes & plug-ins for you.

    This is perfect for those who don’t mind not knowing what changes are going to be made to their themes and plug-ins after it updates as it will be much more convenient, especially for those who use A LOT of plug-ins.

    But for those people who want to read about the updates first, it’s great that this is only an option that you can turn off anytime you want.

    Native XML Sitemaps

    Finally!

    WordPress is finally eliminating the need for you to use plug-ins in order to have an XML Sitemap ready for your SEO needs in the 5.5 update by providing you native sitemaps! WordPress started making these changes after receiving feedback from Google.

    If you don’t know what XML Sitemaps are, they are essentially just XML format files that contain a list of URLs in your page that makes it easier for Google’s bots to crawl through your content. This gives you better visibility.

    Native Lazy Loading

    The updates keep on coming with this latest release. If you’re big on SEO, you want your pages to load fast because Google and other search engines value that a lot for optimum user experience.

    However, the majority of the times, you need to enhance your pages using images, and that actually makes your pages load slower.

    Lazy loading, it helps solve that problem by only loading the images that are currently visible on the viewer’s screen and loading the others later once the user scrolls up/down or swipes right/left.

    In this update, WordPress finally gives us native lazy loading! Yay!

    Changes for Developers

    WordPress 5.5 allows developers to test out a lot of new things for their own themes, plug-ins, and etc. But the most notable updates involve the following:

    • Developers will be allowed to control the auto-updates for their themes and plug-ins.
    • New external libraries such as phpMailer, Simplepie, Tweemoji, Masonry, and etc.
    • 65 new dash icons
    • Improved PHP compatibility issue scanning

    WordPress 5.5 Demo website

    We love checking out all the new features before a major release. We keep an up to date demo site with the latest (sometimes even nightly builds) of WordPress that you are welcome to have a look at. Click here to view WordPress Demo site“. Please ask us for a username/password to test the site. This will let you test run all the new features without putting your live website at risk.

    NetON WordPress development services

    Neton is your go to team for any WordPress development services in Australia. Our team is constantly working on WordPress website development, WordPress Design, WordPress Hosting, Strengthening WordPress Security, running SEO Optimisation on WordPress Websites and upgrading Core and WordPress Plugins.

    Whether you are starting a small blog or an enterprise fortune 500 company, we can help build and maintain your WordPress website for the best results online.

    Our WordPress websites are customised based on your business and you requirements. We have built large scale eCommerce websites, traffic generating/ad revenue websites, community building websites, Business 2 Business Websites and Business 2 Customers website. All of them are completely different in their lead generation and revenue models. Please contact us for more details on our WordPress Services.

  • New Features of WordPress 5.4

    New Features of WordPress 5.4

    WordPress is an open-source content management system that was originally created for blog publishing, but has since evolved into supporting various types of web content, and is still continuously evolving. It’s latest version, WordPress 5.4, is named “Adderly” after the trumpet playing musician, Nat Adderly, as WordPress has a tradition of naming versions after Jazz musicians. It was released on March 31, 2020, and is the first major update of WordPress in 2020.

    Currently, WordPress is on a “development freeze,” which means there are no new features introduced to the editor but they are consistently improving existing features. In this release, a lot of the improvements focus on their content editor, mainly the block editor. “Every major release adds more to the block editor,” WordPress states.

    New Blocks

    WordPress 5.4 introduces two new blocks to their block editor.

    1. Social Media Icons Block

    You’re now allowed to add social media widgets to your posts. These widgets will allow your visitors to click on the logo of a certain social network’s site from your post and redirect them to your social media page. However, to allow your visitors to share your post into a social media site, you will still need a plug-in.

    2. From Button to Buttons (with an “S”) Block

    As the name change suggests, the previous button block is now in plural form. This improvement allows you to create buttons inside the same block, side by side! Now all you have to do is adjust the buttons’ colors, size, input links, and you’re good to go.

    New Color Options for Multiple Blocks

    WordPress 5.4 gives you new color options for multiple blocks, allowing you to pick gradients for the buttons and cover block, toolbar access to color options in the rich text blocks, and color options in the group and columns block.

    New Block Selection Tool

    Have you ever nested blocks inside a group block and had a hard time reselecting a certain block? If so, your life just became easier. There is now a button in the toolbar that allows you to easily select blocks. Just by clicking on this tool called the “select” tool, and clicking on the block that you would like to select.

    Default Full Screen

    With the ability to focus on your content more in mind, WordPress 5.4 sets your screen on fullscreen mode by default. You may click on the “W” icon in the upper left corner of your screen to reveal the admin area, but if you want to switch off the default fullscreen setting, you have to go to the editor settings and uncheck the “fullscreen mode” option.

    Featured Images and Gallery Block Images Improvements

    Just drag and drop your images to the “featured images” section, and instantly add your photo there. No need to manually upload them anymore. On top of that, you can now select the size of your images in the gallery block directly from the gallery block settings!

