Author: Tom (Page 67 of 428)

How to Easily Truncate Text in PHP

November 9, 2018 / Tom

If you treat WordPress exclusively as a blogging application or, even in a more liberal sense, a content management system, then you’re likely used to using the editor or the excerpt field to write a teaser then introduce a Read More link.

WordPress for Web Applications (Again)

For those who have read this site for a while, I’m specifically interested in using WordPress as a foundation for web application development (see also this, this, this, and this).

At the time of this post, this is an article that’s about six years old.

So there are times when the content that you’re going to be rendering on the front-end may be coming from a third-party source.

Back to the Content

That is, the application works like this:

contact a third-party API,
import data from the call and parse it as necessary,
write it to the database,
render the information on the front-end when requested.

There’s a lot that can go in between each of the above steps, but the main thing I want to share in this post is an effective way to easily truncate text using PHP to render on the front-end.

This is useful for providing teasers, linking out to third-party sites, and more all without needing to write or edit content manually.

Using Coding Standards with WordPress

November 8, 2018 / Tom

I write a fair amount about coding standards with WordPress and the importance that I believe they have for individuals, teams, and with working with the core application, that being WordPress itself.

Coding Standards with WordPress: The WordPress Coding Standards

In the last year or so, I’ve moved away from working primarily with the WordPress Coding Standards and have begun to use PHP Standard Recommendations for coding.

Coding Standards with WordPress: PSR

Note that I did not say I abandoned the WordPress Coding Standards nor that I elevate the PSR recommendations above them, but I have reasons for when I use each. And for anyone working with WordPress-based projects, I think it’s important to recognize when it’s appropriate to use each.

And that’s the purposes of this post.

WordPress Widgets: An Object-Oriented Approach

November 7, 2018 / Tom

Years ago, I created the WordPress Widget Boilerplate aiming to be the following:

An organized, maintainable boilerplate for building widgets using WordPress best practices.

Since then, not much has changed regarding the Widgets API (which we’ll look at later in this post), but what I consider to be “best practices” has changed. Further, the degree to which I think this API is a solid example of introductory object-oriented programming in WordPress is high.

WordPress Widgets: The Widgets Boilerplate

It’s not because it uses a lot of object-oriented principles, it’s not because it uses modern standards (at least as far as modern PHP is concerned), but because it does use a few things that help us to recognize a few, say, signals regarding object-oriented programming in WordPress.

And this is something that shouldn’t be understated: If you’re looking for examples of object-oriented programming in WordPress, look for APIs that employ it.

Further, if you’re looking for ways to gauge you’re own level of evaluating a piece of code (let alone a code base) for the use of classes and some of the more advanced features of OOP, then why not have some sort of a litmus test to see how you’re doing?

WordPress Widgets: The Widgets API

And the Widgets API does just that.

What Content is Next for Site Members?

November 6, 2018 / Tom

When I set out to create a members-only section of my website, it was to do two things:

provide members with access to high-quality articles for how to approach object-oriented programming in WordPress,
grants discounts to other products and services that I found useful via friends, acquaintances and other services.

Periodically, I do get questions about the content that I’ve produced thus far. If you’re interested in reading the full, detailed list, you can see them here.

Content for Site Members: Members Only Content

But the gist of what I have so far is here:

The Business of Programming
Object-Oriented Programming in WordPress (An Introduction to Basic Principles)
A WordPress Development Environment
Using Visual Studio Code
Unit Testing
The Independent WordPress Developer

And that’s the content that I have for site members thus far. But that doesn’t answer the question of what’s next (nor does it answer the question as to why I’ve laid things out the way that I have), so I thought I’d take a post to do that.

An Example of Retrieving Namespaced Properties in PHP

November 1, 2018 / Tom

When you write enough code that communicates with third-party APIs, you’re more than likely going to find yourself communicating with an XML-based API.

And say what you will about it: Some like it, some don’t. But they exist, and they are thus going to be a necessary part of your development at some point.

If the API is well-designed, it will likely use namespaces for different types of requests and responses. And when you’re writing the client for said API, then you’re likely going to need to go about retrieving namespaced properties.

It’s easy to do it, but it’s not immediately obvious. So in this post, I’m going to walk through an example of how to do just that.