Kadence Highlights of 2023

It has been such an exciting year at Kadence! Full of growth and excitement and new innovations. From our first Kadence Amplify event, to the release of the Advanced Query Loop. From livestreams to podcasts to WordCamps. A lot has happened and it only seems right to take some time to reflect on it all. So grab a cup of cider and enjoy our little 2023 Kadence highlight reel…

January

Kadence CAPTCHA added support for CloudFlare Turnstile. Turnstile is an invisible CAPTCHA alternative. You can still use Google’s reCAPTCHA versions 3 and 4, but you can now to switch to Cloudflare Turnstile for a better user experience on your WordPress login, comment, and WooCommerce screens. CAPTCHAs increase your site’s security by verifying user interactions are coming from humans, not bots. Turnstile can do this without your site’s visitors even knowing it’s there!

Kadence Cloud added support for SureCart. Designers and developers selling libraries using Kadence Cloud now have a new way to sell access license keys using a new shopping cart application, SureCart.

February

February brought the release of Kadence Blocks 3.0. This update brought a number of fundamental changes to Kadence Blocks, all of which make for a better site building experience. This foundational rewrite also creates new structures that allow our development team to better add new features, including new blocks. Here’s a few highlights included in this update:

• Updated build structure completely and now use component libraries 
• Updated React structure of blocks to be functional and use API v2
• Rebuilt how we compile and output frontend CSS for block customizations
• Refactored the way we save and output SVG icons to prevent wp_kses stripping
• Rebuilt our front-end Javascript to not use any jQuery sliders

March

Our first ever Kadence Amplify event was held on March 16th! This event brought together speakers from around the Kadence community as well as the greater WordPress community to share knowledge about becoming more successful with our online presence using WordPress as well as Kadence. Altogether we had 12 speakers from around the community, with Kadence Founder Ben Ritner ending the day with a preview of the next generation of building with Kadence Blocks including artificial intelligence (AI) integration. 

March was a big community month for us. We also sponsored WordCamp Phoenix and had a great time with the Rally the Valley event!

April

In April we launched our new and innovative Kadence Design Library. This new design library supercharges website design processes by inheriting theme colors and fonts, as well as dynamically populating sections with royalty free imagery and placeholder content. In this way, the new Kadence Design Library is unique for every site that uses it.

May

Since it launched, the Kadence Design Library has grown substantially. 315 different patterns have been added that you can drop into any WordPress webpage.

June

The Kadence Beat podcast hit their 30th episode in June! Tune in to hear about Adventures with Hannah, Ben’s Productivity Experiments, and Kathy’s newsletter writing cohort class. Kathy shares a haunting conversation with a Lyft driver that has her thinking about how WordPress could be more effective in a sea of numerous ways to get a website online. This leads to a conversation about how important it is to just get started building your dream and building audience without being distracted by which tools you’re using.

July

Kadence, along with StellarWP, held a site-wide summer sale. With it we hosted a livestream, discussing the new and exciting features coming down the pipe with the upcoming Kadence Blocks release.

August

Kadence Blocks 3.1 was officially launched and with it powerful new features such as…

The new Advanced Form Block will transform how you can use and edit custom forms in WordPress. This release also includes several other minor features, and bug fixes. This update complements a new update to Kadence Blocks Pro 2.0, which includes structural updates, performance improvements, and new features.

Also in August, the Kadence Web Creator Community facebook group surpassed 12,000 active members!

Note* As we’re writing this in December, this facebook group is just days away from hitting 13,000 active members. The growth hasn’t slowed and we’re so grateful.

September

We pushed out some fresh brand new features for Kadence Blocks in the version 3.1.16 release. These new features include conditional fields in the Advanced Form Block, a Pexels integration that allows for easier resizing, alt-tagging and importing of royalty free images into the media library, and the addition of shape masks to the Progress Bar Block. Making it even easier to build powerful and effective websites with Kadence Blocks.

October

With October came our second Kadence Amplify event and it was just as special as the first! We brought in some of the most innovative and powerful people in WordPress and asked them to share their wisdom and insight on how to be successful when it comes to creating websites. We extended the invitation beyond the Kadence community and invited anyone using WordPress, or really, anyone interested in website creation. We had 12 different speakers share on everything from SEO to Accessibility and everything in between. We closed out the day with our very own, Ben Ritner, giving us a taste of what is coming as Kadence integrates with AI.

November

We launched a huge feature for Kadence Blocks Pro that had been in the works for quite some time. The Advanced Query Loop is our enhanced version of the core query loop block, incorporating many user-requested features. The Query Loop consists of blocks within a block that use similar function to our advanced form block. The parent query loop block allows you to specify which post types and taxonomies to display, along with the number of posts per page. This block is saved as a custom post type and is reusable across any page on your site. A notable setting inside the Query Loop block is custom transition animation which can be used when viewers click between pages, search, or apply filters on the front end.

December

The long-awaited Kadence AI is finally in Pre-release! Transform the way you build websites with this powerful new tool. Access hundreds of customized pages and patterns then refine content and image options generated for your website. Swap images, load your own libraries, and add or shorten content to make the site your own. The Kadence AI engine crafts engaging copy highlighting your brand’s unique value propositions by leveraging OpenAI’s advanced natural language processing capabilities. If you’re using Kadence Blocks, you’ll find Pre-Release downloads in your Kadence Accounts (Kadence Blocks 3.2 and Kadence Blocks Pro 2.2).

Also in December, the Kadence YouTube channel hit a new milestone reaching one million views! If you want to keep up with our latest livestreams, podcasts, tutorials and everything else, join our 10,000+ subscribers on YouTube.

Wrapping Up

These are just the highlights! This does not include the countless features and bug fixes that our team has kicked out around the clock. And of course all the other work that goes on behind the scenes to ensure that Kadence remains one of the most exciting and powerful tools in WordPress. We can’t help but be filled with gratitude as we close out the year. And of course we are full of anticipation for all that is on the docket for 2024! If you’re not already a pro user, join in on the fun! You won’t regret it.

Cheers from all of us at Kadence!