    Latest Posts Block Improvement

    The latest post block now includes “featured images,” which makes the block more appealing! You may choose to rearrange the images’ alignment and size.

    Clearer Interface and Easier Navigation

    You may now see which block you’re in very easily and quickly because of block breadcrumbs. The “tips” are also gone and has been replaced by a “welcome guide” that you may bring up only when you need it. Your screen reader now also tells you if you are in edit or navigation mode. Because of these new improvements, WordPress says that loading is now faster by 14% and typing by 51%.

    Better Mobile Editing

    Mobile editing in the WordPress app is now easier, with the toolbar placed on top, fixing the previous issue where it was hard to edit using the mobile app.

    Tiktok Videos

    With the rise of the mobile app Tiktok, WordPress 5.4 now allows you to embed Tiktok videos to your posts. Although now, CollegeHumor is gone. 🙁

    Privacy Improvements

    • Personal data exports now include users’ session information and users’ information. This may be found in the community events widget
    • You may now see progress as you process export and erasure requests
    • Privacy tools now have a newly improved, cleaner look

    Developer Improvements

    • Developers can now add custom fields to menu items.
    • Keyboard shortcuts may now be added to the block editor.
    • Two new APIs: block variations and gradients
    • Simpler block styling

    NetON WordPress development services

    The WordPress development team at NetON has built 100s of WordPress websites for clients in Australia and overseas.

    Our team is constantly working on WordPress website development, WordPress Design, WordPress Hosting, Strengthening WordPress Security, running SEO Optimisation on WordPress Websites and upgrading Core and WordPress Plugins.

    Whether you are starting a small blog or an enterprise fortune 500 company, we can help build and maintain your WordPress website for the best results online.

    Our WordPress websites are customised based on your busines and you requirments. We have built large scale eCommerce websites, traffic generating/ad revenue websites, community building websites, Business 2 Business Websites and Business 2 Customers website. All of them are completely different in their lead generation and revenue models.

    Please contact us for more details on our services.

    Our contact details are on the Contact Us Page.

    WordPress Demo Website

    Want to try out all the new features :).  We keep an upto date demo site with the latest (sometimes even nightly builds) of WordPress that you are welcome to have a look at.

    Click here to view WordPress Demo site

    Please ask us for a username/password to test the site. This will let you test run all the new features without putting your live website at risk.

  • WordPress 5.2 has just dropped with more security than you can shake a stick at

    WordPress 5.2 has just dropped with more security than you can shake a stick at

    WordPress 5.2 has just dropped :). This is a major security release for WordPress and needs to be rolled out to all sites immediately. The new release is named “Jaco” in honour of renowned and revolutionary Jazz bassist Jaco Pastorious.  If you want to listen to Jaco, please find a video at the end of this post to listen to while we work on updating your site 🙂

    Our team will be working on making sure your site is up to date with the new security release and making your WordPress website secure. You and your team will be notified when the upgrade is complete.

    This Security Release version focuses on Making WordPress more secure from malware and attacks while helping you run it error-free.

    We are really excited about all the new security features that web designers have been waiting years for on this Security Release.

    In this post, we will look at what’s new in WordPress 5.2, and which features you should notice or play around with after updating to this version.

    To view all the updates, bug fixes and new features included in this new version, please visit on over here.

    Lets find out what new features are available in WordPress 5.2.

    Whats new in WordPress 5.2?

    This latest update of the most popular website CMS in the world comes with the following features:

    Site Health Check

    Site Health Check feature has had an update from the previous version and now has two new pages to help debug most configuration issues in WordPress. These new pages give you site status and recommendations as well as overall info on your site which includes directories, drop-ins, active themes, themes, plugins, media handling, server, database, wordpress constants and filesystem permissions.

    WordPress Site health check

    WordPress site health info

    PHP Error Protection

    This update builds up on previous error protection and allows an administrator or developer to safely fix 500 errors or “white screen of deaths”. This update also bring the recovery mode which allows you to log in without plugins/themes.

    Minimum PHP version

    With WordPress 5.2, the minimum php requirement is now 5.6.20. Using a later version of php makes your site safer and faster. So please make sure that your PHP is upgraded before you run this update.

    Other updates

    There are a host of other updates mostly focused on developers and making it easy for them to develop your site easier such as a new theme page template, a conditional function, two css classes, a new body hook (wpbodyopen) and addition of webpack and babel configurations under scripts.

    About WordPress

    WordPress is the most popular website CMS in the world. The latest version of WordPress has been downloaded more than 50 million times. Did you know that 60% of all CMS run websites run on WordPress.

    NetON WordPress Security Release Update Policy

    WordPress security is one of the most important considerations for us. We want to make sure that your WordPress website is safe, malware free and attack-resistant. The NetON team will immediately update your WordPress website installation on our hosting as we do with any Security Release.

