The plugin’s ad management tools are used by more than 150,000 websites to create, display, and rotate ad units, as well as schedule and target ads based on preset conditions. It integrates with many other popular plugins like BuddyPress, bbPress, Elementor, MailPoet, Paid Memberships Pro, and more. The plugin is distributed on WordPress.org with commercial upgrades and add-ons available.
Advanced Ads creator Thomas Maier launched the plugin 2014 after finding that most WordPress ad plugins didn’t support responsive ads, cached websites, or split testing for better performance. Over the past nine years his team has grown to 12 people supporting 40 million impressions.
Maier said he “never found much joy in fulfilling the executive and administrative roles in such a successful project” and will be returning to working on a team with Advanced Ads’ customers as part of MonetizeMore.
“I haven’t felt comfortable with a managing (aka ‘boss’) position for a while and wanted to get out of it before losing fun working with my team, product, and customers,” Maier said. “It was more a process than a specific turning point.
“Luckily, I built relationships with potential buyers long before thinking about selling. This helped me last year to get multiple qualified offers in a short period of time. I also asked people who have sold their WordPress [businesses] for advice, which was often very honest and open.”
Maier said the administrative burden wasn’t the problem, as his team did most of the daily tasks already. In selling Advanced Ads he was looking to move into a new role by passing the ownership on to a company that he believes to be a “sensible market participant.”
“My energy was drained by me feeling responsible for everyone, the team, customers, and partners, to be happy,” Maier said. “I couldn’t shut up thinking about that even when everything was running smoothly. After 13 years running my own companies, I am looking forward to stepping away from the driver’s seat.”
This acquisition allows MonetizeMore to expand its ad optimization tools with Advanced Ads’ features, which allow users to manage and target their ads without coding skills.
“Their expertise complements our existing programmatic advertising tools and products suite, keeping our publishers at the forefront of the industry,” MonetizeMore CEO and founder Kean Graham said. “As we are set for exponential growth this year and on track to cross the $100M ARR mark this year, we will remain selective in making strategic acquisitions and partnerships with organizations that also empower ad-monetized publishers.”
Maier said he doesn’t expect any changes with the plugin’s pricing as the result of the acquisition. There are currently no changes planned for active subscriptions, existing product features, or service levels.
Wordfence has published the details of two stored XSS vulnerabilities the company responsibly disclosed to the developers of the All In One SEO plugin in January 2023. The vulnerabilities potentially impacted more than 3 million users on versions 4.2.9 and earlier.
One vulnerability, which received a 6.4 (Medium) CVSS score, Wordfence attributes to insufficient input sanitization and output escaping. Researchers found that this “makes it possible for authenticated attackers with Contributor-level access or higher to inject arbitrary web scripts in pages that will execute whenever a user accesses an injected page.”
The second vulnerability was given a 4.4 (Medium) CVSS score and requires an authenticated attacker to have Administrator-level privileges. Wordfence outlined how attackers might exploit these vulnerabilities:
Unfortunately, vulnerable versions of this plugin fail to escape submitted site titles, meta descriptions and other elements during post and page creation, and when changing plugin settings. This made it possible for users with access to the post editor, such as contributors, to insert malicious JavaScript into those fields, which would execute in the browser of any authenticated user, such as a site’s administrator, editing such a post or page.
This is a likely scenario to occur as posts written by contributors have to be reviewed and moderated prior to publication.
All In One SEO has patched both vulnerabilities in version 4.3.0 but so far only 25.5% of the plugins 3+ million user base has updated to the latest version, leaving approximately 3/4 of the plugin’s users still vulnerable.
The plugin’s changelog for version 4.3.0 includes a brief, vague note on the security fix included: “Updated: Additional security hardening.” There have been two more releases of the plugin since the vulnerabilities were patched in 4.3.0.
WordPress 6.2’s Openverse integration is getting some last minute changes after contributors expressed concerns about it hotlinking images by default. The new feature allows users to quickly insert free, openly-licensed media into their content. It also allows users to upload external images through a button in the block toolbar, but this creates an extra step in the process and is easy to miss in the UI.
Several contributors cited GDPR and privacy concerns in the ticket that called for uploading the images by default. They also noted that hotlinked images can pose problems for users who want further manipulate the images by cropping, rotating, and filtering, and for developers managing site migrations. Some went as far as to say the feature belongs in a canonical plugin, which would likely have had a less rushed implementation and better testing prior to landing in core.
