Pier #159 – Last Call, Watch AI Work, Core Framework Goes Open Source, GutenBricks Becomes UEEE, Modern Fields Takes on ACF & Meta Box

Ahoi.dev
Stefan from Ahoi.dev   |   The Pier #159   |   July 3, 2026

Welcome to the 159th issue of The Pier. SureForms 2.12 automatically connects your payment forms to the rest of your WordPress site, enabling plugins and CRMs to grant or revoke access the moment a payment is successful, cancelled or refunded. This eliminates the need for manual steps or automation tools. For example, SureMembers can grant or revoke access based on real payment events, LMS platforms can enrol or unenrol students when the payment status changes, and CRMs can update contact records.

Last Call: As of 15 July 2026, Digital Gravy will no longer offer LTD plans on Etch and Automatic.css (ACSS).

Watch AI Work: Novamira Visual has been launched as an experimental feature, offering a new way to connect your AI agent to WordPress. Rather than working out of sight, the agent opens your pages and editors in a browser workspace, allowing you to watch it work in real time.

Exciting: GutenBricks has evolved into UEEE. It is a white-label visual content editor that is compatible with Astro, WordPress, Bricks Builder and RightPlace.

Seed Round: MyAlice has rebranded as Revora and raised $2 million.

Launch: Modern Fields is a new visual custom fields builder for the WordPress Block Editor, which is set to take on the market leaders Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), Meta Box and ACPT.

Open Source: David from Core Framework has announced that the CSS framework and its add-ons will be open-sourced. Templates and UI kits will continue to be sold separately. The team also announced Instatic, a new, free, self-hosted, open-source CMS intended to replace WordPress in their stack. It will feature a visual canvas builder, content editor, media library, plugin system, user role management, multi-factor authentication (MFA), AI and static file output. Watch this video to find out more.

After Wix: Elementor has laid off around 30% of its employees.

Ad: Unblock – Blocks without boundaries for WordPress. It’s a single block that can become any element. Don’t miss out on the LTD!

Last Call: The SleekWP All Access Pass will no longer be available after 1 August 2026. Get lifetime access to all plugins, including future releases. Next up: SleekTrack, Plausible-style, privacy-friendly analytics as well as SleekOS.

Here is a selection of the latest and greatest blog posts we published this week on Ahoi.dev. You will also find some interesting industry news, the latest directory listings on The Port, job openings, and more. Enjoy!

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👋 ClickWhale ❤️ Amazon

ClickWhale 2.8.0 is now available and comes with a long-awaited feature for Amazon affiliates. Smart Displays now integrate with AMZ Connect, a third-party service that links your product boxes directly to Amazon’s product data.

In case you missed it: Smart Displays are customisable product boxes that can be embedded anywhere on your WordPress site via a shortcode or Gutenberg block. They are ideal for showcasing affiliate products, tools, and services in an attractive format.

Instead of manually copying product titles, images, prices, and descriptions into your Smart Displays, you can simply paste an Amazon ASIN and click ‘Fetch’. Everything is pulled in automatically, right inside WordPress.

AMZ Connect syncs your product data daily, so your recommendations always show the current price, image and ratings without you having to do anything.

This is particularly useful if you have been looking for a way to retrieve Amazon product data without access to the official Amazon Creators API. AMZ Connect works independently, so anyone can use it. Watch this video to find out more.

🗞️ Bites & Pieces

WordPress

Nectarblocks 3.0 introduces a new Header Builder and a reimagined editing experience, as well as new blocks including Navigation, Search, Ticker, World Time, Table of Contents and Header Actions. It also offers better animation tools, support for Adobe Fonts, saved palettes and colour scales.

Take a first look at Mosaic Forms, which offers native HTML inputs, a fully designed success screen, submission administration and built-in spam protection. Watch the sneak peek video to find out more!

Classic Monks makes Client License Expiry Controls available to Agency licences not just Enterprise plans. This feature lets you set expiry dates for each site ranging from one year to lifetime. The client dashboard automatically switches to “expired” once the time runs out. Also: Support for Etch will be coming soon.