    The new Security Release 5.2 of WordPress makes your site safer and faster. If your WordPress site is not hosted with us, you should upgrade your PHP asap and update your WordPress to the latest version.

    NetON WordPress development services

    NetON is proud to provide a 360 degree solution of WordPress development in both Melbourne and Sydney Australia.

    We offer WordPress Website Development, WordPress Website Design, WordPress Website Hosting, WordPress security, Maintenance, WordPress SEO Optimisation and Upgrades.

    Whether you are starting a small blog or an enterprise fortune 500 company, we can help build and maintain your WordPress website for the best results online.

    Our WordPress websites are customised based on your busines and you requirments. We have built large scale eCommerce websites, traffic generating/ad revenue websites, community building websites, Business 2 Business Websites and Business 2 Customers website. All of them are completely different in their lead generation and revenue models.

    Please reach out to one of NetON’s Account Managers for more of our services.

    Our contact details are on the Contact Us Page.

    WordPress 5.2 Demo website

    Want to try out all the new features :).

    NetON maintains and upto date demo site of the latest version of WordPress that you can browse through.

    Click here to view WordPress Demo site“.

    Please ask us for a username/password to test the site. This will let you test run all the new features without putting your live website at risk.

    And here is a tune from Jaco Pastorius to listen to while we are updating your site:

  • WordPress 5.2 Beta Released, whats coming in WordPress 5.2?

    WordPress 5.2 Beta Released, whats coming in WordPress 5.2?

    The newest Beta Release for the most popular website CMS in the world is expected to be released this month. We have been following the release notes and development of 5.2 closely and have listed the new features and development here.

    WordPress 5.2 comes with a number of new features as listed below and focuses on fixing existing bugs and introducing some new features to the block editor.

    This article will feature all the features and screenshots of WordPress 5.2. We are really excited about all the bug fixes on the Gutenberg editor, allowing admins to login in case of site errors and all the speed improvements on this Beta Release.

    Please note that WordPress 5.2 is still in development. Not all features and enhancements listed below are guaranteed to make it in the final version.

    What new features are coming up in WordPress 5.2?

    This latest update of the most popular website CMS in the world comes with the following features:

    Updates to the Gutenberg/Block Editor

    WordPress Block Editor, Gutenberg has been adding a lot of improvements and fixing a lot of the niggling bugs over the past few months and we feel like its come to the point where its fully usable. Here are the new updates to the Block editor

    • 35% faster load time for larger posts and 100% faster keypress time
    • Addition of 5 new blocks, Rss for displaying rss feeds, Amazon Kindle embed block, Search Block, Calendar block for displaying calendars and a tag cloud block for displaying tag clouds
    • Allowing hiding blocks using the block manager. This allows you to hide the blocks you don’t usually use.
    • Block editor is also coming to the WordPress mobile app to allow you to make changes easily from your mobile devices

    Fatal Error Protection

    If there is a fatal error on the website now, WordPress will pause the error and send a link to the admin allowing them to log into the backend and fix the issue. This is a very welcome feature and will help out a lot of web devs because logging into FTP was a massive pain and would take a lot of effort.

    Please note that you will need minimum PHP version 5.6 to run WordPress 5.2 website. So this is the best time to upgrade your PHP before WordPress 5.2 becomes available later this month.

    About WordPress

    WordPress is arguably the most powerful blogging and website content management system (or CMS) in existence today. 60% of all CMS run websites run on WordPress.

    NetON WordPress Beta Release Update Policy

    Our team will not be updating your WordPress site with this version until it is released. Please read through this post to see what is coming to WordPress, however noting that the final version may be slightly different from the Beta Release.

    Please note that the NetON team won’t be updating your website with this version because this is not a final version. We will update your installation when the full production version is released.

    NetON WordPress development services

    NetON is proud to provide a 360 degree solution of WordPress development in both Melbourne and Sydney Australia. We offer WordPress Website Development, WordPress Website Design, WordPress Website Hosting, WordPress security, Maintenance, WordPress SEO Optimisation and Upgrades.

    Our team has worked with small to enterprise companies in creating, managing and running successful WordPress websites in Australia and around the world. Our WordPress websites are customised based on your busines and you requirments. We have built large scale eCommerce websites, traffic generating/ad revenue websites, community building websites, Business 2 Business Websites and Business 2 Customers website. All of them are completely different in their lead generation and revenue models.

    Please reach out to one of NetON’s Account Managers for more of our services.Please use the contact details on our Contact Us Page.

    WordPress5.2 Demo website

    We love checking out all the new features before a major release. We keep an upto date demo site with the latest (sometimes even nightly builds) of WordPress that you are welcome to have a look at.

    Click here to view WordPress Demo site.

    Please ask us for a username/password to test the site. This will let you test run all the new features without putting your live website at risk.

