Category: Articles (Page 149 of 258)

Personal opinions and how-to’s that I’ve written both here and as contributions to other blogs.

Managing Tab Events in Bootstrap 3

August 26, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

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

Pressware and Self-Employment Accounting

August 25, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

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.

How Do You Manage Content Ownership?

August 21, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

I guess the question should be a bit more specific:

How do you manage content ownership with photo sharing services?

Sure, we could talk a lot about a number of different services that allow you to share content – links, videos, short form content, even blog content – and so on, but photo sharing services are kind of all of the rage right now.

And I completely understand why, too. But I’ll come back to this in a minute.

With that said, I’m genuinely curious about your opinion as it relates to services like Instagram and other similar applications.

Highlight Text in the WordPress Editor

August 20, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I worked through a series of posts on how to write a TinyMCE plugin for the WordPress editor (since the WordPress Editor is TinyMCE).

In a recent project, one of the things that I needed to a build was a feature that allowed users to highlight text such that they would select the text in the editor (you know, with their mouse), click on a “Highlight Text” button in the toolbar, then have the text highlight.

Highlighting Text in the WordPress Editor

And, naturally, it would return to its normal state of being un-highlighted if the text is selected and then the toolbar button is clicked again.

Though there’s no reason to share how the plugin is built in its entirety, I thought I’d walk through how I added the new command to the toolbar and used the HTML5 mark tag to include this functionality.

The Dangerous Nature of WordPress Comments (And What I’ve Learned)

August 19, 2015 / Tom

When it comes to posts like this, I often deliberate for weeks on whether or not I should write them because of the various discussions that it will inevitably cause and the blowback that can occur can often times be exhausting (even if it’s deserved).

But that’s not this kind of post. This is a retrospective of my own mistakes, my apologies, and what I’ve learned about moving forward in certain types of situations. More on that in a moment.

Right about now is when the defenses start to go up. Please don’t go into this post with that attitude as it’s not at all about anyone or anything but me. If you already feel like you’re on the defense, take a look at this cool picture taken at River Street in Savannah, Georgia.

Once you’ve calmed down, keep reading :).

River Street in Savannah, Georgia

Okay so before I write any more, don’t get me wrong: Discussions in and of themselves are generally good things to have (except when they go south, but that’s common sense, right?), but right now it appears that WordPress is in a volatile state with regard to various opinions, perspectives, and so on.

Those who follow along with blogs, Twitter, and the like know what I’m talking about. People are being harassed, people are being disrespected, and – for some – it’s more about trying to make a point than it is trying to listen to the points other people are making.

Such an incredible bummer, isn’t it? It’s beyond that, really, but words fail me here.

This should go without saying, but WordPress is representative of many different people of all different walks of life and rather than use that diversity as a way to better ourselves and to grow as people, some are using it as a platform to continually argue points that aren’t productive.

Thus far, I don’t think I’ve said anything new. In fact, I’m talking more about other people than I am myself and, for this particular post, I wanted to actually talk a little bit about myself.

Specifically, I want to talk about:

The mistakes I’ve made,
The things I’ve learned,
And how I’m trying to get better all thanks to the people who I’ve met through WordPress.

So here goes.