Andrea Middleton 5:02 pm on June 7, 2017

WordPress 4.8 adds events to the dashboard news widget

WordPress 4.8 will be released soon, and when that happens, local events will show up in the dashboard! For more background, check out this post.

This is really exciting! It’s going to be even easier for WordPress users to find out about events organized by meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. groups in the chapter program, as well as upcoming WordCamps. I’m really interested to see how this helps our community grow.

Since not all of our community organizers follow CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. developments, I think we should send an email to meetup and WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. organizers, letting them know they might see some new people at their events and why. 🙂 Those emails will go out today, via meetup.com to meetup organizers and from support@wordcamp.org to WordCamp organizers.

I’ve also created a FAQ about the events widget, to help answer questions that might come up. ***EDIT: here’s the link to that FAQ: https://make.wordpress.org/community/wordpress-events-and-news-widget-faq/ *** I think we should link to it from the Big Blue Box at the top of this blog, but I’m very open to suggestions on that one. I’m also working on a FAQ for meetup organizers who are curious about joining the chapter program; we’ve answered enough repeat questions on that topic by now that I think we should just convert some of those standard answers into documentation. 🙂 If anyone wants to help me work on that, I’d be really pleased to get more input!

Now, I’d like to collect reports about increased traffic from community organizers, so we can track what effect this widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. is having on our program, and whether we need to make any changes to it. Where should we invite people to report back to us — on this post, or in a special, other place? Recommendations welcome. 🙂

Is there anything we haven’t considered? Please share your thoughts in a comment below!

Manny (emanweb) 5:15 pm on June 7, 2017

Hi Andrea! This is awesome. Is this also going to display Woo MeetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook.? Thanks.
- Andrea Middleton 5:21 pm on June 7, 2017
  
  Hi, great question! This will display events from any meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. which is part of the chapter program: https://www.meetup.com/pro/wordpress/
  
  Currently we don’t include product-specific meetup groups in the chapter program (more information about the program here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/meetups/), so a meetup centered around the use of WooCommerce won’t be included in this widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user.. 🙂
Bridget Willard 6:26 pm on June 7, 2017

An email to the organizers is an excellent idea, Andrea. Especially because many pro users use dashboard-less interfaces (lack of a better term on my part) like ManageWP or InfiniteWP or FTPFTP FTP is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol which is a way of moving computer files from one computer to another via the Internet. You can use software, known as a FTP client, to upload files to a server for a WordPress website. https://codex.wordpress.org/FTP_Clients. when they do their WordPress thing.

🙂
Andrea Middleton 7:46 pm on June 7, 2017

Email to 1,208 meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. organizers = SENT!
Drivingralle 2:27 pm on June 8, 2017

Hey!

I played with the widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. in the 4.8 RCRelease Candidate A beta version of software with the potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge..
I can add a location manual but can’t remove it. If I leave the text field blank it can’t be submitted. So I can’t go back to the automatic mode.

Would b great if I can use the widget to search for meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. in a place plan to go to soon, but after that go back to auto so it adjust to my current location.

Greetings
derRALF
- Ian Dunn 2:34 pm on June 8, 2017
  
  That’s a good point. There an undocumented way to do that; if you search for a location that isn’t found (e.g., narnia) then it should clear the previous location.
  
  It’d be good to design a formal way to do that, though.
  - Drivingralle 2:40 pm on June 8, 2017
    
    I can also delete the usermeta field, but that’s quite a nerdy way.
Abul Khayer 5:53 pm on June 8, 2017

This is going to be a great tool for all of us community organizers to spread the words about our community events to all the potential users. Specially who doesn’t know where a WordPress event is going on, in his/her city!
I’ve already posted the news to our meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. group discussion board and sent the same email to all the group members.
I’m very much excited for this new patch.
Grégoire Noyelle 4:09 pm on June 10, 2017

Hi Andrea,

Great idea. Thanks. And what about independent meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. about WordPress. How can we appear in the widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user.?
We have a non-profit organization in Paris. Here is our meetup : WP Paris Meetup
And our website : WP Paris
- Andrea Middleton 7:06 pm on June 10, 2017
  
  Thanks for asking, Grégoire! The widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. only includes meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. groups that have joined the community team’s chapter account, and only those groups that post (or cross-post) their events to meetup.com (please see this FAQ). There are two main reasons for this:
  
  1) Organizers who have chapter account meetup groups have agreed to follow our short list of good-faith rules (created by a team of community volunteers), so there’s more assurance that their events will match the standards of promotion on wordpress.org.
  
  2) We don’t have the volunteer staff to manage a manually-curated list of Chapter Account Groups That Don’t Use Meetup.com. If/when we’re lucky enough to attract enough volunteers to handle the curation and maintenance of an accurate, up-to-date list of non-meetup.com groups (or build us another, WordPress-based platform, which I think might be more likely), then we’ll be changing this practice just as soon as possible. 🙂
  
  Hope this answers your questions! Let us know if you have any more! 🙂
  - Grégoire Noyelle 4:21 am on June 15, 2017
    
    Hi Andrea,
    Thanks a lot for your answer. I’ll talk with other members of wpparis.
    I’ll be at WCEUWCEU WordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. this year in Paris. And you?
    Cheers,
    Grégoire
    - Andrea Middleton 7:38 am on June 15, 2017
      
      I am! I look forward to meeting you! 🙂 I’ll be loitering at the Get Involved table. 🙂
Sallie Goetsch 3:17 am on June 14, 2017

I was so excited to see our next meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. listed there, I took a screenshot and posted it to Twitter.

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WordPress 4.8 adds events to the dashboard news widget

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