Archive | Tech News

cc-licensed image "Close up of the amazingly colorful feathers of a Scarlet Macaw parrot" by David Clode on <a>Unsplash</a>

Introducing Block Widgets

There is a big change in the way widgets are handled with the release of WordPress 5.8. Previously, Commons members added widgets to “widget areas” (sidebars, footers, etc.) by going to Appearance>>Widgets or to Customize>>Widgets. There they found an array of widgets, some provided by WordPress, some provided by the theme, and some provided by […]

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Sutori, Padlet, and VoiceThread Embeds Now Supported on the Commons

The Commons Dev team recently implemented code changes to support Sutori, Padlet, and VoiceThread embeds on WordPress sites. Actively engaged with the pedagogical needs of the CUNY community, the Commons provides an open source infrastructure that integrates both proprietary and non-proprietary resources. Here is a list of custom file and content types which can be […]

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colorful blocks

Gutenberg – The New WordPress Editor

Block Editing WordPress 5.0 was released in early December and features a modern, new editor called “Gutenberg” that replaces the “Classic” editor that has been around for years. Gutenberg is one of the biggest and most controversial changes in WordPress history, and the web is filled with articles, both pro and con. Gutenberg’s user experience […]

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The Commons Plugin Director

Confused about what our over 330 WordPress plugins do? Our new Commons Plugin Director can help.  It provides the plugin’s name, a description of what the plugin does, the version, the author, and the plugin site URL. All these fields can be accessed using keyword searches. For example, enter “slider” if you are looking for […]

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Website Overview

Creating Faculty Portfolio Sites on the Commons

After moving from City Tech to Hunter College last year, I was tasked with migrating the web presence I had built for myself on City Tech’s OpenLab. Unfortunately, Hunter College does not currently have a web application quite like OpenLab, which allowed for the creation of portfolios for both students and instructors. Fortunately, however, the […]

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Group Forum Improvements

The backbone of the CUNY Academic commons is our Groups feature. Whether you use it as a graduate class platform, a research group, or a place to store and discuss department and committee concerns,  you know how useful it can be. (And if you’re at the starting point, please read our How to Create, Join and Maintain Groups page to begin.) […]

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The Commons Releases Two New Open Source Plugins

We are excited to announce the release of two new plugins that can be used by the whole WordPress community: ScholarPress CoinS 2.0 and BP Multiple Forum Post. Built by Dan Jones, Assistant Developer, these tools are the first free-software work he has done since joining the Commons’ Development Team. Congratulations Dan! ScholarPress COinS 2.0 […]

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