WM Newsticker releases

Gutenberg block for animated news tickers: scroll, fade, slide and typing, with manual headlines or the latest posts
Author: Arnold Wender · Wender Media · Halle (Saale), Germany
Website: https://www.wendermedia.com · Repository: github.com/arnoldwender/wm-wp-newsticker

This README describes what the plugin ships, measured against the code on 2026-09-15. Until then it also promised conformity with BFSG 2025 and WCAG 2.2 AA, a pause on keyboard focus, 44 × 44 px controls, "60 FPS", "~3KB CSS, ~2KB JS", DSGVO Art. 17 erasure tools and pre-compiled translations for 24 EU languages. None of that holds; the Known issues below say what does.

Screens of the handbook and the dashboard widget: docs/screenshots/.

What the plugin does

1. One dynamic block, wm/newsticker. block.json (API version 3) with an editor script (build/index.js), editor and frontend styles and a view script (build/frontend.js) that WordPress loads only on pages carrying the block. The markup comes from WM_Newsticker::render_block() on every page view.
2. Four animations. Scroll (a CSS translateX keyframe loop; with more than two items the server renders the list twice so the loop is seamless), fade, slide and typing. Direction left, right, up or down, a right-to-left toggle, a speed slider from 10 to 100 that sets the animation duration.
3. Two content sources. Manual headlines (text, link, open in new tab) or the latest published posts of a public post type that is available in the REST API: 1 to 20 posts, optional category and tag filters, ordered by date, title, modified date, random or comment count, optionally prefixed with a relative or absolute date. Post queries are cached for 5 minutes in a transient; save_post and deleted_post clear the cache.
4. Design attributes. Background, text, label background, label text and border colours (hex with 3, 4, 6 or 8 digits, rgb() / rgba(), var(--…), transparent, inherit, currentcolor; anything else becomes #000000), padding, margin, border radius, border width and style, four shadow presets, font size 10 to 72 px, height 20 to 200 px, an optional label and a separator of up to five characters.
5. Optional controls (off by default): previous / next, play / pause, a progress bar, placed left or right. The ticker pauses while the mouse is over it (on by default).
6. Accessibility in the markup. The wrapper carries role="region", aria-roledescription="marquee", a translated aria-label and aria-live="off"; the controls are <button> elements with labels and a 2 px focus outline; with prefers-reduced-motion: reduce the scroll animation and the slide rotation do not run.
7. Admin. A handbook screen (top-level menu WM Newsticker, its submenus and an entry under Settings) with a live preview that is the block's real render_block() output, contextual help tabs, buttons that create or delete demo content (four example posts and an example page, marked with _is_wm_newsticker_demo), and a dashboard widget with counted figures (pages carrying the block, demo posts, cached queries). All of it on the Wender Media admin family sheets.
8. WP-CLI: wp newsticker post-types, wp newsticker flush-cache, wp newsticker demodaten --import | --delete | --reset [--yes] (--reset deletes the demo content and clears the cache).
9. REST route GET /wp-json/wm-newsticker/v1/post-types for the editor, permission_callback current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ); it lists public post types with REST support, without attachments.
10. Filter wm_newsticker_rendered_items( $items, $attributes ), applied before escaping.
11. WM Suite Hub spoke (includes/class-newsticker-spoke-adapter.php): SBOM entry with the SHA-256 of the main file, telemetry and actions, registered through wm_register_suite_module.
12. WPML: wpml-config.xml marks the label, the separator and the headline texts as translatable.

Not shipped

No settings of its own (the handbook screen has no options), no shortcode, no classic widget, no pause on keyboard focus, no processing of visitors' personal data, no cookies or browser storage, no external requests.

Quick start

1. Install and activate the plugin (WordPress 5.9+, PHP 7.4+ per the header; CI tests PHP 8.1 to 8.3).
2. In the block editor insert Newsticker (/newsticker).
3. Choose the content source, the animation and the colours in the block sidebar; switch on the controls if visitors should be able to stop the ticker.
4. The handbook under WM Newsticker shows a live preview and can create example content.

Developers

Architecture: docs/ARCHITECTURE.md · Classes, attributes and hooks: docs/DEVELOPER-GUIDE.md · Accessibility: docs/ACCESSIBILITY.md · Privacy: docs/DSGVO-COMPLIANCE.md · Security notes: docs/SECURITY-AUDIT.md

npm install
npm run build        # wp-scripts build; postbuild bin/harden-build-assets.mjs re-adds the ABSPATH guard to build/*.asset.php
npm run start        # watch mode

php tests/test-suite.php          # standalone suite, no WordPress needed
bash tests/run-mutations.sh       # each correction in tests/mutations.php undone must turn the suite red
php tests/test-ui-family.php      # admin family sheets byte-identical to the hub

# inside WordPress
wp eval-file wp-content/plugins/wm-newsticker/tests/test-newsticker-core.php
wp eval-file wp-content/plugins/wm-newsticker/tests/test-i18n.php

build/ is versioned so the plugin installs without a build step.

Known issues

• Keyboard users cannot stop the motion without the controls. The ticker pauses on hover only; focusing a link inside it does not pause it, and the controls are off by default.
• Control buttons are 28 × 28 px (16 px icon plus 6 px padding; 24 × 24 px up to 782 px viewport width), below the 44 × 44 px often asked for touch targets.
• Default label colours: white on #e94560 is 3.83:1, below 4.5:1 for 14 px text (WCAG 1.4.3 AA). The label is empty by default; it matters once a label text is set without changing the colours. White on the default background #1a1a2e is 17.06:1.
• The play / pause button's label switches to the untranslated English "Play" / "Pause" after the first click (set in src/frontend.js).
• Translations: the editor has German and Spanish JSON translations (101 and 103 of 105 strings). The 28 PHP catalogs in languages/ mostly repeat the source string (measured 2026-09-15: de_DE 2 of 171 entries translated, es_ES 3, 15 catalogs 0); the admin screens are German.
• uninstall.php deletes the ticker's transients only; demo posts created with the handbook stay until "Demodaten bereinigen" removes them.
• Demo posts seeded before 2026-09-15 carry invented news headlines (see CHANGELOG); remove them with "Demodaten bereinigen" and seed again if needed.

Privacy and accessibility

• No external requests: scripts, styles and icons are served from the plugin; no fonts, CDNs or tracking.
• No personal data: the block renders post titles and headlines; it sets no cookies and writes no browser storage.
• Accessibility: the measures in the markup are listed above, the gaps under Known issues. No audit against WCAG or the BFSG was made, and no conformity is claimed.

License

GPL v2 or later — see LICENSE or the GNU General Public License v2.0.