  • Whats new in WordPress 5

    Whats new in WordPress 5

    Each major version of WordPress comes with tons of new features and updates. WordPress 5 comes with one huge change since the original release of WordPress. A new and updated shiny editor: Gutenberg Editor. The story of WordPress 5 starts and ends with the new block based Gutenberg editor.

    We are not talking about the German Inventor, or the free eBook library (which is fantastic by the way). We are talking about the new editor that comes shipped with WordPress 5 (although we believe that it is named after the German guy). Gutenberg editor brings a complete re-imagination and redesign of the WordPress editor. It is expected to change the way we create and deliver our content. It also goes beyond just being an editor and becomes a customiser allowing you to set layouts and add complex components.

    Unfortunately, with big changes comes heaps of rebuilding work. It is hard to accept that a refined platform such as WordPress has to adapt to the ever changing internet space. Without innovation, everything loses its crown. Gutenberg editor is a massive leap forward and there are still more updates coming to make it even better.

    Yes there are flaws to the editor and the release was rushed, but it offers a solid base to build upon.

    The Gutenberg Editor

    We have already covered most of the features of Gutenberg in our earlier post. Gutenberg provides everyone an improved page building and editing experience. With new updates, new functionalities and shortcodes will be introduced along with it. Plugins that are not currently compatible with the editor, will need an update. New Gutenberg-friendly themes will flood the themes market designed to accommodate the new features.

    For more information on the Gutenberg Editor, please view our earlier post WordPress 5 Beta and Guterberg Editor Features

    Twenty Nineteen (2019) – the new WordPress Theme

    WordPress 5 also comes with the latest new theme -Twenty Nineteen. The latest theme is a minimal, responsive theme built on the Gutenberg editor. The focus is on typography and showcasing text and image combinations that loop a visitor into the site. We will be utilising all the blocks and combination of Gutenberg in our demo site (link down below). It will be on the Twenty Nineteen theme as well for you to test out and check.

    Major Changes to Expect

    Putting Gutenberg aside, WordPress 5 bring a more intuitive site-building experience. Because of the old classic editor, there has been a lot of website builders and hosted platforms cutting into WordPress’s market share. With 5, WordPress shoule improve improve the site-building functionality and stay ahead.

    Also the ever improving Rest API will help developers create applications using the platform as a framework.

    Theme creation will also be made easier and accessible, with lower barriers to entry for developers.

    Parting thoughts on WordPress 5

    While it doesn’t seem like there is a lot of changes on WordPress 5, if we look over the last year, the platform has really changed a lot. Since version 4, there has been market changes, widget updates, customiser, scheduling design changes etc.

    While these changes are incremental, the plaform has improved a lot in the last year. The latest release has finally tackled the main issue it had: the rise of website builder plugins which slow down your site and cause a lot of bloating. The new WordPress 5 is a lean and healthy whole-website which does all the customisation by itself.

    How to upgrade from WordPress 4

    If you have a WordPress 4 website, you will need to be slightly careful when upgrading to WordPress 5. Depending on how complex your website is, we reocmmend one of two ways below

    1. If your website doesn’t have eCommerce, website builders and doesn’t have complex layout pages, then please install the Gutenberg editor first, change all the pages over to the new Editor then upgrade the platform.
    2. If your website has eCommerce, external website builders and/or complex layout pages, please wait a bit for all the plugins to update compatibility to the new version of WordPress. Please check all the plugins in the backend to make sure they work with thew new version of WordPress and then run an upgrade on a staging site. If everything works fine on the staging site, run an upgrade on your main site.

    About WordPress

    WordPress is arguably the most powerful blogging and website content management system (or CMS) in existence today. The latest version of WordPress has been downloaded more than 30 million times. 60% of all CMS run websites run on WordPress.

    WordPress 5 Demo website

    NetON maintains and upto date demo site of the latest version of WordPress that you can browse through. Click here to view WordPress Demo Site

    WordPress Development Services

    Neton is your go to team for any WordPress development services in Australia. Our team is constantly working on Website Development, UX/UI, Design, Hosting, Strengthening Security, running SEO OPtimisation on Websites and upgrading Core and Plugins. Whether you are starting a small blog or an enterprise fortune 500 company, we can help build and maintain your website for the best results online. If you have any questions, or if you need a quote, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Please call us or email us on the details on our Contact Us page.

  • WordPress 5 Beta 1 Release and Features

    WordPress 5 Beta 1 Release and Features

    The newest Major Release for the most popular website CMS in the world WordPress is almost here with the latest release of WordPress 5 Beta 1. The newest version is a Beta Release and is  for the next major version 5 which is due sometime later this year. This release is aimed at bringing major changes and upgrades to the WordPress CMS. WordPress 5 Beta 1 comes with a number of new features as listed below and focuses on bringing major changes and upgrades to the WordPress CMS. We are really excited about the new shiny Gutenberg WYSIWYG editor on this Beta Release.

