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A Practical Example of The WordPress Heartbeat API

March 21, 2014 / Tom / 0 Comments

The WordPress Heartbeat API is not exactly a new feature. That is, it was first released in WordPress 3.6. Maybe I’ve just done a poor job of keeping up with what others are doing with the API, or maybe I’ve just not paid attention to some of the stuff that people are doing with the API, but I haven’t seen that many examples other than how to get started with it.

On top of that, the Heartbeat API codex is lacking in documentation (though this is an open source project, so if anyone’s to blame, it’s all of us), so perhaps that’s a reason that few people have begun to implement it into their projects.

Whatever the reason, I thought it may be worth showing a practical example of how I recently implemented it within a theme I’m working on, and how I’m using it within conjunction with the Theme Customizer so that when an administrator makes a change to the theme using the Theme Customizer, the visitor will automatically (or is it automagically?) see the changes.

Updates To Markdown Code For WordPress (0.5.1)

March 20, 2014 / Tom / 0 Comments

One of the small plugins that I’ve maintained – and used – for sometime is the Markdown Code For WordPress plugin.

I initially wrote the plugin last year as a way to easily include my most frequently used markdown syntax into my post and comment editing.

Specifically, the plugin supports:

Backticks for `code`.
Single-asterisks *for emphasis*.
Double-asterisks **for strong**.

That’s all – short and sweet.

But with some of the latest changes to Jetpack and while I’ve been working on a number of smaller projects (or cleaning house of some of them), I went ahead and made some minor updates to the plugin.

The Latest Branch of the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate

March 19, 2014 / Tom / 0 Comments

Just shy of a month ago, I shared some information about the state of the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate.

Specifically, I mentioned the following:

We’re working on rewriting it to be cleaner, easier to understand, and more flexible for developers of all experience.
I’ve got a small, core team of volunteers helping me out (who I greatly appreciate).
Where we’re headed with this latest version of the project.

To be honest, I’ve never been more excited about the project.

There’s a lot more coming down the pipeline that I’ll cover later in this post – I also want to clear up some fun versioning quirks that I’ve been asked about – but I wanted to give a heads up on the current state of the codebase and where you can follow along with the development as we begin to push code.

What Is a Developer, Anyway?

March 18, 2014 / Tom / 0 Comments

In the comments of a previous post, some commenters and myself began talking about the idea how the term “developer” is overloaded – that is to say, what is a developer, anyway?

Now, more than ever, when we have a culture that’s aiming to get more and more people learning to code than ever before, and when we have more technologies with which people can write code (and I do mean any kind of code – anything from HTML to assembly), we’re also paving the way for so many people to call themselves a developer [of sorts].

And you know how it goes: If everyone is a developer, then no one’s a developer. Yes, that’s a little trite. Perhaps a better way to say it that: if everyone is a developer, then everyone must develop the same type of things.

And those in technology know that that could not be further from the truth.

Should There Be Developer Documentation for WordPress Themes?

March 17, 2014 / Tom / 0 Comments

For anyone who has been involved with building and/or supporting WordPress themes, then it can’t be understated how important documentation for WordPress themes can be for customers.

Generally speaking, this type of documentation refers to a manual that walks users through how to use a theme, it’s various features, and so on. I think it’s hard to argue that this is something that should be made available for everyone, or, at the very least, for those who have purchased the theme (of course, having a freely available manual can also serve as a marketing resource, but I digress).

But one thing that I don’t think talked about very often is if there should be developer documentation for WordPress themes.

Tom McFarlin