This was many months of work 😅 , but now anyone can see the most stylish MetaSlider examples and instantly re-create them on their site.
The new demo site is here: demo.metaslider.com
1. We built the demo site. It has all our best slideshows.
2. We connected the demo site to the plugin's import tool. Users have one-click access to import anything from the demo site.
1. You must think of the most creative and stylish examples for your product.
2. You need to plan for customer questions: "How do I re-create that demo exactly?"
We've solved those problems in two steps with the MetaSlider plugin:
Have you noticed that 95% of products don't have demo sites?
It's much easier to provide free trials of your SaaS or free versions of your plugin.
Building a demo site is really, really hard 🤯
There's at least two big problems:
Do I know anyone who has used this yet?
Here are the technical details: developer.wordpress.org/news/2026/02...
This is a potentially very interesting WP feature, but I've not seen it implemented.
You can extend the "Preview" feature to create your own custom previews.
For example, a social plugin can show what your post will look like when shared.
WordPress is moving at AI-speed right now.
About a week after it was first discussed, the beta versions of WordPress 7.0 now have a "Connector" screen for OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini.
Choose any service and it will install a plugin then ask for your AI key.
I'm not sure if StellarWP (from LiquidWeb) is now providing Namecheap's hosting service?
I hope they are because Namecheap's service caused our plugin developers a lot of grief over the years.
Easy Digital Downloads ... which button should I press? 🤔
Yep, we've seen several agencies customers build something like this for themselves. Users want this.
- Old slogan: Custom URLs for your posts
- New slogan: Custom URLs for your posts and external links
This could still be better, I'm sure. But at least we got quick feedback that things were unclear.
Here's the plugin: wordpress.org/plugins/tiny...
Well, I screwed that up 🤦♂️
We acquired a WordPress plugin in January and re-launched it last week after about 1 month of intense development.
Immediately we got a lot of confused questions. Our positioning was all wrong and the development direction needs tweaking.
- It's all visual now.
- The changes are all individually color coded.
- There's a preview option for each revision.
We're going to need to do some work to update our PublishPress Revisions plugin for this new screen, but it'll be worth it. This is a big improvement.
You really should check out the new way that WordPress 7.0 handles revisions.
I've attached before and after screenshots of the same revision.
Everything is better in the new update.
In future updates, that color will also highlight the text the user is working on.
I've attached my testing screenshot (above) and a design mockup from the Gutenberg team (below)
There are some nice, colorful design touches in the new Google Docs-style feature in WordPress.
There's a list of collaborators at the top of the screen. You can see the avatar of everyone editing the post, and each user has their own color.
Thanks to @therepository.email for the great reporting that helped me catch up on this: www.therepository.email/wordpress-7-0-beta-1-ships-after-delay-as-project-leadership-realigns-release-around-ai-and-milestone-story
It's a little last minute, but WordPress 7.0 will likely ship with a new "Connectors" screen so admins can easily link their sites to AI services.
The inspiration is going to be Claude's "Connectors" page.
Yep. We acquired a plugin in January and re-launched it yesterday after about 1 month of development.
Immediately we got a lot of confused questions. Our positioning is wrong and the development direction needs tweaking. But at least we figured that out fast 😜
As anyone checked out the new "Fonts" screen in WordPress 7.0?
1. Download a font from Google Fonts or another source
2. Upload the file
3. You can start using that font in your theme
I presume we'll soon see plugins to skip 1 and 2 and install fonts directly from the WP admin.
That attached screenshot shows the direction we're traveling in.
You won't see anything quite like this in WordPress 7.0, but maybe by the end of 2026.
More details here: github.com/WordPress/gu...
One more step forward for Google Docs-style editing in WordPress.
It's going out enabled by default in beta versions of WordPress 7 🌟
The WP team are going to use the beta phase to decide if this will make the final WordPress 7.0 release.
I've been following Google Docs-style editing for well over 5 years.
For the first time, I'm 100% convinced this feature is going to land in core.
Subscribe to this issue to follow along:
github.com/WordPress/gu...
The current admin style will still be available as a choice called "Fresh".
PS. If you want your own, unique color scheme, check out the new "Admin Styles" feature we've just released: wordpress.org/plugins/capa...
Have you tried the beta versions of WordPress 7.0?
The latest update really gave my eyes a bit of a shock 👀
Everything in the admin area has a higher contrast. The input boxes are larger and sharper. I suspect this makes WordPress more accessible.
- Asking a human designer to produce their best work
- Sweating over all the small design choices
- Doing a lot of testing with real people
A lot of the demos are live now at demo.metaslider.com.
We're really close to a big new release of the MetaSlider plugin. This update will have dozens of slideshows that you can import with just a click.
Maybe this kind of labor will be replaced with AI in a couple of years.
But right now, we're doing things the old fashioned way:
It should be much easier to remember which site I'm working in now 😜
To liven up your admin area like this, check out the new "Admin Styles" feature in the PublishPress Capabilities plugin: wordpress.org/plugins/capa...
If you work in WordPress, you probably spend a lot of your day working in WordPress admin areas and jumping from site to site.
I brightened up my Friday afternoon by redesigning all our sites' admin areas to match their brand. Purple for PublishPress, orange for MetaSlider etc
Are you using the Command Palette in WordPress? Not many people are yet.
But for the 1st time, I've seen a plugin really promote it. Check out what the Astra theme is doing.
They add a big link to the toolbar: "Search everything: from site settings to pages and design tools"
