Author: Tom (Page 383 of 427)

How To Unit Test WordPress Settings API Validators

August 22, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

For those who are experienced with the Settings API, you may wish to skip down to the core problem.

How To Unit Test WordPress Settings API Validators

I’m currently building a web application where WordPress is serving as the core framework. I’ve discussed this before and Matt covered this in State of the Word 2012 as something that will become more common as WordPress grows in popularity.

So WordPress doesn’t necessarily have an MVC or MVVM or whatever design pattern, but it offers its own method for how data models, business logic, and other necessary components should be created.

I’m using the Settings API to create a model that represents a user in the application. Essentially, it will wrap the core WordPress user model, but I have to introduce some additional attributes and ultimately create relationships with other models that WordPress doesn’t natively support.

Anyway, I’m writing unit tests for everything that’s going into the application and I hit an interesting point when it came to unit testing the validation functions.

Why I Contributed To Easy Digital Downloads, What I Learned, & Why You Should, Too

August 21, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

At the risk of sounding like a marketer rather than a fan and contributor of the plugin, Easy Digital Downloads is a free plugin for WordPress that makes it exceptionally easy to sell digital products through your WordPress-based site.

Though it’s available for download from the WordPress Plugins Repository, Pippin – the lead developer behind the plugin – open sourced the plugin on GitHub in order to get other developers involved.

This past weekend, I was able to contribute a couple of fixes. In light in the whole plugin conversion that’s going on within the WordPress Developer Community, I found several points worth mentioning with regards to getting involved with Easy Digital Downloads.

Comment Images For WordPress 1.4

August 20, 2012 / Tom

Comments are closed on this post. The official discussion thread can be found on the project's post.

Comment Images For WordPress 1.4

I’ve received some great feedback from users who are using Comment Images For WordPress. Since its release, I’ve received a number of comments, emails, and quick notes about minor issues that users have had when using the plugin.

Yesterday, I officially released Comment Images For WordPress 1.4. You can grab a copy of it here, but here’s a run down of the changes that have happened since I first launched the plugin:

Improving WordPress Plugins

August 20, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

Improving WordPress Plugins

In some ways, plugins are kind of the “apps of WordPress” and they need to be treated as such. Many developers care about improving WordPress plugins and the associated experience, but there’s a long way to go.

Currently, it’s more like the Wild West than anything else: Anyone who can write code that does something with WordPress – regardless of if it follows any of the best practices – and can have their work added the plugin repository.

Last week, an impromptu discussion about the state of plugins grew into a much more serious talk. So much so that what started as a Twitter conversation moved to a Google Hangout then migrated to a blog.

Obviously, this touched a sensitive spot in the WordPress Developer community and a discussing ensued about what could be done to begin improving WordPress plugins and the associated process and repository:

Mou For Mac – Markdown Made Awesome

August 17, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

If you’re in the business of writing plugins for WordPress or are involved at all with the GitHub community, then you’re more than familiar with markdown.

Personally, I’ve tried a number of different markdown editors but have yet to be really satisfied with any of them. For the longest time, I used iA Writer and I still think it’s a terrific application, but I think it’s geared more towards writers and note takers. It doesn’t suite my particular needs.

The majority of the notes that I take are usually in some form of documentation – either it’s related to team meetings, documentation for work I share on GitHub, or README files for themes, plugins, or similar projects.

And as far as those situations are concerned, Mou For Mac is hands down the best markdown editor I’ve used.