I am writing here after almost a span of a year. This time I plan to write a lot often, around twice a month.
AI tools landing in WordPress (or are they taking off in WordPress/0
I signed up for a free plan with byMiles.ai. Describe what you want, get four options, pick one. That part seemed to flow a lot like Automattic’s Telex. The export to a plain HTML site is quite handy to work with.
I have not yet played around with their plugin or other features. But it promises to be your WordPress design agent!
Since I brought up Telex, by Automattic has been retired. They expect you to now use the Studio desktop ap. They rebuilt the desktop app and shipped with Studio Code.
I haven’t pushed Studio Code a lot on very difficult tasks as yet. But recently I used it to build a client report list out every plugin, a list of the patterns in use, a full list of users and their roles. That sort of thing used might have taken an hour or so, now just needed 1-2 prompts.
I am looking forward testing and sharing such useful things.
Lanyard anarchism
I wrote about being useful rather than being important. I’ve worn “Lead” on a lanyard at enough WordCamps to be suspicious of the word.
Being useful is a good way to live!
And on the topic of usefulness Jamie Marsland’s Front-End Editor for Content Teams seems a useful tool. I checked it on a test site and the the flow is a content team clicks any bit of text, a link, a button or an image on the live page and edits it there.
No block editor. You can lock a whole page, or lock individual blocks, and the locks hold on save rather than just hiding the UI. Every edit lands in a Site changes screen: what changed, where, by whom, when.
It’s at a hundred-odd installs, so I would suggest this as a very early plugin to play around with. But it might help solve a editorial workflow problem in the future.
Understanding Commons
Takayuki Miyoshi, the brains behind Contact Form 7, wrote a piece called Commons and Nostalgia. It’s in Japanese and I read an auto translated version.
He asks what we actually mean by “the WordPress ecosystem”. His observation is that we’ve possibly swapped a commons for an industry. He also explains why Contact Form 7 has stayed free all these years. WordPress is free, so a contact form should be too.
There is a lot of very good understanding of the commons there.
Events
I am planning to attend WordCamp Bengaluru in November 21-22 later this year. I love walking around the great city of Bangalore, and to have a WordCamp to top it off will pretty cool!
WordCamp Bengaluru 2026 General tickets at ₹800, are available. https://bengaluru.wordcamp.org/tickets/
If you are someone who wants to or knows someone who wants to sponsor WordCamps – check these ones out!
- WordCamp Asia 2027 — Penang, 9–11 April 2027. Closes 30 October. https://asia.wordcamp.org/2027/call-for-sponsors/
- WordCamp Rajasthan 2026 — Jaipur, 3–4 October. Four tiers, ₹20,000 to ₹1,00,000, named after Jaipur’s forts. https://rajasthan.wordcamp.org/2026/call-for-sponsors/
- WordCamp Bengaluru 2026 — 21–22 November. Closes 15 October. Suvarna, Belli and Kanchu tiers. https://bengaluru.wordcamp.org/2026/call-for-sponsors/
I am hoping to make it to WordCamp Asia next year in April. But that is still far away for this newsletter.
Links from the newsletter