“I am deeply uncomfortable with any integration of Openverse into core,” WordPress contributor Peter Shaw said. “Philosophically WordPress is a personal publishing platform so it should be avoiding external APIs and dependencies. The only external calls it should make (by default) is to check for updates.
“No issue with the service itself though (I like it) but it should be a canonical plugin that site owners consciously install. Either way images must be on the local server though.”
As the hotlinking drew more attention, WordPress contributors chimed in on the ticket to call for the feature not to be shipped in its current implementation.
“This cannot ship this way, or it will get unknowing users sued,” Yoast founder Joost de Valk said. “Next to that it has negative performance implications, as you can’t do srcset or loading attributes on images loaded from remote. Sideload really should be the default, and in fact IMHO, only way.”
“We definitely want to upload to the site library for this flow and should treat this as a bug,” Gutenberg Lead Architect Matias Ventura said. “There’s work going on in parallel to upload by default on other actions (like pasting) that are not as straightforward or general enough (hence the need for something like #46014) but this one should be straightforward.”
Tsekouras’ PR ensures that any images inserted from Openverse are uploaded. If they cannot be uploaded to media library due to CORS issues, WordPress inserts the Image block with the external URL and a warning about legal compliance and privacy issues. Here’s an example of a successful upload:
WP101 is one of the most trusted premium WordPress video training providers in the market. Over 3 million users have learned WordPress from their WordPress video tutorials. The WP101 Plugin allows WordPress agencies and service providers an easy way to offer white-labeled professional WordPress training videos to their clients.
Introduction to WP101 – Quick Overview
WP101 offers professionally-produced WordPress training videos to help you learn WordPress, fast. It’s a perfect solution for small businesses owners, large corporations, and government agencies who want to offer professional WordPress training videos in their employee onboarding process.
With WP101, you get access to over 200+ WordPress training videos that cover everything you need to learn the WordPress user interface in a university style format.
In addition to the popular WordPress 101 series for both Gutenberg and the Classic Editor, the current library also includes video tutorials for top WordPress plugins including WooCommerce, WPForms, Elementor, Beaver Builder, and more.
The WP101 Plugin makes it easy for WordPress developers and agencies to offer white-label training videos to their clients, right inside the WordPress dashboard.
It gives you the ability to add your own custom videos as well as selective show / hide videos based on client’s needs.
Whether you’re a small business owner or large corporation, I highly recommend adding WP101 training to your employee onboarding process.
If you’re a WordPress freelancer or agency, then you should consider adding the WP101 Plugin to your client and build a recurring revenue stream.
Background Story – Why WP101?
Both WPBeginner and WP101 started around the same time with a similar mission: making it easy for people to learn WordPress.
At WPBeginner, we did it with our easy to understand written tutorials, while Shawn at WP101 offered premium video training.
I have been friends with Shawn Hesketh, founder of WP101 for a long time, and we have enjoyed over a decade of coopetition. I have a lot of admiration and respect for the massive impact he’s had in the growth of the WordPress community.
After 14+ years of creating WordPress training videos, when Shawn was ready to move on to the next chapter of his life, we started talking about the future of WP101 and carrying his legacy forward.
Given my experience running the largest WordPress resource site, it made perfect sense for us to be the future custodian of the WP101 brand.
It gives me great joy to be there for a friend and offer him the exit that he deserves as he pursues the next chapter of his career. At the same time, it’s an honor and a privilege that Shawn trusted us to carry the mission forward.
Note: Want to join our remote team to work on something awesome & make an impact? We’re hiring. Come work alongside me and help shape the future of the web.
What’s Coming Next?
Our work is just starting.
My goal is to create the best class-room style WordPress training videos to help WordPress grow in enterprise, government agencies, as well as at the school and collegiate level.
I’m really excited about the latter because I believe that education helps level the playing field, and that’s the mission of my Balkhi Foundation.
WordPress is an open source platform, and open source is one of the greatest ideas of our generation. It has the power to transform the lives of so many people across the world, like it did for me when I first immigrated to the US.
While talent is everywhere, opportunities are not. I want to use the WP101 training platform to bring opportunities everywhere, so we can help shape the future of the web for billions worldwide.
This is a big mission, and I need your help. If you have experience with instructional design or higher-ed, I would love to chat with you to see how we can work together to bring WordPress to classrooms and universities. Please send me a message via WPBeginner contact form.
