WordPress News Roundup December 2013: WordPress 3.8 “Parker” Delivers the New Admin Design

December 2013 closed WordPress’s busiest year in a long time with its most visible release in years. WordPress 3.8 “Parker” shipped on December 12, right on schedule, giving every WordPress dashboard a flat, responsive redesign and introducing the magazine-style Twenty Fourteen. It was the second release in a row built with the features-as-plugins model, and it came just seven weeks after 3.7.

The ecosystem kept consolidating: a security plugin and an agency changed hands, and Envato reported a milestone for the authors who sell through its marketplaces.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments

• iThemes acquires Better WP Security: On December 4 iThemes announced it had hired security developer Chris Wiegman and taken over his Better WP Security plugin, which had been downloaded more than 1.2 million times from WordPress.org. iThemes said it would expand its security products and training.
• 10up acquires Brainstorm Media: On December 24 10up announced it had bought Brainstorm Media, an eight-person WordPress agency led by Paul Clark and Taylor Aldridge, bringing 10up to about 50 full-time staff from the start of 2014.

WordPress Core Updates

• Release candidates: RC1 arrived on December 4, ahead of code freeze, with a call for hosts to prepare their one-click installers. RC2 followed on December 9, and plugin authors were urged to check their admin screens against the new design.
• WordPress 3.8 “Parker”: Released December 12 and named for bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker, 3.8 brought the MP6 redesign to core: Open Sans typography, better contrast, a responsive admin for phones and tablets, vector Dashicons in place of image sprites, eight admin colour schemes, a redesigned themes screen with keyboard navigation and a streamlined widgets screen. Twenty Fourteen became the default theme. Matt Mullenweg led the release, which credited 188 contributors.

For users, 3.8 was the most noticeable update since the 3.0 era: gone were the gradients and grey tones, replaced by a darker sidebar, bigger type and an admin that worked properly on a phone. For plugin authors, it meant a rush to make custom admin pages fit the new look before the holidays.

Other WordPress News

• BuddyPress 1.9 “Sammy”: Released on December 17, BuddyPress 1.9 added a notifications component and retired the old BP Default theme in favour of theme compatibility.
• Jetpack 2.7 and GitHub: Jetpack 2.7 added Google+ support to Publicize and Cloudup embeds, and the Jetpack project moved its development to GitHub.
• Envato’s 2013 review: Envato CEO Collis Ta’eed reported that lifetime earnings for its authors, affiliates and instructors had passed $140 million.
• WordSesh 2: The second WordSesh online event drew about 3,000 unique viewers from 85 countries, according to its organisers.
• New tools: The Stream plugin introduced activity logging for the admin, ServerPress offered quick local installs, and Automattic said its o2 successor to the P2 theme was expected in early 2014.
• Matt on WordPress Weekly: Matt Mullenweg joined Jeff Chandler on WordPress Weekly early in the month for a wide-ranging conversation ahead of the 3.8 release.
• WPSessions scholarships: WPSessions offered 12 full-year scholarships to its WordPress training sessions.
• Admin colour schemes: Within days of 3.8, plugins such as Admin Color Schemer let people create their own dashboard palettes.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

• OptimizePress: Security firm Osirt reported a file upload vulnerability in the OptimizePress theme, apparently limited to version 1, that could let attackers upload and execute PHP files via a media-upload script.
• Plugin tracking: WP Tavern urged plugin authors to be upfront about any usage tracking, reflecting growing sensitivity about privacy in the ecosystem.

Industry Trends and Insights

• A year of reinvention: In 2013 WordPress shipped three major releases (3.6, 3.7 and 3.8), moved to features as plugins, made sites update themselves and redesigned its admin.
• Security as a business: iThemes’ purchase of Better WP Security showed security was becoming a core commercial category in WordPress.
• Agencies scale up: After Crowd Favorite in November, 10up’s purchase confirmed consolidation among WordPress agencies.

Theme of the Month: Divi

Elegant Themes released Divi at the end of 2013, combining a multipurpose theme with a drag-and-drop page builder. It arrived just as page builders were becoming one of the most popular ways for non-developers to design WordPress sites, and it would become Elegant Themes’ flagship.

Plugin of the Month: Better WP Security

Better WP Security bundled dozens of hardening measures, from hiding the login page to file change detection, into one plugin. Its move to iThemes this month gave a popular hobby project a full-time team, and it would soon be renamed iThemes Security.

Founder of the Month: Jake Goldman

Jake Goldman founded 10up, which ended 2013 by acquiring Brainstorm Media and sponsoring Helen Hou-Sandí to work full-time on core. Few agency founders did more that year to show that client work and contribution to WordPress could go together.

Looking Ahead to January 2014

A 3.8.1 maintenance release is expected in January, along with the start of the WordPress 3.9 cycle and decisions about which feature plugins it will include. GoDaddy’s managed WordPress hosting launch is anticipated, and WordCamp season resumes with events such as WordCamp Paris.