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Using Xdebug with Pressmatic

July 18, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

A few weeks ago, Pressmatic made a grand entrance into the WordPress development space with its unique positioning as a WordPress-specific development environment.

Pressmatic with WordPress Trunk

Specifically, it describes itself as such:

Pressmatic is a robust local WordPress manager. You won’t be disappointed with the ease of use, performance, and features.

I’ve been using it ever since (and talked about it in a couple of previous posts). Generally speaking, I’ve been really happy with one.

One of the features that it claims as a major benefit is:

One-click integration of Xdebug + PHPStorm.

And that’s great if you are using PHPStorm; however, those of you who’ve read this blog for any length of time within the past year or so know that I’m a fan of Codebug (which is essentially a front-end for Xdebug) and that I’ve made the switch to Atom.

So if you’re working with anything other than PHPStorm and you’re looking make use of Xdebug with Pressmatic, here’s a step-by-step guide for how to do so.

Saving Empty Radio Button Values in WordPress

July 15, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

One of the projects I’ve been working on recently presents the user with a comprehensive set of options. As usual, the options take the form of a variety of different elements:

input text fields,
radio buttons,
select elements,
and more.

In most cases, you should be familiar with initializing default values for all of these element types. Radio buttons may be the exception. And if they are, then you’ve no doubt run into a PHP notice when saving empty radio button values.

And having PHP notices is no good, right?

Regardless of if you’re using the WordPress Settings API or some custom serialization code, these notices can still show up. If you use Query Monitor, then you’ve likely seen this show up in your menu. Similarly, if you use the Console (or another application) to monitor your PHP logs, you’ve probably seen the error as well.

OS X Console

One place in which this can be tricky to deal with is when you’re working with radio buttons without an initial value.

What Should I Build? Ideas for WordPress Projects.

July 14, 2016 / Tom

Anyone who writes regardless of if it’s prose, creative writing, code, a blog post, or more is familiar with writer’s block in some form or fashion. And when it comes to programming, I think some experience the same type of thing (programmer’s block, perhaps?).

Case in point: I remember when I was younger, and was learning to program, I had this insatiable desire to want to create something to use, or others would use. The problem was that I didn’t know what to try to write.

Granted, I was young at the time, and I lacked several skills that were needed to build something like that, but – as they say – I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Now, much of my work is spent building things for others. That is, they have a problem that needs solving, and I have the desire and means by which to provide said solution.

And I love it.

There are times, though, that I still bump up against a particular problem that I wish I could solve. The only difference between now and two decades ago is that I have the means by which I can do that.

Clearly, it’s taken a while to get to that point. But the point remains: People are learning to program and want to build something, but they don’t know what to build or how to discover what to create.

It’s easy to spout off “well just scratch your itch.” But that doesn’t do much to get the creativity flowing, does it?

So in my latest article for Envato, I try to provide some practical advice on how to determine what to build when using WordPress.

Single Responsibility Principle: Option Pages

July 13, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

Assuming you’ve read the following two posts (on the single responsibility principle and WordPress submenus), then this is a good place to tear apart the code and start trying to apply the principle.

Single Responsibility: One Reason to Change

If on the other hand, you haven’t read the posts, there are two things to note. First, the single responsibility principle says the following:

A class should have only one reason to change.

Secondly, review the code in this gist as this is the basis for the rest of the content of this article. Specifically, I’m going to be taking the above principle and try to apply it to the code.

Single Responsibility Principle: WordPress Menus

July 12, 2016 / Tom / 0 Comments

The single responsibility principle, as mentioned in the previous post, should be thought of as nothing more than asking the following question:

A class should have only one reason to change.

The question is far simpler than the answer, though. And through this post and the next, I’m hoping to demonstrate exactly that.

But first, I want to mention that the context for this particular question is with a relatively simple API. This doesn’t mean that the result isn’t as beneficial. It does, however, make for quicker reading and more time to talk about the application of the principle.

Tom McFarlin

Using Xdebug with Pressmatic

Saving Empty Radio Button Values in WordPress

What Should I Build? Ideas for WordPress Projects.

Single Responsibility Principle: Option Pages

Single Responsibility Principle: WordPress Menus