    Whats new in WordPress 5 Beta 1?

    This latest update of the most popular website CMS in the world comes with the following features:

    A new shiny Gutenberg WYSIWYG editor

    This beta release of WordPress 5 come with the shiny new Gutenberg WYSIWYG editor. This editor will eventually replace the current classic WYSIWYG editor that WordPress currently has. Here is a comparison of the two editors.

    New Gutenberg Editor
    Classic Editor

    While Gutenberg editor has had it’s fair share of criticism, we love it here. It’s still a big buggy but its smooth, fast and does the basics.  We are using the Gutenberg editor to write this post. 

    Features of Gutenberg Editor

    Gutenberg has a number of features which make it easier for developers and website owners/marketing users. 

    • Utilising Gutenberg means that you are using less plugins.  So plugins for tables/ columns and page builders can now be removed completely because Gutenberg editor handles that for you.
    • Gutenberg is more user friendly. Yes it takes a few tries to get your head around it but once it’s done its very easy to use
    • The bugs that are there currently will get ironed out over time and it will work exactly as expected
    • Gutenberg uses blocks allowing you to modularise your content and use different types of contents in different blocks. The available blocks are listed below.
    • Gutenberg uses layout elements so that putting things side by side is a piece of cake. Also what you see in your screen is most likely how it will display to a user as well. 

    Available Gutenberg Blocks

    • Paragraph block – For normal text
    • Heading block – For article and paragraph headings
    • Subheading block – For Subheadings
    • Quote Block – For setting up quotes
    • Image Block – For showing images by themselves
    • Gallery Block – To show multiple images and gallery
    • Cover Image block – To show a bigger image that covers the whole area
    • Video Block – To show videos
    • Audio Block – To show and embed audio files
    • Columns Block – To show multiple columns in the same row for layout
    • File Block – For file downloads, links and embeds
    • Code Block – To work on html code separately
    • List Block – To show a ordered or unordered bullet list
    • Button Block – To show buttons and call to actions
    • Embed Block – To show embedded code
    • Plus more block coming up…

    A brand new Twenty Nineteen theme

    With this new release comes the long awaited new Twenty Nineteen theme. This theme has been built to showcase the Gutenberg editor and we are a bit disappointed that this looks very similar to the previous theme. However we expect this theme to get better as WordPress 5 gets closer to release. 

    WordPress Demo Website

    Want to try out all the new features :).  We keep an upto date demo site with the latest (sometimes even nightly builds) of WordPress that you are welcome to have a look at. We have even installed the new theme so that you can check it out.  Click here to view WordPress Demo Site.

    About WordPress

    WordPress is arguably the most powerful blogging and website content management system (or CMS) in existence today. 30% of all new domains run on WordPress. 60% of all CMS run websites run on WordPress.

    NetON Beta Release Update Policy

    Beta releases of WordPress are good for testing by developers and not intended to be used on live websites. Please read through this post to see what is coming to WordPress, however noting that the final version may be slightly different from the Beta Release. Please note that the NetON team won’t be updating your website with this version because this is not a final version. We will update your installation when the full production version is released.

    NetON WordPress development services

    NetON offers a complete range of WordPress Services for Australian businesses. We are constantly working with our clients on WordPress Website Design, WordPress Development, Hosting, WordPress Security, SEO Optimisation for WordPress sites and upgrading Core WordPress and Plugins. We work with some of the smallest and the biggest companies in Australia and around the world and help them build and maintain their WordPress website to generate the best results for them. Please reach out to one of NetON’s Account Managers for more of our services. Please call us or email us on the details on our Contact Us page.

  • NetON Website Upgrade 2017

    NetON Website Upgrade 2017

    While we try and upgrade our site once every 6 months, we have been really busy this year with improving our client websites and rolling out a number of supplementary websites. The fact that Bootstrap 4 was out in Beta and we were still in Bootstrap 3 gave us the kick that we needed to start the transition. We were really happy with the look and feel of the site so we didn’t want any theme changes but we really wanted to make it easy to build templates, connect our Marketing Automation platform and make our pages look and work better. What we really want before the end of the year is a solid foundation for the next year where we can roll out a number of new products, market them effectively and integrate all the other systems that we have been building in the last 2 years.

    Bootstrap framework upgrade

    We have been building a very modular site since the beginning of the year where we have completely separated the data, the theme and the functionality of the site. So it was amazing to see all that come to fruition. The framework upgrade actually only took us a couple of minutes to complete,  collectively blowing our minds on the highs that website development has reached today.  In the past this would have been a few days at least for a website of our size and the components it has. Yes, some pages and templates didn’t work but 90% of the site and 95% of pages visited every day was functional and working straight out.

