Azhar Ali (@softglaze) – WordPress user profile

Azhar Ali

Since the 7.1 cycle, I contribute to core testing. at SoftGlaze LLC

@softglaze Multan, Punjab joined Jan 2026

softglaze.com github.com/softglazee Slack: @softglaze

Teams Community Core AI Core Core Performance Photos Test

Languages ur

Bio

I’m Azhar, a full-stack developer who specialises in WordPress, based in Multan, Pakistan. I run SoftGlaze, my own one-developer studio, and I write the code myself. Seven years of client work and 150+ projects, more than 60 of them WordPress builds and 20+ WooCommerce and Shopify stores.

Since the 7.1 cycle I contribute to core testing: patch testing, bug reproduction, and tracing regressions back to the changeset that caused them. I show my work every time, with DevTools traces, before and after screenshots, and PHPUnit runs. I’m credited on 7 committed core changesets, mostly for testing and verifying other people’s patches closely enough to catch what they missed. I also authored a regression test that shipped in core, and I reported and fixed #65802, which shipped in [63338] for WordPress 7.2. I hold Meta credits too.

Eight plugins live on the directory: SoftGlaze PDF Invoices for WooCommerce, SoftGlaze Invoices Gulf, SoftGlaze Maintenance Mode and Coming Soon, SoftGlaze Click to Chat, SoftGlaze AI Crawler Monitor, Driveline Core, Driveline for Elementor and Driveline for WPBakery. Two themes, Warqa and Driveline, and 14 block patterns on the pattern directory.

I also contribute to Polyglots, translating and reviewing Urdu strings, I’m a translation editor for Urdu on my own plugins, and I translated the Urdu beginner course on Learn. I’m in #core, #core-test and #training on Slack. Feedback on my tickets is always welcome.

Interests

Web development, SEO, WordPress plugin development, WordPress theme development, WooCommerce, custom website development, block themes, WordPress core testing, AI website creation

WordPress Origin Story

I came to WordPress a skeptic. I wrote everything from scratch in PHP and Laravel and figured a CMS meant giving up control. Then a deadline landed that I couldn’t hit hand-coding. I gave WordPress an honest try. It shipped early. That was seven years ago. I never went back.

Since then it’s been plugins, WooCommerce builds and admin tooling for real businesses. Now I test core itself. After seven years of earning a living on this platform, that feels fair.

Badges

CODE

6 badges

Core Contributor '26 Meta Contributor '26 Pattern Author '26 P Playground Contributor '26 Plugin Developer Theme Developer

CONTENT

2 badges

O Openverse Contributor '26 Photo Contributor '26

COMMUNITY

1 badge

bbPress Contributor '26

PRACTICE

4 badges

Accessibility Contributor '26 Support Contributor '26 Test Contributor '26 Training Contributor '26

POLYGLOTS

2 badges

Translation Contributor '26 Translation Editor '26

Current Job

Since the 7.1 cycle, I contribute to core testing.

Jan 2026 – Present

SoftGlaze LLC · Full-time

Job History

Founder & Full-Stack WordPress Developer

Mar 2022 – Present

SoftGlaze LLC · Full-time

I run SoftGlaze as a small studio: I do the development myself and bring in specialists I have worked with for years when a project needs them.

Custom WordPress and WooCommerce development, Shopify builds, and bespoke applications in PHP, Laravel and React. 150+ projects delivered under my own name, 60+ of them WordPress builds and 20+ WooCommerce or Shopify stores, mostly for small businesses in the UK, Europe and Pakistan.

Alongside client work I contribute to WordPress core testing, and I publish my plugins and a block theme to the directory with every premium feature free.

Key Accomplishments

Published the Warqa block theme in the WordPress.org theme directory. Nine templates, 36 patterns, light and dark style variations, fonts bundled locally so the theme makes no remote requests. The theme review team set it live with zero required changes and no revision round.