Unblock 1.0.0 Beta 5 introduces a new Data Picker. Adding dynamic data to a page used to require writing Twig by hand. Now, you can simply search for the required data and click on it, and Unblock will generate the expression for you. The best part is that whatever it writes is a normal expression. Next up, queries and conditions will have their own visual tools. They will have different UIs, but the idea is the same: code and no-code are always in sync, in both directions.

Novamira Pro 1.5.0 adds support for a variety of form plugins, including Contact Form 7, WPForms, Gravity Forms, Fluent Forms, Formidable Forms and Ninja Forms. The AI agent can find, read, create, edit and delete forms and their fields, as well as set up email notifications and confirmations.

Etch 1.6.0 introduces the new Asset Manager and enhances the management of the Content Hub taxonomy. It is now possible to create and delete taxonomies, as well as remove individual terms, directly in Etch.

Bunny.net 3.1.0 adds support for Bunny Shield.

Take a look at Divi‘s new agent-based workflow (video).

Perfmatters 2.6.5 adds code snippet URL-based conditions for path contains, path equals, and path regex. The new perfmatters_rucss_delay_stylesheets filter allows you to delay a specific stylesheet that has already been excluded from the used CSS. There is also a new load behaviour option that allows you to delay CSS code snippets using the file print method.

BricksSync rebrands as WPChangeSync. It is now builder-agnostic. However, Bricks remains a top priority, and all the Bricks features you have been syncing work exactly as before. Version 2 introduces custom integrations: you can now point WPChangeSync at almost any plugin’s data and sync it yourself without writing any code. There is also a larger set of built-in integrations, clearer conflict handling, an audit trail and a cleaner overall workflow.

E-Commerce

With version 4.4.2, SureCart MCP now allows filtering of orders, customers and subscriptions with advanced rule-based conditions.

B2B for SureCart introduces a new ‘Catalog Mode by User Role’. With ‘Inquiry Forms by User Role’, you can display inquiry buttons only for selected user roles, making it easy to offer inquiries exclusively to wholesale customers, distributors or other approved users. Finally, you can now hide the Quick Add button on product lists.

FluentCart 1.5.2 introduces a full library of Elementor widgets, including a checkout, a mini cart, a ‘Buy Now’ button, product tables, a carousel, category lists, a search bar, a store logo and a dashboard button. A new Theme Builder set has also been added for single product pages, featuring a drag-and-drop Product Info widget. All widgets support variations, subscriptions, coupons and taxes and automatically apply FluentCart’s styling. Additionally, support has been added for the popular Bangladesh-based SSLCommerz payment gateway, which is widely used across South Asia.

WholesaleX 3.0 is now in beta and introduces a new UI and a dedicated wholesale pricing workflow, including min/max order quantities and values, core rules, and tiered discounts. User role management has also been rebuilt.

WooCommerce Wholesale Pro 2.5 introduces a built-in registration form builder for B2B stores. This enables you to create reals wholesale application forms with file uploads and conditional fields, eliminating the need for a separate forms plugin. If you have never sold wholesale products before, Barn2’s new Wholesale Essentials for WooCommerce plugin is a great way to try out global, role-based wholesale pricing.

Appointment Bookings

LatePoint 5.6.5 introduces the ‘Maximum Bookings Per Day’ feature, which enables you to set a limit on the number of bookings a customer can make in one day. The new ‘Cancellation and Reschedule Reason’ feature allows you to require customers to provide a reason when cancelling or rescheduling an appointment.

CMP

Trustwards 2.5 introduces CSS variables, import/export templates, custom CSS and consent log cleaning. There are also new typography options in the builder for banner, modal and block elements. The policies preview will finally display the actual policy texts.

Customer Support

With SSO, your team can now log in to HelpSpace using their existing company credentials, so there’s no need for extra passwords. Simply connect your workspace to your identity provider using OpenID Connect or SAML 2.0.

Events

EventKoi 1.3.19.0 introduces a List view to the Month/Week switcher. This view has a search function, and each event displays its calendar’s colour and name. Version 1.3.20.1 adds a new subscribe button to the event calendar, allowing visitors to add individual or multiple calendars to their Apple, Google or Outlook calendar with one click. The calendar updates automatically as your events change.