If you’re passionate about teaching WordPress and want to be a part of our mission, we’re hiring content creators and trainers. While the listings for these roles aren’t public, just send me a brief message via our contact form with your resume, and I’ll get in touch with you.
As always, I want to thank you for your continued support of WPBeginner.
Every time I share an announcement like this, I realize that I’m only able to do what I love every day because of you, our amazing readers, and I’m extremely grateful for your support throughout the years.
WPBeginner and Awesome Motive would not be here without YOU, and I just want to say how much I appreciate all of you.
I look forward to continuing serving you, and the larger WordPress / web ecosystem for years to come.
Yours Truly,
Syed Balkhi Founder of WPBeginner
P.S. Want us to acquire or invest in your WordPress business? Learn more about the WPBeginner Growth Fund.
Gutenberg 15.2 is now available with support for revisions when editing templates and template parts. The Site Editor can be an intimidating place if you’re new to making changes there. A few clicks can make a drastic impact and some users won’t know how to return to where they started. Surfacing the revisions panel gives users a safety net.
The revisions panel works the same as the content editor, so it doesn’t yet provide a visual presentation of a user’s additions, deletions, and changes. Users can restore previous versions of the template if they are able to read the block markup.
Gutenberg 15.2 also brings improvements to navigating the Site Editor. It’s now much easier to drill down to the exact template you want to edit in just a few clicks in the Site Editor sidebar, globally save edits across navigation, template, and template parts, and more easily return to the dashboard. These changes are best illustrated in the GIFÂ published in the release post;
Other highlights in this release include the following:
New: CSS aspect-ratio controls to the Post Featured Image block
New in the Button block: support for border color, style, and width
Accessibility improvements: improved labeling, optimizing the tab and arrow key navigation, and ensuring proper hierarchy of headings
New in Post Excerpt block: a UI for controlling excerpt length
Latest Comments block: Add typography support
Check out the full list of changes and bug fixes in the 15.2 release post. This version of Gutenberg will not be included in the upcoming WordPress 6.2 release. If you can’t wait until 6.3, you can get these features now by installing the Gutenberg plugin.
WordPress 6.2 Beta arrived a few days ago and it is expected to be released on March 28th, 2023. It will be the second major release of 2023 and will come with significant new features and improvements.
We have been closely monitoring the development and trying out new features on our test sites.
In this article, we’ll give you a sneak peek into what features are coming in WordPress 6.2 with details and screenshots.
Note: You can try out the beta version on your computer or on a staging environment by using the WordPress Beta Tester plugin. Please keep in mind that some of the features in the beta may not make it into the final release.
Here is a quick overview of changes coming in WordPress 6.2:
The new full site editor feature in WordPress will come out of beta with the final release of WordPress 6.2.
This completes a significant part of the WordPress development roadmap.
The site editor feature is now stable for the community to create block-based themes and experiment with their own WordPress websites, plugins, or themes.
Note: Full site editor is available with block themes that support this feature. You can try it out even if you are using the older classic editor with a block-enabled theme.
Browse and Choose Templates to Edit
Previously the Site Editor loaded the Home template of your theme by default. This left many beginners wondering which template or template part they needed to edit.
With WordPress 6.2, the site editor will load the template preview window first. From here, you can browse different templates and see a preview of what it looks like.
Then you can simply click on the Edit button to start working on the selected template.
Once you are done editing the template, don’t forget to click on the Save button to make your changes go live.
After that, you can click on the WordPress logo in the upper-left corner of the screen to bring back the template browser sidebar.
Now if you need to edit a different template, then you can choose it from here. Otherwise, you can simply click on the WordPress logo again and exit the Site Editor.
Add Custom CSS to Your Theme or Specific Blocks
In the last few WordPress releases, the site editor hid the ‘Theme Customizer‘ which made it difficult for users to add custom CSS to their themes.
WordPress 6.2 will allow users to switch to the Styles panel and select Custom CSS from the menu.
From here, users will be able to save Custom CSS that applies to their entire theme.
What if you wanted to save custom CSS that only applied to a specific block?
WordPress 6.2 will also allow you to add custom CSS for specific blocks. From the Style panel, click on the Blocks menu.
On the next screen, you will see a list of blocks. Simply click on the block where you want to apply your custom CSS.
Under the block styles, click on the Additional CSS tab.
If you want to conditionally add CSS or keep your custom styles outside of theme specific settings, then we recommend using the free WPCode plugin.
New and Improved Navigation Menus
Adding navigation menus in the full site editor has been a bit difficult for users. WordPress 6.2 will try to solve this by improving the way users can create and manage menus while using the site editor.
