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Discover Object-Oriented Programming Using WordPress

March 6, 2019 / Tom

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, specifically in the last two or three years, then you know I’m a fan of object-oriented programming especially so in the context of WordPress.

And if you’ve followed me on Twitter, you know that – like many of you – I’ve met many people who I consider to be legitimate friends (versus the bastardization of the phrase by sites such as Facebook)

On top of that, you know one of my favorite past times on Twitter is trolling said friends. So far, though, this entire post is all about my friends and me and, ahem, trolling.

So what’s the point?

Ultimately, it’s to give you a heads up something that’s been released today, that’s been a long time in the making, that’s finally available, and that’s going to help anyone who wants to be a better WordPress developer.

It’s a Trilogy (with Models and Music)

March 5, 2019 / Tom

This is the third episode of the podcast and, as you can tell by the title of the show notes, this is a bit of a milestone. At least, it’s considered as such for movies and books.

For podcasts, I don’t know. For this one, sure. Why not?

Episode 3 - It's a Trilogy

If you subscribe to this using one of the various services on which it’s available, you may have already listened to it. If not, then consider it ready for you whenever you’re ready to listen to it.

I’m still working on the format of the show to try to make it as focused as possible so I’ve adjusted the order of material a bit again (and dropped a segment out).

This leaves time for more than one question as well as more detailed answers.

To that end, I think this episode is one of the strongest thus far. But that’s really your call, isn’t it?

Taking Aspects of WordPress for Granted

February 28, 2019 / Tom

Because of the open-source nature of WordPress, one of the luxuries that many of us are used to having is complete control over the environment in which we’re working. Given that, you might even say that we take certain aspects of WordPress for granted.

And I’d say that for the majority of projects on which we work, this is true.

By that, I mean we’re not only able to customize, extend, and even limit the software (for certain types of users), we’re also able to change certain aspects of its configuration.

But if you’re in the business of doing work for others – an employer, as part of a contractor, or in some other situation – you may be limited in just how much customization you’re able to make.

Use the Current User ID with Pods for WordPress

February 27, 2019 / Tom

The Pods Framework for WordPress, a specific utility that’s been around for a long time, offers a lot of functionality that can make working with advanced content types, custom settings, and so on.

Current User ID with Pods: Pods Framework

I mention this because Pods is a popular utility and there are some features available that provide some nice functionality.

Through the use of shortcodes, it’s possible to perform some powerful database queries to retrieve information to populate forms dynamically.

One use case that I see showing up in a few results is how to populate a shortcode with the current user’s ID. There’s a forum post about it here and a continued discussion about it on Stack Overflow, too.

But if you’re looking for a way to filter the content to do this without reworking some of the existing shortcodes, there’s another way to do it.

WordPress Class Serialization with PHP

February 26, 2019 / Tom

If you’re used to working with models (in any foundation or framework, but specifically WordPress), then there’s a chance that you may need to serialize an instance of the model at some point.

Sure, writing the class to a database using PHP’s built-in functions is easy enough; however, introducing a bit of flexibility especially as it relates to making it available on other platforms is important.

For example, let’s say you’re building an application on WordPress that’s going to have some type of unique piece of information represented in a model. The model will then be accessible via a mobile application through the REST API.

WordPress Class Serialization: PHP

Arguably, one of the easiest ways to get this done is to use JSON. It’s a format that works across various languages and platforms, can be easily serialized and de-serialized by said platforms, and sent across the wire as needed.

And it’s incredibly easy to implement this in PHP. You just need to make sure your class implements the JsonSerializable interface.

WordPress Class Serialization: PHP

From the documentation, the interface does the following:

Objects implementing JsonSerializable can customize their JSON representation when encoded with json_encode().

The only method a class needs to provide is jsonSerialize, and though it’s likely you will want to serialize all of the properties of an object (as well as its state whenever its called), you can customize the implementation however you’d like.

Tom McFarlin

Discover Object-Oriented Programming Using WordPress

It’s a Trilogy (with Models and Music)

Taking Aspects of WordPress for Granted

Use the Current User ID with Pods for WordPress

WordPress Class Serialization with PHP