    Separation of Components

    One of the core changes we have been working on our site has been a separation of components. Similar to how a MVC system works, we have been trying to separate the skin and the functionality. While in the past this was all interconnected and an upgrade to the site meant separating them, rolling out the new site and then meshing them together again, we are now able to keep the functionality separate from the framework. This makes doing upgrades on our site a breeze.

    Better ways of displaying data

    We have also built a number of components to create better ways of displaying data. In the age where Google is king, our pages are expanding at the rate of our waists. So its time to trim them up by using gradients, boxes, icons and components that we can use from Bootstrap to make big amounts of content look more aesthetic and easily digestable.

    Breaking up with CSS and in bed with SASS

    As of this iteration, we are also fully running on SASS and ditching the age old CSS behind. We loved CSS but we were swayed by competition. SASS allows us to make styling changes to our website blazingly fast and with less code and less time. We want to reach a point where we can make fundamental theme changes and updates to the site in minutes and not hours.

    Integrated Marketing Automation

    This was probably the biggest thing we really wanted on this update. We have been setting up our Marketing Automation platform and we really wanted it to be fully integrated to our website. We are so excited that  full Marketing Automation integration is also complete on the site. This opens up a huge opportunity for us to now improve our website and our funnel.  Having the lead flow, lead follow up means that we can now focus on the top end of the funnel and let the mid and bottom end of the funnel work out by itself.

    Why talk about our site upgrade?

    As an agency, we feel like every time we upgrade our website, we learn and lot. What we learn from working on our website, we can start rolling them out to our customers. We thought that this post will be a good introduction to how we upgrade our sites and how we can help you with your site upgrade.  Please feel free to check out our WordPress Development page and our Marketing Automation pages for more information on our offerings.

     

  • WordPress 4.9 features and release candidate

    WordPress 4.9 features and release candidate

    The next Release Candidate for the the most used CMS in the world WordPress is almost at our doorstep with the release of WordPress 4.9. The newest version WordPress 4.9 is a Release Candidate and is due on 14 Nov 2017. This release is available with adding numerous improvements to the WordPress CMS. WordPress 4.9 comes with a number of new features as listed below: – all the new features to the Customizer, saving drafts of theme changes, new gallery widget, and coding enhancements

    What’s new in WordPress 4.9 Release Candidate?

    This latest update of the most used CMS in the world comes with the following featues:

    Draft and Schedule theme changes

    WordPress now allows you to draft and schedule changes to your theme as you would do with your pages and posts. So you can work on the customiser and make changes and try out how the theme of your site looks and save it as a draft. You can then come back and keep working on it until you are happy. When you are happy with your changes you can then publish the theme or you can schedule your theme to go live on a certain date and time. Imagine that you wanted to roll out a new skin for christmas, you can start working on the customiser now, make a few changes every week adn then when you are ready you can set your theme to go live on the 25th of December. How cool is that 🙂 You can also now use a frontend preview link to share the changes to a colleague or your boss without them having to log in to the system.

    Install Themes from the Customizer

    Another cool little feature that has been added is the ability to install themes from directly inside the Customizer. While not a new functionality, it came sometimes come handy 🙂

    Gallery Widget

    After last update where you can add video and media files as widgets in the Widgets area, WordPress update now allows you to add galleries from directly the widget area. Additionally you can also add a WYSIWYG text block as a widget. A small update to the Video widget also allows you to add Vimeo and other Video providers as a widget.

    Codemirror powered code editing

    If you are the type to make changes to the WP code from the backend itself, All WordPress code editors now ship with Codemirror making it easier to code and debug on the fly as you make the changes. Codemirror is now implemented on the CSS changes for the customizer and custom HTML widgets.

    NetON Release Candidate Update Policy

    This release of WordPress is a Release Candidate which means that this version of WordPress is still getting fine tuned and not ready for Production servers. Any Release Candidate of WordPress usually would have gone through extensive testing and is very close to the Final Release but some changes may occur when the final version comes out. Please note that Beta release of WordPress is not suitable for production websites, so our team will not be updating your site with this Release Candidate.

    About WordPress

    WordPress is arguably the most powerful blogging and website content management system (or CMS) in existence today. The latest version of WordPress has been downloaded more than 30 million times. 60% of all CMS run websites run on WordPress.

    NetON WordPress Development Services

    Neton is your go to team for any WordPress development services in Australia. Our team is constantly working on WordPress Website Development, WordPress Design, WordPress Hosting, Strengthening WordPress Security, running SEO OPtimisation on WordPress Websites and upgrading Core and WordPress Plugins. Whether you are starting a small blog or an enterprise fortune 500 company, we can help build and maintain your WordPress website for the best results online. If you have any questions, or if you need a quote, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Please call us or email us on the details on our Contact Us page.