First, instead of editing the menu items inline, you can now add, remove, and edit menu items in a subpanel under the Navigation block.
From here, you can add a new menu item by clicking on the Add Block (+) button. You can also just drag and drop menu items to rearrange them.
Want to create a new blank menu or reload an older one? Simply click on the three-dot menu and then choose a menu you created earlier or create a new one.
Colors to Indicate Template Parts Being Edited
WordPress 6.2 will also highlight the template part that you are editing, and that changes will be made on a side-wide, global scale.
The element will be bordered in a color and have a template part icon attached.
This will help users realize that instead of editing the specific page or post, they are now editing a template part and this change will affect other pages on their site as well.
See Styles for All Blocks in The Style Book
The site editor in WordPress 6.2 will ship with a ‘Style Book.’ Simply switch to the Styles panel and then click on the style book icon.
This will show you all the blocks, and how they are styled in your theme.
You can locate a block much more quickly this way, and then click to edit it directly.
After that, you can change its appearance and style and customize it to your own requirements.
Copy and Paste Block Styles
Now that editing block styles and appearance has become so much easier, there is a need to easily copy and paste these styles.
WordPress 6.2 will allow you to simply copy block styles by clicking on block options and then selecting ‘Copy Styles’.
After that, you can click to edit a different block and select ‘Paste styles’ from the block options.
Your browser will ask for permission to allow your website to view the contents of the clipboard. You need to click ‘Allow’ to continue.
Classic Widgets Import as Template Parts in Block Themes
Users with classic widget themes lost their legacy widgets when they switched to a block theme. WordPress 6.2 will provide a nice fallback to that by converting legacy widgets into special Template Parts when switching themes.
You’ll need to enter the site editor and edit the template where you want to import the widgets. After that, create a new template part by clicking on the Add New Block button (+).
From the template part settings panel, click on the Advanced tab to expand it and you’ll find the option to import a widget area from your previous theme.
Separate Sub Panels for Block Settings and Styles
With WordPress 6.2, the editor will show two sub-panels for a block. One for the block settings and the other one for styles.
This will help users understand where they need to look if they want to change the appearance of a block.
A New Distraction-Free Mode is Introduced
Historically, WordPress has always provided options to hide the formatting buttons and toolbars on the post editor screen.
However, WordPress 5.4 made the editor full-screen by default. This allowed users to have a much cleaner writing interface, but there was no distraction-free mode.
WordPress 6.2 will remedy that and will come with a completely clean and calm distraction-free mode. Users will be able to choose it from the editor settings.
Once chosen, the distraction-free mode hides all editor control elements.
As you can see below, toolbars, side panels, and the top bar are nowhere to be seen.
Improved Pattern Insertion with New Categories
WordPress 6.2 will simplify the Pattern Insertion panel. Instead of showing previews and a drop-down menu of categories, it will show the categories first.
There are two new categories of Patterns added for the Header and Footer sections.
Clicking on a category will show you the available patterns that you can use.
You can then just click to insert a pattern into your template and start editing it.
With WordPress 6.2, users will be able to find and add those images from Add New panel.
New Icon for the Settings Panel – The icon to display the settings panel previously used a gear icon.
It is now represented with a panels icon.
Under The Hood Changes
There are a ton of changes in WordPress 6.2 intended for developers. Here are some of the changes that you will find in the update:
Faster updates by moving directories instead of copying them. (Details)
A new switch_to_user_locale() function is introduced. (Details)
Create autosave revisions only when content is changed. (Details)
Add a style variation tag to themes that use style variations. (Details)
Overall WordPress 6.2 beta 1 includes 292 enhancements, 354 bug fixes for the editor, and more than 195 tickets for the WordPress 6.2 core.
We hope this article provided you with a glimpse of what’s coming in WordPress 6.2.
Comment below to let us know what features you find interesting and what you’d look to see in a future WordPress release!
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
After being postponed due to the pandemic, WordCamp Asia 2023 finally took place in Bangkok, Thailand, between the 17th and 19th of February 2023.;
This first flagship WordCamp in Asia was attended by 1,299 people worldwide, and more than 3,000 people watched the live stream. The first was Contributor’s Day, while the last two days were for conferences.;
It was our honor to participate in this event as one of the sponsors.
Democratization of Publishing
WordCamp’s Contributor Day is full of activity activities for new and experienced WordPress contributors to get their heads together. With all hands on deck, attendees contribute to improving various aspects of the open-source CMS.
