Author: Tom (Page 101 of 427)

Libraries for WordPress Plugins, Part 2

September 8, 2017 / Tom

Yesterday, I started a short series of posts covering tools that I think make for writing high-quality code in a WordPress project (specifically those that are plugins built using an object-oriented approach).

If you haven’t read the post, the first set of tools mentioned are as follows:

There are about five more tools that I like to keep running on my projects. So here’s the next three with the final two coming in the next post.

Libraries for WordPress Plugins, Part 1

September 7, 2017 / Tom

The more you work with WordPress, especially if you employ tools like Composer and the like, the more you’re likely going to find certain libraries, tools, and similar things that form the foundation of projects on which you work.

Sometimes you may find them when looking through other people’s code, maybe you’ll find them when browsing GitHub, or maybe someone you work with will suggest a library (or a few) depending on a project.

Personally, I’ve had the experience of all of the above, and the more I work on building solutions for myself or others, the more I find myself setting up the same foundation for each project (which is typically a plugin of some sort).

Should We Let Tools Dictate Our Projects?

August 31, 2017 / Tom

Does it make sense to use a different development stack or set of tools depending on the type of project you’re using even if it’s built on WordPress?

To give a little more context, I’ve written both about using tools like CodeKit (that bundles a variety of tools together to help streamline development).

Let Tools Dictate Your Project: CodeKit

And I’ve also talked about using things like CircleCI which are used in more enterprise-grade environments (but work just fine for smaller projects, too).

Let Tools Dictate Your Project: CircleCI

So when it comes to working on something alone or with a team, what’s the best thing to do?

WordPress Blogs You Follow Regularly…?

August 28, 2017 / Tom

This weekend, I got a message from a fellow WordPress-developer whom I highly respect. In the note, Mario asked:

I was curious, do you follow other WP bloggers or have a go-to list for people still actively writing?

Which is a good question because, to be honest, there aren’t that many people I know in WordPress who blog regularly.

WordPress Blogs You Follow Regularly (If Any)

This isn’t to say there aren’t a lot of people in WordPress who are active on Twitter or actively sharing their stuff on other channels like GitHub, Slack, newsletters, etc., but there aren’t many people who are actively writing on their blogs.

And maybe it’s weird, maybe it’s not, but I’d assume that those involved in WordPress development of some sort would occasionally write on some place on the web.

Adjusting the First PhpStorm Breakpoint

August 25, 2017 / Tom

Often, there are little idiosyncrasies that come with learning anything new. Thus, an IDE is no different.

And when it comes to learning a new IDE and how to use a debugger with it, there can often be small things that need to be adjusted or configured so that they help streamline your development.

For me, it comes with some of the default behavior of Xdebug. That is, if you’ve ever installed a new IDE and set it up to use Xdebug, you’ve likely experienced the behavior of having it start on the very first line of your web server or your application.

And this can be an annoying albeit preventable setting. If you’re using PhpStorm, here’s an easy way to fix it.