    WordPress Demo Website

    NetON maintains and upto date demo site of the latest version of WordPress that you can browse through. Click here to view WordPress Demo Site

  • Why close comments on some WordPress sites

    Why close comments on some WordPress sites

    For a large number of smaller websites, we recommend closing off comments because of the amount of comment spam on WordPress. Usually unless you are a big B2C website or daily news, we don’t see any comments on websites, so its best to close off comments. We find that the effort required to filter through the comments is not worth the time to find the 1 comment once a month. Instead of comments we recommend having your contact us forms on key pages.

    Please be advised that even though comments are closed site wide, you can enforce some pages/posts to have comments functionality. Please reach out to us on instructions on how to enable comments for specific pages/posts.

  • WordPress 4 Updates and RoadMap

    WordPress 4 Updates and RoadMap

    WordPress 4.8 Main Features

    Widget updates

    WordPress 4.8 came with the ability to use 3 new widget types in your widgets. On top of the existing Text Widget, you can now use an Image, Video or an Audio widget on your sidebars. All you have to do is to click on add media and then select the media (image,video or audio) to showcase your media on your sidebars.

    WordPress 4.7 Main Features

    New TwentySeventeen theme

    WordPress 4.7 was the last major update for 2016 and came with a sweet new theme TwentySeventeen to focus on more Business Websites rather than personal blogs.

    Custom Post Types

    Something that all developers and content marketers were waiting for a long time, WordPress 4.7 came with the ability to have templates for blog posts/articles.

    WordPress 4.7 also came with a large number of moderate features such as

    • PDF Thumbnails in media library
    • Dashboards in different languages
    • Other developer updates

    WordPress 4.6 Main Features

    Plugin and Theme library enhancements

    With WordPress 4.6, you could now install a plugin or theme from the screen without leaving the current page, so all your themes and plugins could be installed from the grid layout using a progress bar.

    Visual Editor Updates

    A number of things were updated in the Visual Editor including the ability to highlight broken links.

    WordPress 4.6 Other Improvements

    • Enhanced Auto-save and Recovery
    • Better Import functionality

    WordPress 4.5 Main Features

    Improved Customizer

    WordPress 4.5 was a major update to the customizer allowing users to set the website logo directly from the customizer and enabling responsive previews from the Customizer itself.

    Other Updates

    • Improved favicons
    • Enhanced responsive image optimisation
    • Visual editor enhancements
    • You can now log into wordpress using your email

    WordPress 4.4 Main Features

    New Default TwentySixteen theme

    WordPress 4.6 codenamed “Clifford” came with the new Twenty Sixteen theme which featured a standard blog layout but worked like a good mix between a personal/corporate website incorporating a horizontal menu, larger image sizes, custom color options and widget areas at the bottom of pages/posts.

    Responsive images

    WordPress 4.4 also introduced improved image handling which meant that large images would load faster and will fit nicely in smaller screens.

    Other Improvements

    • Expanded embed capacity
    • REST API improvements
    • Developer improvements

    WordPress 4.3 Major Improvements

    Stronger Passwords

    WordPress 4.3 Billie came with a number of security features. The key feature being stronger passwords, where you are discouraged from using weak passwords using a strength meter.

    Comments off by default

    The other major update in this version was that comments were disabled by default to combat comment spam.

    Other Features

    • Updated Visual Editor
    • Set Website Favicons from customizer
    • Customizer updates

    WordPress 4.2 Features

    Customizer Updates

    WordPress 4.2 Customizer allowed you to update and preview themes on the fly from the customizer itself without activating them. So you could test out how your site will look without enabling the new theme.

    Faster Plugin Updates

    You can now update your plugins using ajax without leaving the plugins screen using a progress bar. This meant that you don’t have to wait for each plugin but click on all of them to update them at once.

    Other Updates

    • New Auto Embeds such as Tumblr or Kickstarter. Just copy and paste the link and WordPress will do the rest
    • Emoji support in WordPress
    • Under the Hood changes

    WordPress 4.1 Features

    New Default Twenty Fifteen Theme

    WordPress 4.1 released wit the new mobile first Twenty Fifteen theme, an elegant and clean blogging theme with a left sidebar.

    Other Improvements

    • Distraction free mode to help you create more content without getting distracted
    • Inline Image editing
    • Language packs
    • Plugins recommendations

     

  • WordPress 4.7 New Features

    WordPress 4.7 New Features

    As expected, WordPress 4.7 has shipped and is now available. Our team are very excited to work with whats new in this release. It is a Major Release of 2016, and comes with some exciting new features. In this post, we will look at what’s new in WordPress 4.7, and which features you should notice or play around with after updating to this version. To view all the updates, bug fixes and new features included in this new version, please visit on over to https://wordpress.org/news/category/releases/.

    We are most excited about the brand new TwentySeventeen Theme and enhancements to the customiser. (more details covered below)

    What’s new in WordPress 4.7 Major Release?