Privacy-First Web Analytics

Fathom Analytics introduces new API plans. While every account still gets free API access, you can now increase your rate limit across six tiers, from the included plan to 1,200 requests per minute.

Usermaven introduces a new command bar and enhanced analytics to help you find the reports you need more quickly.

Landing Pages

With Swipe Pages, you can test page variants, personalize content for different audiences and optimize for conversions with the new A/B Testing and Personalization features. All of this can be done inside the AI Page Builder.

AI Video Generation

Poko Motion adds MCP support and allows you to use your own Claude key (experimental).

LMS / E-Learning

With Klasio, you can now archive quizzes and individual questions rather than deleting them. You can also choose to make course content visible to students before their cohort’s start date. You can keep it locked until day one or open it early for pre-work and onboarding.

CMP

SureCookie 1.2.0 introduces a new ‘Re-request Consent’ feature, which allows admins to trigger a new consent request for all visitors. There is also a new ‘Background Overlay’ option.

SEO

AIOSEO 4.9.8 introduces MCP support, allowing you to connect Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT and other AI tools to your WordPress site directly. AIOSEO registers 28 SEO capabilities with the WordPress Abilities API.

SearchWP 4.6.0 extends the WPFilters integration to include results templates.

Automation

The new Pabbly Connect Platform API is a powerful developer platform that allows you to integrate Pabbly Connect as a connection manager within your SaaS, application or AI-powered product. In addition, you can now create and send Broadcasts directly from the Pabbly Chatflow mobile app.

Social Media

With Linkie (by Publer), you can now resize your embeds to fit your layout perfectly. You can also customize link thumbnails.

Personalized Outreach

With Sendr, you can now use AI to build your sequences.

Final Cut Pro

Final Cut Pro 12.3 introduces a range of new features, including AI-generated subtitles, Auto Mask, Match Color and Detect Edits, as well as workflow improvements. Watch this video to find out more.

From the Editor: Biff.codes

We’ve launched a new side project called Biff.codes, a free job board for WordPress developers and more. Find out why Biff can get paid in burgers. 🍔

🚨 Latest Posts

The following highlighted articles have been published in the last 7 days. All posts can be found on our blog.

WordPress

Voxel Bookings Plus Adds Availability Calendar, Vendor Bookings & Calendar Sync

Manos from Voxel Tools has been building booking/rental sites powered by Voxel, but has kept hitting the same walls. Although native bookings are great, there’s no calendar sync, no real…

Reputation Management

EmbedMyReviews: New Video Testimonials & Wall of Love Widget

Mannie from EmbedMyReviews has announced the release of two long-awaited features for the online reputation management platform. Say hello to video testimonials and the new Wall of Love widget!

WordPress

Directorist Pricing Plans 4.0 With Tiered Listing Packages

Masud from Directorist has just announced the release of Pricing Plans 4.0, an extension for the AI-powered WordPress business directory plugin.

Personalized Outreach

Sendr Introduces New Unibox, WhatsApp Outreach & AI Search

John from Sendr has just announced the release of version 3.1. The personalized outreach platform delivers on its vision of a unified GTM platform by bringing prospecting, outreach and conversations…

WordPress

WP Rocket Introduces Built-In RocketCDN Integration

WP Rocket goes the extra mile in terms of performance optimization by introducing a built-in content delivery experience powered by RocketCDN. This means you can now speed up content delivery…

WordPress

FormGent Introduces Conditional Confirmations

FormGent has released version 1.8.0 of its AI-powered form builder plugin for WordPress, introducing a new Conditional Confirmation feature. It enables you to generate intelligent, dynamic form responses in just…

👋 Latest Jobs

Looking for a new professional challenge? Find your new job.

Patchstack

Account Executive

Woven Advice

Senior Full Stack Developer

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That’s all for this week. We hope you enjoyed the 159th issue of The Pier. Until next week! Please tell your friends about The Pier if you like it.

Curated and published with lots of ♥ by Ahoi.dev!
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