Discovered and reported a dormant core bug (#65802) where a media upload function had been assigning an error flag to an undeclared variable since WordPress 6.7.0. Found it by reading the source, proved it by forcing the environment condition and measuring the direct return value, and submitted the fix (PR 12830) along with two PHPUnit tests.

Delivered 150+ projects under my own name over seven years, including 60+ WordPress builds and 20+ WooCommerce and Shopify stores, for clients in the UK, Europe and Pakistan.

Translated 1,040 strings and reviewed 1,037 strings into Urdu on translate.wordpress.org, earning Translation Contributor and Translation Editor recognition.

Published and maintain four plugins in the WordPress.org directory: SoftGlaze PDF Invoices for WooCommerce, SoftGlaze Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon, SoftGlaze Click to Chat, and SoftGlaze AI Crawler Monitor. All four ship every premium feature free, with no locked settings, dashboard ads or upgrade prompts.

Produced the first reproduction of a REST API failure that had gone unreproduced (#64921) by building an mu-plugin simulation, confirmed a hard 400 response, and demonstrated that the proposed patch did not resolve it. Another contributor later used the same technique and credited it.

Root-caused a WordPress 7.0 Media Library layout regression to the exact changeset that introduced it ([61757]), then posted the only test report on the fix a seven-case matrix that independently verified the patch author's stylesheet print-order argument. A core committer thanked me by name for the research.

The Filesystem API fix I verified ([62854]) shipped with a new PHPUnit regression test in the core test suite that I authored, so the behaviour I checked is now permanently guarded against reintroduction.

Six props on committed WordPress core changesets in the 7.1 cycle: [62854], [62865], [62967], [62968], [62976], and [63007]. The majority of these came from meticulously testing and verifying other contributors' patches rather than authoring the core fixes myself.

Recent impact

Score weights high-impact work (commits, releases, approved translations, props) at 3x routine activity.

Last 30 days

99contributions

high6

medium93

score111

Last 90 days

222contributions

high64

medium158

score350

Last 12 months

233contributions

high75

medium158

score383

Team focus

Share of contributions across teams during the last 365 days

WordPress releases

Contributed to 1 release

Time commitment

10 hours per week

On my own time 10 hrs/wk

Contributions

Type

October 2026

Oct 24 Sat · 23:36

Community med

Created issue #1162 in the WordPress/Community-Team repository:
[Doc] Publish the Event Sustainability Checklist in the WordCamp Organizer Handbook

Oct 24 Sat · 23:36

GitHub med

Submitted pull request #68 to WordPress/sustainability:
Note that lanyard shipping is paused, and fix the Learn account video…

Oct 24 Sat · 21:30

GitHub med

Submitted pull request #283 to WordPress/contributor-handbook:
Pathways: fix the Trac login, default theme and report template in the…

Oct 24 Sat · 21:30

GitHub med

Created issue #282 in the WordPress/contributor-handbook repository:
Pathways: Feedback - Test WordPress Bug Reports

Oct 24 Sat · 21:13

GitHub med

Submitted pull request #281 to WordPress/contributor-handbook:
Pathways: explain static file URLs and fix the Slack channel in the…

Oct 24 Sat · 21:13

GitHub med

Created issue #280 in the WordPress/contributor-handbook repository:
Pathways: Feedback - Build a WordPress Playground Blueprint

Oct 24 Sat · 21:12

bbPress high

Mentioned in [8137] on bbPress SVN:
Replies: Sync Forum and Reply To with Topic.

Oct 24 Sat · 21:07

bbPress high

Mentioned in [8136] on bbPress SVN:
Replies: Sync Forum and Reply To with Topic.

Oct 24 Sat · 21:03

Forums med

Posted a reply to Undefined property: stdClass, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
Hi, these warnings come from the Account box on the W3 Total Cache dashboard, and…

Oct 24 Sat · 20:53

Forums med

Posted a reply to It is impossible to translate the word “ON” within “HERO.”, on the site WordPress.org Forums:
Hi, the "ON" in the hero is not the plain word "on" in the translation…