The best part is that you don’t have to possess extensive coding knowledge to contribute to WordPress. All skills and experience levels are welcome.;
There are various teams that people can contribute to. One is the Community team, which organizes meetups and WordCamps. Other teams include Polyglots, in charge of translating the platform, and Core, tasked with identifying bugs. There’s also the Photos team – a great starting point for anyone looking to contribute. Simply submit your high-quality photos to WordPress Photo Directory – just make sure they adhere to the guidelines!;
During Contributor’s Day, attendees join a table of the team they’re interested in. There, they learn how they can help with the project. Once they find their footing, they can sign up and start contributing. Attendees who are unsure can join multiple tables – after all, WordCamp is a safe space to learn anything and everything WordPress.
The communal contribution experience is one of the most empowering parts of WordCamp for many WordPress enthusiasts. It’s a chance for people to get to know folk from various industries and see how the WordPress community members support each other.
Contributor Day is also the best opportunity to learn about WordPress’s mission, Democratize Publishing. It is all about making the internet a more open place. Matt Mullenweg, a co-founder of WordPress, stated that the mission could begin with the software itself, with the Four Freedoms principle as its foundation.
The Many Facets of WordPress
The two Conference Days saw more than 50 talks held in three halls. The topics ranged from technical subjects to mental health, emphasizing how you can look at WordPress from multiple angles.
For example, the Leading with Cultural Intelligence session, presented by Petya Raykovska, touched upon the often-surprising multicultural dynamics of the global ecosystem. The talk addressed the challenges of communication strategies, including culture-based misunderstanding.;
Petya, the table leader of the Polyglots team in WordCamp Asia 2023, stressed that the problem is not always about English proficiency. Instead, issues may arise from within the cultural subtext. This is also important to consider when improving WordPress – after all, contributors are located worldwide and in different time zones and work autonomously.
Topher DeRosia‘s Success Stories of HeroPress talk was also memorable. Topher discussed his website, HeroPress, which publishes stories of people using WordPress to make an impact or improve their lives. These accounts let others see what they could do with the platform and spark conversations among people who can relate. This results in meaningful connections and employment opportunities.;
The Future and Five for the Future
The Five for the Future initiative launched in 2014, and it’s still going strong. It encourages individuals and organizations to contribute five percent of their resources to the platform’s growth.;
Like all the previous WordCamps, you can watch the sessions and interviews with notable WordPress figures on WordCamp Asia’s live stream page and WordPress TV. This can be a great way to prepare for the next WordCamp Asia, which will be held in Taipei, Taiwan, in 2024.
And if you’re still unsure whether you’ve got what it takes to contribute to WordPress, all you need to do is just start. The community will always have your back if you need help navigating through any issue or question.
WordPress 6.2 is set to introduce an integration with Openverse that allows users to quickly insert free, openly-licensed media into their content. It was not readily apparent when the feature made its debut in version 15.1 of the Gutenberg plugin that the inserted images are hotlinked.
WP Engine developer Phil Johnston brought up this issue in the #core-editor channel on WordPress Slack today. WordPress core contributor Paul Biron confirmed images are hotlinked when first inserted but can be added to the site’s Media Library using the “Upload” tool, which is located in the Image block toolbar after Openverse inserts the image.
Hotlinking is generally considered a bad practice, as it uses another site’s bandwidth to display the asset. Hotlinked images can easily get renamed or removed from the source site, which can negatively impact the sites that are displaying them.
WordPress core contributor Jeremy Herve opened a ticket yesterday with concerns about the hotlinking and suggested it would be better to upload the images by default.
“I would suggest uploading the image to one’s site once picked and inserted,” Herve said. “This way it would remain available on the site, whatever may happen to the service or the original image. Of course, the image attribution should remain in the caption.”
Johnston also suggested hotlinking the images might be a privacy concern if it allows the host to gather data about the device loading the image.
WordPress may end up changing the default behavior for Openverse inserts, but in the meantime, users should be aware of how this feature works and where to find the Upload tool.
The Prison Journalism Project (PJP), a non-profit organization founded in April 2020, trains incarcerated writers to be journalists and publishes their stories with the goal of empowering them to be a vital voice in criminal justice reform. Over the past three years, the project has published over 1,700 pieces of work from more than 600 incarcerated and incarceration-impacted writers representing 180 prisons across 35 states and three countries.
