Tag: WordPress (Page 116 of 220)

Articles, tips, and resources for WordPress-based development.

Selecting DISTINCT Records in WordPress

November 11, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

If you need to write a query against the WordPress database, grab a reference to $wpdb and get to work, right?

In some instances, sure. I’m not opposed to this. After all, the API exists for a reason. But sometimes, I think we bypass built-in APIs. We go straight for $wpdb without looking to see if other hooks already exist.

Distinct

If a hook exists, why not use it? It’s one level of abstraction above the database and it uses the native API.

As mentioned in a previous post, I want to cover a few ways to customize queries that run against the database.

Case in point: selecting DISTINCT records from WordPress. Continue reading

How To Display The Last WordPress Query

November 9, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

Have you ever had the, ahem, pleasure of customizing the WordPress query? One of the most useful things in debugging is displaying the last WordPress query.

Let’s say you’re working with taxonomies and/or post types and you’re passing custom parameters around. And then, you want to setup some debugging to see exactly what’s hitting the database.

This is helpful for a variety of reasons if for no other reason than to see what is running against the database. It gives you insight on what you’re requesting and thus what you’re presenting to the user.

Anyway, writing code to do this is easy.

WordPress Options and Theme Modifications

November 2, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

When The Customizer (once called The Theme Customizer) became part of WordPress, we saw a resurgence in the Theme Modification API.

The Theme Customizer

At one point in WordPress history, the get_theme_mod and set_theme_mod was how we handled theme modifications (hence the function names). Then, we began to use the options table as a way to manage the various settings for our plugins.

And then we began to use the options table as an easy to way to store settings for our themes. It was like we moved the Theme Modification API to the backseat and pushed forward with options.

Should we have done that (or does it even matter)? And what’s the difference in these APIs, anyway? Why do we still have both of them, which is best to use and when?

Debugging Minified Files in WordPress

October 22, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

As much as I’m a proponent of concatenating and minifying dependencies, it’s not without challenges. Sure, this is includes both stylesheets and JavaScript, but I’m specifically talking about debugging minified files in WordPress.

A minified bug. Get it?

It’s one thing to have your JavaScript files separated and organized in your Development. But when it’s time to deploy to Production, you should be aiming for a few minified files.

For example, say a client contacts you claiming something on their site isn’t working? You load up the site, you check the browser console and see there’s an error in the JavaScript.

Wait. You’ve minified all the files.

So what now?

Keeping Separate Files for Ajax in WordPress

October 15, 2015 / Tom / 0 Comments

When working with Ajax in WordPress, the general setup is pretty straightforward:

Register the `ajaxurl`, if needed
Define the hooks (or the callbacks) on the server-side
Register and Enqueue the JavaScript files
Have your JavaScript file(s) call to the defined server-side hooks
Update the front-end as necessary

And the front-end may refer to the Dashboard, the public-facing part of the blog, or the both. It depends on the nature of what you’re working on.

If you’ve worked with Ajax in WordPress in-depth for any amount of time, then you’re likely familiar with the above process. You’re also familiar with the challenges of maintenance depending on how the code was setup.

If you’re just getting started, then perhaps this post will help shortcut some of the learning the rest of us have had to do.

I don’t think the Ajax APIs are that bad. I know – this is subjective. But from the a maintenance standpoint I believe that there’s at least one thing we can do to make development and maintenance easier.