July 24 WordPress updates

The University of Maine websites benefit from great support by the University of Maine System IT department, and part of this involves a quarterly schedule of updates to keep the technologies we work with current.

Updates to add-on software (plug-ins)

Features such as our events calendar and web forms use add-on software that WordPress refers to as “plug-ins” — the vendors for these tools have made minor updates to fix bug and eliminate potential vulnerabilities. We do not anticipate any noticeable changes with the update. If you find any problems or changes to your web forms or event calendars, please contact us at um.weboffice@maine.edu and we will troubleshoot the issue.

Full-width update to Gutenberg pages

A number of our websites have been beta-testing the newer Gutenberg editor, and we are making some changes to the website to accommodate a broader roll-out of this exciting new editor.

One of the most popular new features the Gutenberg editor offers is the ability to display content “full width” (without any border to the sides). The UMaine home page features full-width elements using the Gutenberg editor, for example.

Beginning next week, all web pages using the Gutenberg editor will be able to display content full width by default, without special configuration requests to the Digital Communications team. If your website is making use of the newer Gutenberg editor, please review your website pages the week of July 24 and contact us if you find any changes in how your content displays.