Software Engineering in WordPress, PHP, and Backend Development

Category: Projects (Page 10 of 32)

Posts introducing, updating, and covering various projects to which I’ve contributed or that I maintain.

Educate Your Users in Open Source Software

One of the things that I’m working hard to have released by the end of the month is the latest version of the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate.

The latest version has been in development for quite a while now (a lot has happened offline so, you know, that’s how it goes).

The last time that I really spent any time talking about this project was in November 2013. A lot has changed since then. Initially, I was planning on a minor upgrade with some of the following features:

  • Releasing the version has part of the 2.x.x versioning
  • Including a class specifically for administrative functionality
  • Fixing issues with symbolic links and textdomains
  • Including more TODO’s for users to find what needs to be changed
  • …and so on.

But when I got started on the next version of the Boilerplate, a lot of things changed. The short of it is that it’s being completely re-written from the ground up and the code and documentation are being split into to separate things for the sake of user education.

I’ll spend more time talking about the Boilerplate in a future, but one of the things that I wanted to share that’s related to running a project like the Boilerplate has to do with open source, contributions, lack of a vision, and how this can negatively impact your project and your users.

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A Plugin to Remove WordPress Pingbacks

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’m going to be turning off pingbacks for the public-facing side of this blog for a number of reasons the least of which is not to help make it easier for others to participate in comments.

In order to do that, I’ve written a small plugin that helps makes this really easy to do:

  1. Download the plugin
  2. Install and activate it
  3. And you’ll be good to go

Sound simple, right? Here’s more information.

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An Image Widget for WordPress

One of the best parts about being someone who uses WordPress on a daily basis both for personal use and in doing work for others is the ability to create solutions to problems that you encounter throughout your day-to-day.

Obviously, some problems are more complex than others and require more elaborate solutions, whereas others are easier problems that still may call for a simpler solution, but a solution nonetheless.

Case in point: In a few recent projects, I’ve needed to integrate an image widget that allows users to easily upload images into sidebars and/or widgetized areas of their blog. The challenge, however, is that there are multiple ways to go about doing this.

So my first take at implementing a solution for this particular problem comes in the form of the Pressware Image Widget for WordPress.

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Mayer for WordPress Is on Sale

Comments are closed on this post. If you have questions or comments, leave them at The Pressware Shop.

For those of you celebrating the 4th of July here in the United States and over the course of the weekend, I hope that you have a great time. For those of you who are elsewhere, I still hope you have a great time and find something to celebrate even if it’s just the fact that it’s the weekend :).

As with most other WordPress companies, I’m offering up a 4th of July holiday sale on Mayer for WordPress over at The Pressware Shop.

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Three Thoughts About Marketing WordPress.com Themes

For the last few months now, I’ve been selling Mayer exclusively on WordPress.com and I’ve really enjoyed it.

The thing is, for those that have kept up with the work I’ve been doing with WordPress over the past few years, you know that I’ve been involved in the development of several different themes (and still am, but more on that later).

The Mayer Demo on WordPress.com

The Mayer Demo on WordPress.com

But in working exclusively with the marketplace, there have been a number of questions that I’ve been thinking about as it relates to marketing WordPress.com themes.

Generally speaking, I don’t have answers to these, though I’m happy to share my thoughts; however, I’m definitely interested in hearing your thoughts and opinions as well.

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