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Hey Programmer: Don’t Be a Jerk

August 13, 2015 / Tom

Cliff, a local developer friend, happened to share this on Twitter earlier this year. I’ve been sitting on this post until I found a good time to post it.

“The increase in gratuitous negativity as Hacker News has gotten bigger is the thing I’ve liked the least.” – http://t.co/kXgMFCEjKp

— Cliff Seal (@cliffseal) April 3, 2015

Of course, I don’t know what a “good time” is, but since I’ve had this drafted and I’m on the road right now, this seemed like as good a time as any.

Anyway, I thought that it was something that we could all read, learn from, and carry forward in our day-to-day interaction online.

WordPress and Theme-Specific Plugins

August 12, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

When it comes to working with WordPress themes and plugins, there’s a general rule of thumb that most experienced designers and developers follow:

Themes are for presentation, plugins are for functionality.

Sure, there’s a little bit of blurring of lines, but this is the goal for which we strive when working through our code. And yes, there’s a lot that can be said (and has been said) about themes that include a ton of features, options, bundled plugins, and so on, but that’s not where this is going.

WordPress Themes

Instead, I’ve been thinking about how this relates to general theme development, niche theme development, and using WordPress as a platform for application development.

Expectations If The User Presses Enter

August 11, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

This post is really more of a quick tip than anything else, but if you’re in the business of building web sites or web applications in which users interact with the project and are used to using shortcuts throughout the rest of their applications, then you need to consider the case of what to do if the user presses enter.

If The User Presses Enter

That is, if the end user is using the project you’re working on in order to, say, submit information to the server via a form, then they shouldn’t necessarily have to manually use the mouse (or trackpad) to click on the ‘Submit’ button in order for their information to be transmitted across the wire.

If you’re an experienced web developer, then you’re likely familiar with using JavaScript to handle situations like this, but if you’re new to the business or just new to working with JavaScript then here’s the basics for handling this use case.

Two Tips for Writing WordPress Plugins

August 10, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

Occasionally, I’m asked for two quick tips or suggestions that I have for those who are just getting started with writing WordPress plugins.

WordPress Plugins

The assumption is that they’ve done all of the necessary leg work to get to the point where they are comfortable writing code and working with WordPress, but they want to avoid some of the pitfalls that many (or most?) of us experience when we first get started on our own projects.

Why I Recommend Array Themes

August 7, 2015 / Tom

The WordPress theme market is at a weird place right now. Simply put, a lot of people will state the themes have now become a commodity. Sometimes, people consider this a bad thing, others consider it a more of a neutral fact that’s more or less a representation of where the WordPress economy currently sits.

Regardless of what your perspective may be, people still want to blog, people still need to have good-looking, functional websites, and people still need to have reputable places from which to purchase their themes.

And that’s why I dig (and recommend) Array Themes.

Tom McFarlin