Over on the Glowing Posts blog we are listing a few of the many ways that Glow Blogs are being used. A source of inspiration & ideas.
All posts by John
Glow Blog Update
We have been making some updates to the infrastructure that glow blogs runs on. In doing so we have also updated themes and plugins where updates have been available.
Themes
Theme updates have been applied to the “Twenty” series of themes.
- Classic themes (2012–2016): almost invisible updates
- Hybrid/block-compatible (2017–2020): better block display
- Block themes (2022+): noticeable improvements in editing and patterns
The WordPress “Twenty” themes are regularly updated. We would recommend choosing one of these themes when creating a new site.
Things you may notice:
- Better mobile layout
- Cleaner typography and spacing
- Improved block editor appearance
- New patterns (in newer themes)
Plugins
The Yammer Plugin which allowed comments from Yammer on posts has been removed. Glow no longer includes Yammer so this plugin had no use.
These plugins have been updated:
Various Embeds, ePortfolio, Glow Analytics, Glow Register Blog Widget, UCAS Widget, WordPress importer, WP Accessibility, MegaMenu, 3D Flipbook, Search Filter, H5P, Youtube Embed Plus and Userway Accessibility.
All updates are about fixing bugs, improving compatibility, and making things work more smoothly. No major new features—just better reliability and performance.
Glow Blogs – Essential Maintenance
Glow Blogs – Essential Maintenance
05/03/2026 04:00PM GMT – 06/03/2026 08:00AM GMT
We will be carrying out essential maintenance on Glow Blogs during this time. Unfortunately, this maintenance requires downtime and, as a result, Glow Blogs will not be available.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Kind Regards,
The Glow Team
Recent Help & Information Updates
We have added to and updated a few pages across our help and information sites this year. Here are some:
Advent in Glow Blogs
A couple of example sites both have a different primary age activities published every day.
Advent – Some H5P games and fun for Christmas
This site provides some simple examples of H5P content in Glow Blogs.
A little bit of fun every day in December for primary classes and examples of using H5P activities.
Another Glow Blogs Advent Calendar this one with a variety of activities & links. This one uses the Draw Attention plugin to make the calendar.
Both sites have descriptions of how they were made.
Of course you can use the same approach to ‘release’ activities and information on any schedule.
More information, instructions and examples for H5P on the H5P examples site and the draw attention plugin site
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Canva Embeds in Glow Blogs
Canva embeds are now supported in Glow Blogs.
All you need to do is create a canva and get a Public View Link, paste that into a post or page editor and the Canva is embedded. We have more details on the embeds blog Canva post. An Example:
Fixed: PDF Issue
The PDF Issue that recently developed on Glow Blogs has now been fixed. PDFs can now be uploaded as expected without any workarounds.
Thanks to all the people who reported it.
If you changed your Resize larger images to setting to zero as a workaround please reset it to the value it had before. 1260 pixels is the default.
Note the behaviour of pasting pdf links into the classic editor has changed. See the PDF page for details of how this works now.
Glow Blogs Update 30 Sep 2025
Glow Blogs has been updated to WordPress 6.8.2.
This update is mostly a behind the scenes one, you might not notice much difference.
The main features of WordPress 6.8 are covered in WordPress 6.8 – WordPress.org
WordPress 6.8 packs a wide range of performance fixes and enhancements to speed up everything from editing to browsing.
100+ accessibility fixes and enhancements touch a broad spectrum of the WordPress experience.
The Style Book is available in some classic themes, this gives you an overview of the standard styles in classic themes in the Site Editor style book. It is read only for our classic themes. Accessed via the Appearance -> Design section of the dashboard.
You can also access patterns for classic sites in the Design section, this allows you to add & edit patterns easily. Usefull if you have repeated content or repeat a type of content. Patterns are used in the block editor.
Block, images, you can set any image to site featured images.
The Full Site Editor
The FSE see some improvements. Especially in the views of Navigation, styles, Pages & Templates in the Editor.
Style Editor
The Style Book has a new, structured layout and clearer labels, to make it even easier to edit colors, typography—almost all your site styles—in one place
Pages in the Editor
Pages listed & can be edited in the Appearance-> Editor section of the dashboard.
Fixed: PDF problem
This issue has been fixed with a release on Monday 13 October. PDFs now upload as expected.
An issue with pdf uploaded to Glow Blogs has recently developed. Our developers are looking at the issue to create a fix.
The issue is that pdfs uploaded to Glow Blogs are ‘truncated’ to one page.
We hope this is fixed soon. There are a few workarounds you can use in the meantime.
Workaround 1 Media Settings
Continue reading Fixed: PDF problem Glow Blogs Release September 2025
This release contains a couple of improvements and some general updated.
Additional CSS
We have restored the ability to add additional CSS in the customiser and the Styles of the Site editor.
You can again edit the styles of your site. Read more on the new CSS page.
New Plugin: Contact Form Block
We have added a new contact form with Google reCatcha v3 to Block themes.
The Jetpack contact forms did not work in the block editor. You can now use this plugin in Block Theme sites. Read more about the plugin & other form options on the Contact Form page.
Various plugins & theme have been updated.
