Tom McFarlin

Software Engineering in WordPress, PHP, and Backend Development

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Time to Commit Code: It’s Best to Do It At…?

It’s not enough, as programmers, to talk about code or to talking about committing code if we’re not also talking the best time to commit code, right?

Sure, some developers have their times dictated by outside circumstances. Maybe it’s an employer, maybe it’s a person who’s hired the developer under a contract, or maybe it’s some other external circumstance.

Whatever the case, I’ve found that having a set expectation as the best time to commit code can help take several aspects of the full sprint or milestone development process a bit easier especially regarding how it helps to scope a given release.

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WordPress Admin Notices: Toggle Them With This Plugin

Last week, I shared some thoughts on my desire to do a better job of sharing personal projects – regardless of how big or how small – on GitHub. I’ve used to do a better job of it, and I’ve since gotten out of it. (And this lead to some comments, some of which aren’t approved yet, which I still need to find some time to sit and respond.)

And I want to get back into the habit of it.

But during the conversation, I came to the realization that I have a lot of small classes, plugins, utilities, functions, helpers, etc. related to WordPress development or JavaScript that I’ve never really put on GitHub.

But in following up with what I said I’d do, I pushed up 0.1.0 of the first project in an attempt to follow-through on what I said I’d do starting with a small project that allows us to toggle WordPress admin notices.

Toggle WordPress Admin Notices

So here’s Toggle Admin Notices.

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UI Component Libraries for WordPress via 10up

When it comes to working with UI component libraries in WordPress, I usually look to jQuery UI. Sure, there are some components that are dated (and there are others I like such as Select2), but given that…

  • jQuery is bundled with WordPress,
  • jQuery UI is included in the application and can be easily enqueued,
  • it’s a tried and trusted library,
  • the documentation is solid and it’s easy to follow

This isn’t to say there aren’t times when issues arise, but generally speaking, it’s a solid option when it comes to working with various UI component libraries.

But last week, 10up released a UI component library that I think is worth looking into if you’re a WordPress developer.

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Open-Source WordPress Libraries (Why I Should Share Them)

The other day, I was talking with a friend, Toby, about the lack of inactivity I have on GitHub. Specifically, I have a lot of private repositories, and I have a lot of secret gists. There’s a method to all of this that I follow, though:

  • private repositories are typically dedicated to client projects or projects that I don’t think are ready for others to use yet (for the sake of the overhead in managing it),
  • gists are strictly for sharing code snippets on this blog, and that’s it,
  • open-source WordPress libraries are occasionally there but have become quite dated,

But during the conversation, I came to the realization that I have a lot of small classes, plugins, utilities, functions, helpers, etc. related to WordPress development or JavaScript that I’ve never really put on GitHub.

Open-Source WordPress Libraries: Where Are They?

Much of what I currently have is out-of-date.

That is, I don’t really open-source my WordPress libraries. I have reasons for this all, but the bottom-line is that I want to change that.

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Sharing Visual Studio Code Settings in Dropbox

Yesterday, I walked through the process of sharing databases in Dropbox so it makes sense to follow that up with how to go about sharing Visual Studio Code settings in Dropbox.

That is if you use Visual Studio Code (and I’ve had some people ask Twitter how to do this).

Sharing Visual Studio Code Settings: The Editor

As the same is in the previous post, the same disclaimer that I work on macOS. So this dictates the commands I use, how I create symbolic links, and how I go about sharing settings among machines.

Since this is following up a similar post, why not jump right in?

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