The project is bringing important issues to light, such as diminishing access to programs that further rehabilitation due to COVID-19 and the failure of drug treatment in prisons, first-hand accounts from incarcerated individuals that expose the inadequacy of state and federal prisons to meet the needs of those in their care. These stories and more are featured on the organization’s website, which is powered by WordPress and Newspack, a project from Automattic that provides a publishing platform for small and medium-sized news organizations. Newspack includes professionally designed themes and a set of pre-configured plugins, like Newspack Newsletters and WooCommerce Subscriptions, that help drive audience and revenue.
This week the PJP launched the Prison Newspaper Project, which aims to connect prison publications with a broader general audience, including educators and researchers. At its peak, U.S. prisons running their own newsrooms published 250 prison papers in 1959. The prison press has declined significantly since then, despite massive improvements in the available technology for telling their stories. As of February 2023, the PJP counts 24 operational, prisoner-run news publications across 12 states.
The new Prison Newspaper Project has indexed these publications into a prison newspaper directory. It also has a new category section on the site called “From Prison Newspapers,” where the organization highlights and amplifies the work of incarcerated writers across various publications. Their work is republished to PJP’s wider audience, offering a window into the incarcerated population and the conditions where they are living.
While most of the prison newspapers in the PJP’s directory run on legacy systems or are only available via print-versions with digital archives, a few have online publications. San Quentin News is one that runs on WordPress, publishing beautiful stories of the humanity and artistry of those behind bars. One story features San Quentin artist Idalio Villagran, who “takes prison-constrained creativity and resourcefulness to another level, crafting beautiful roses of various colors from state-issued bread and Kool-Aid.”
Another post features the work of San Quentin artist Edgar Zarate Martinez, who is keeping his Mexican cultural heritage alive through his paintings that reflect his yearning for his family.
PJP was founded by Yukari Iwatani Kane and Shaheen Pasha at Penn State University in 2019, after teaching journalism at San Quentin State Prison and Hampshire County Jail in Massachusetts.
Most of the other indexed prison publications don’t have an online presence, so the Prison Newspaper Project is vital for connecting them and bringing more exposure to prison journalism. Getting these publications online isn’t part of the current scope of the project, but there is a big opportunity here to modernize these newsrooms with WordPress and help them find a global audience.
The Prison Newspaper Project is committed to regularly updating the list of active publications in the directory. People can submit newspapers or magazines not yet listed by emailing editorial@prisonjournalismproject.org.
“As this section grows, we hope to offer you more resources on the history of this remarkable part of the fourth estate,” Prison Newspaper Project Editor Kate McQueen said.
Automattic has a new theme in the WordPress Themes Directory. Bibimbap, named for a beloved Korean comfort food, is a restaurant theme. It is described as “simple and fun” but does not come with a live demo, so users will need to be prepared to work with patterns to get their restaurant sites put together.
The home page pictured in the screenshot displays a full width Cover block with an image as the background, a call to action, and some contact information. Bibimbap features the Cooper Hewitt typeface throughout for paragraph text and headers.
The theme comes with five custom block patterns for building restaurant websites:
Contact pattern with a map, location, and hours
Cover block pattern for restaurant Specials
Default footer
Restaurant menu
Menu add-ons
I took the theme for a test drive and found that is not very intuitive in its current state, although the patterns are nicely designed. When first installed and activated on a new site, the theme looks blank with nothing in place and no hint of how it can be made to look like the screenshot.
The most ideal experience a block theme can provide gives the user a ready-to-go website that looks like the demo, or at least provides a full-page pattern that is easy to insert. Bibimbap has missed a few opportunities to make the theme more user-friendly. Although it is also available on WordPress.com under the Business plan, the preview is similar to the experience of installing it on a self-hosted site. With no live demo available, it’s difficult to know where to go after installing it.
In the Site Editor, users will need to navigate to the wp-custom-template-home template to edit the home page template. If this is a new website, users will also want to create a new page and assign it to use the wp-custom-template-home page template to get the right design.
The home page header design is not available via a pattern, which would make the theme so much more versatile and easy to use, especially in the case of multi-page websites.
Although the theme comes with just a handful of patterns, they work well dropped onto the page in any order.
Overall, this theme is a good option for those who know their way around WordPress and the Site Editor. It makes it fairly quick to build a restaurant website with a cohesive design. The problems with user-friendliness can be easily remedied with a few full-page patterns and a bit of thought towards the experience after activating the theme. Bibimbap is available for free from WordPress.org.