    This update is a really huge update for WordPress. While most of the updates seem to have happened on the new theme, this brings a new dimension in WordPress’es online domination of the Website market as well as pushes WordPress right into businesses and not just bloggers. This latest major update of the most used CMS in the world comes with the following featues:

    Brand new TwentySeventeen Theme

    The new WordPress ships with a new theme Twenty Seventeen.

    twentyseventeen

    The new theme has been specifically designed for businesses rather than blogs and is great for both small, medium and large busiensses. The new theme also comes with a large number of enhancements to make it easier for smaller businesses to setup such as

    • Generic starter content already populated that a customer can just go in and edit
    • Edit buttons on editable areas that you can click on and edit elements
    • Videos that can replace the big images on the front page or the header
    • Custom css that allows admin to make changes to the site quickly
    • Live preview of custom css
    • Ability to add pages directly from the Customiser and then update the pages later

    PDF Thumbnails

    A big feature that has been missing from WordPress has finally been  fixed. Now you can preview the thumbnails of your PDFs in the media library. Oh the hassle and time this feature will save 🙂

    Different language Dashboard

    You can now setup WordPress with multi lingual dashboards based on user preference.

    Post Type Templates

    Another huge update, allowing you to customise your posts in different templates.

    REST API endpoints

    Another huge update for Developers allowing them to use WordPress as a data repository and pull content from them. Currently it allows interaction with posts, comments, terms, users, meta and setttings.

    More Developer updates

    • Post Type Templates
    • REST API endpoints
    • More Theme API functionalities
    • Custom Bulk Actions for list tables 🙂
    • Updated WP_Hook
    • Customise changesets

    NetON Major Release Update Policy

    Our team will be working on your website (hosted at our servers) to make sure your WordPresswebsite is up-to date. This is done for any Major Release.

    WordPress

    WordPress is arguably the most powerful blogging and website content management system (or CMS) in existence today. 30% of all new domains run on WordPress. 60% of all CMS run websites run on WordPress.

    WordPress Update Policy

    With this being a Major Release, our team will be working to make sure that your website gets updated as soon as possible.

    NetON WordPress Development Services

    NetON offers a complete range of WordPress Services for Australian businesses. Our team is constantly working on WordPress Website Development, WordPress Design, WordPress Hosting, Strengthening WordPress Security, running SEO OPtimisation on WordPress Websites and upgrading Core and WordPress Plugins. We work with some of the smallest and the biggest companies in Australia and around the world and help them build and maintain their WordPress website to generate the best results for them. Please contact us for more details on our services. Please call us or email us on the details on our Contact Us page.

    WordPress Demo Website Updated with new theme and 4.7 goodness

    NetON maintains and upto date demo site of the latest version of WordPress that you can browse through. We have just updated the site to WordPress 4.7 with the new twentyseventeen theme. Click here to view WordPress Demo Site

  • WordPress 4.5 new features

    WordPress 4.5 new features

    WordPress 4.5 has been released. Our team are very excited to work with whats new in this release. This version is considered a Major Release and focuses on adding new features to the WordPress CMS. More details on the release can be found over at https://wordpress.org/news/category/releases/. adding a logo to the site and responsive customiser

    WordPress 4.5 release notes

    This latest update of the most used CMS in the world comes with the following featues:

    • Theme Logo Support

      WordPress 4.5 now comes with a feature that has been requested for a long time. WordPress 4.5 now allows theme builders to set logo directly from the customizer.

    • Customizer Responsive Previews

      WordPress customizer now comes with Responsive previews and allows you to select between desktop, tablet and mobile to see how your site will look in those devices.

    • Better Favicons

      WordPress 4.5 brings improvements to Favicons introduced in previous version 4.4. Now you can see exactly how it looks like on your browser in the site customizer.

    • Better image optimisation

      WordPress 4.5 improves on the responsive image optimisation introduced in WordPress 4.4 and now creates smaller sized images with the same quality.

    • Visual Editor Enhancements

      The Visual Editor in WordPress 4.5 has been improved allowing you to put inline links and improving shortcodes

    • Logging in using email

      A much awaited feature, now you can login using your email address on the wordpress login screen

    • Other improvements

      A number of other improvements have happened in the backend which can be read in release notes.

    NetON WordPress Update Policy

    With this being a Major Release, our team will be working to make sure that your website gets updated as soon as possible.

    NetON WordPress Development Services

    Neton is your go to team for any WordPress development services in Australia. We are constantly working with our clients on WordPress Website Design, WordPress Development, Hosting, WordPress Security, SEO Optimisation for WordPress sites and upgrading Core WordPress and Plugins. We work with some of the smallest and the biggest companies in Australia and around the world and help them build and maintain their WordPress website to generate the best results for them. If you have any questions, or if you need a quote, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Please call us or email us on the details on our Contact Us page.

    WordPress Demo Website

    We keep an upto date demo site with the latest (sometimes even nightly builds) of WordPress that you are welcome to have a look at. Click here to view WordPress Demo Site