Author: Tom (Page 386 of 427)

Two Ways To Optimize Adding JavaScript in the WordPress Dashboard

August 8, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

Once you’ve been working on WordPress-based projects for a while, you quickly learn how to properly include stylesheets and JavaScript dependencies for the administrative dashboard or the public-facing aspect of a theme or plugin.

That is, you’re familiar with admin_enqueue_scripts and wp_enqueue_scripts.

And although these two hooks provide a way to segment the way in which scripts are loaded, it’s possible to further optimize how JavaScript dependencies are loaded by only loading them on the page that they are required.

Specifically, there are two ways that you can add JavaScript in WordPress in the dashboard:

Why Unit Testing is Important in WordPress

August 7, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

In June, I wrote a three part series for Envato called Introduction To WordPress Unit Testing. The series provided an overview of how to configure local environment for tests and how to begin writing basic tests.

Last month, I continued to discuss the topic by giving a case for why unit testing is important in WordPress.

WordPress User Interface Design

August 6, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

For years, I’ve been using PayPal and although I don’t hate the service as much as many (in fact, I have very few complaints), I really dig Stripe for its simplicity, design, and ease of integration.

On top of that, I’ve used it in a variety of client projects but I’ve never actually done anything with it myself.

But this past weekend, I finally had the opportunity to integrate Stripe into a page on my site, and I used the WP-Stripe plugin by Noel Tock.

This morning, I tweeted the following:

for an example of #wordpress plugin interface design done right, see @noeltock's work on wp stripe. http://t.co/lAetjqot

— Tom McFarlin (@tommcfarlin) August 6, 2012

This tweet sparked an excellent conversation in WordPress user interface design.

Quick Tip: Installing Git On Mac OS X

August 4, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

My favorite Git client for OS X is GitBox – it’s incredibly simple and makes working with git-based repositories really easy.

Still, there are times where I prefer the command line for a couple of things and the various GUI clients come up short. If you’ve not installed the OS X Developer Tools, like Xcode, on your machine, then you’re likely unable to use a command line version of the application that is bundled with your client of choice.

Here’s how to do it:

Using CodeKit For WordPress Plugin Development

August 3, 2012 / Tom / 0 Comments

Earlier this week, I shared my approach to and the tools used for building a WordPress Plugin. In the post, I briefly touched on CodeKit, but I didn’t really talk about why I use it nor did I share how I configure it for my WordPress-based projects.

CodeKit is a platform-agnostic application – it’s meant for anyone who is doing web development – and it has been one of the single best tools that I’ve added to my WordPress toolbox in the past year.

The thing is, there’s a variety of ways to tailor CodeKit for your needs. It has support for LESS, Sass, a couple of JavaScript linting utilities, dependency management, minification, and so on.

Though there’s no single “right way” to configure it, here’s how I’ve been using CodeKit for WordPress plugin development.