Tom McFarlin

Software Engineering in WordPress, PHP, and Backend Development

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Live Code Reviews at WordCamp Tampa

At the end of September (September 25th – 27th, to be exact), there are going to be a lot of great people at WordCamp Tampa.

Code Reviews at WordCamp Tampa

 

As of now, the schedule is still being put together, so I don’t know any more details than what you can find on the website; however, there is one event that I think anyone who is coming. should consider attending: A live code audit.

In short, it’s your code in front of a panel of other people critiquing it in front of all of your peers. Sounds scary, right?

Years ago, I used to think so – but then I realized just how great code reviews can be and I urge anyone who is writing code for a living to have someone else review their work.

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Quick Tip: Searching Custom Post Types

Say what you will about the built in WordPress search functionality – sure, it could stand to be improved (personally I’m a fan of SearchWP) – but not all projects warrant the same requirements, right?

Sometimes, the built-in search functionality works just fine out-of-the-box. It gets a little more involved if you start introducing, say, custom taxonomies or custom post types, though.

That is, say you’re working on a project or have a client who needs help with modifying the built in search functionality so that it allows for searching custom post types. There’s actually a lot of flexibility provided in how you tailor the search results, but for this case it’s pretty easy. Continue reading

Managing Tab Events in Bootstrap 3

Yes, there are a lot of front-end frameworks that are available for use in WordPress development, and no I wouldn’t say I have a favorite (though I tend to use Bootstrap or Foundation for most of my work, at this time).

At the time of this writing, I’m currently working on a project in which I’m using Bootstrap 3.3.5 to handle the front-end.

Bootstrap

Part of the project calls for use of the tab functionality in such a way that you can, y’know, tab through several panes of information without actually leaving the page.

If you’ve ever used Bootstrap, you know it’s easy to setup and integrate into a project; however, if you’re looking to introduce more complicated functionality such as having to make asynchronous requests whenever the pages tabs change and then you need to update the DOM accordingly, it can actually be a little frustrating in nature.

Sure, there are some ways in which you can track which tab is active – class names, using hidden fields, etc., but depending on how you’ve architected the front-end and what’s happening with the Ajax response, you may actually end up with needing to do something a little more advanced than that.

Generally speaking, whenever I’m working with JavaScript and I’m trying to handle an asynchronous event (or even synchronous events, for that matter), I want to use exactly that – events.

But when it comes to needing to handle when a tab has been changed to toggle a pane in Bootstrap, what event do we use? again hanks

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Pressware and Self-Employment Accounting

Some of the developers and designers who I admire the most in the wider development community are really good about being open about various aspects of their businesses. Sometimes they talk about their challenges, sometimes they do financial reports, and other times they cover different topics.

I’ve slowly been trying to share some of my own experience as it relates to self-employment. It’s not meant to be prescriptive or meant to be a guide on how you should do anything, but it’s something that I hope proves useful if for no other reason than to show what’s worked for me.

So in this post, I thought I’d share how I’ve gone about managing my books – or how I’ve done self-employment accounting – since working out of Pressware.

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Quick Tip: A Way to Work Well With Designers

If you’re a developer working in WordPress, then odds are you’ve spent time working with designers. Assuming you’re working with a good designer, it can be a lot of fun.

I think we’ve all had our share of experiences both good and bad (and luckily I’m at a point where I’m working with some really great designers), but I think there are things we – as developers – can do to help make our designers jobs a little bit easier.

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