Every major version is a milestone, and 8.0.0 is no exception. Your WordPress blog just became a two-way street in the Fediverse. Visitors can like and boost your posts directly on your site. Media from federated replies is handled more reliably, and new block patterns make it easy to drop ActivityPub features into your pages.Like and Boost, Right From Your BlogThe Fediverse Reactions block now has optionalĀ LikeĀ andĀ BoostĀ action buttons, inline with each reaction group. When a visitor clicks one, a modal opens where they can enter their Fediverse handle or copy the post URL to interact from their home server.The plugin remembers the visitorās profile in their browser, so the second time around itās even faster. And for folks who arenāt familiar with how the Fediverse works, each modal now includes a collapsibleĀ āWhy do I need to enter my profile?āĀ help section that explains the open social web in plain language.This dramatically lowers the friction for cross-platform engagement.Block Patterns and TemplatesSetting up a Fediverse-ready profile page used to mean manually assembling Follow Me, Extra Fields, and Followers blocks. Not anymore.Weāve added aĀ āFediverseā block pattern categoryĀ with four pre-configured layouts:Author Profile with Follow, a compact profile card.Fediverse Follow Page, a full-page follow experience.Author Header with Follow, great for author archive headers.Fediverse Sidebar, drop it into any sidebar or widget area.If youāre running a block theme on WordPress 6.7+, thereās also a newĀ Author Archive (Fediverse)Ā block theme template ready to go.Publish Smarter With Post Format SuggestionsA newĀ pre-publish panelĀ now analyzes your post content and suggests an appropriate post format when your object type is set to āPost Format.ā Got a post thatās mostly images? Itāll nudge you toward the Image format. A video post? Video format.This matters because media-focused Fediverse platforms like Pixelfed and Vernissage display Notes differently than Articles, so choosing the right format means your content looks its best everywhere it lands.Community SnippetsWeāve added aĀ snippets/Ā folder to the GitHub repository, a home for lightweight, community-contributed extensions that donāt belong in the core plugin but are too useful to lose. The first batch includes:FediBlog Tag, automatically addsĀ #FediBlogĀ to standard blog posts for better Fediverse discovery.Locale from Tags, derives post locale from taxonomy tags.Bot Account, marks your profile as automated and displays a āBOTā badge in the Fediverse.Blockless ActivityPub, renders Fediverse reactions as pure server-side HTML, no JS required.Photon CDN, serves cached remote media through Jetpackās Photon CDN for faster delivery.Got a snippet of your own? Check out theĀ snippets folderĀ and send a PR.Smarter Media CachingUnder the hood, weāve rebuilt how the plugin handles remote media, avatars, emoji, images, audio, and video from across the Fediverse. Instead of importing everything into the WordPress Media Library at insert time, media is now wrapped in custom blocks andĀ cached lazily at render time.What does that mean for you? Faster processing of incoming content, less disk usage, and better rendering of audio and video attachments. Original remote URLs are preserved in block attributes, so caches can be regenerated without data loss. If youāre using Jetpackās Site Accelerator, that works too, the new system is built filter-first.For site admins, there are new CLI commands to keep things tidy:wp activitypub cache statuswp activitypub cache clearMinimum PHP 7.4With WordPress 7.0 deprecating PHP 7.2 and 7.3, weāve raised the minimum requirement toĀ PHP 7.4. This lets us clean up compatibility polyfills and use more modern PHP features going forward. If youāre still on an older version, update your PHP before updating the plugin.ChangelogAddedAdd a help section to interaction dialogs explaining the Fediverse and why entering a profile is needed.Add a notice on the Settings page to easily switch from legacy template mode to automatic mode.Add a pre-publish suggestion that recommends a post format for better compatibility with media-focused Fediverse platforms.Add a Site Health check that warns when plugins are causing too many federation updates.Add backwards compatibility for theĀ ACTIVITYPUB_DISABLE_SIDELOADINGĀ constant andĀ activitypub_sideloading_enabledĀ filter from version 7.9.1.Add bot account snippet that marks ActivityPub profiles as automated accounts, displaying a āBOTā badge on Mastodon and other Fediverse platforms.Add Cache namespace for remote media caching with CLI commands, improved MIME validation, and filter-based architecture.Add federation of video poster images set in the WordPress video block.Add Locale from Tags community snippet.Add optional Like and Boost action buttons to the Fediverse Reactions block, allowing visitors to interact with posts from their own server.Add pre-built Fediverse block patterns for easy profile, follow page, and sidebar setup.Add snippet for blockless fediverse reactions.AddĀ wp activitypub fetchĀ CLI command for fetching remote URLs with signed HTTP requests.ChangedImproved active user counting for NodeInfo to include all federated content types and comments.Improve language map resolution to strictly follow the ActivityStreams spec.Superseded outbox activities are now removed instead of kept, reducing clutter in the outbox.The minimum required PHP version is now 7.4.FixedAccept incoming activities from servers that use standalone key objects for HTTP Signatures.Fix a crash on servers where WordPress uses FTP instead of direct file access for media caching.Fix a crash when receiving posts from certain federated platforms that send multilingual content.Fix automatic cleanup of old activities failing silently on sites with large numbers of outbox, inbox, or remote post items.Fix comment count to properly exclude likes, shares, and notes.Fix follow button redirect from Mastodon not being recognized.Fix modal overlay not covering the full screen on block themes.Fix outbox invalidation canceling pending Accept/Reject responses to QuoteRequests for the same post.Fix QuoteRequest handler to derive responding actor from post author instead of inbox recipient.Fix reactions block buttons inheriting theme background color on classic themes.Fix reactions block layout on small screens and remove unwanted button highlight when clicking action buttons.Fix signature verification rejecting valid requests that use lowercase algorithm names in the Digest header.Fix soft-deleted posts being served instead of a tombstone when the post is re-saved.Improve compatibility with federated services that use a URL reference for the actorās public key.Improve handling of all public audience identifiers when sending activities to followers and relays.Prevent private recipient lists from being shared when sending activities to other servers.Get ItDownload fromĀ WordPress.orgĀ or grab it onĀ GitHub. Remember to check your PHP version first ā 7.4 or higher is now required.A huge thank you to everyone who contributed code, testing, bug reports, and ideas to this release. Special thanks to @kraft, @jeremy, and @futtta for their snippet contributions.Update, try out those Like and Boost buttons, and let us know what you think ā whatās the feature youāve been waiting for? What would you like to see next?
