Tag: WordPress (Page 184 of 220)

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

How To Efficiently Exclude Categories From The WordPress Loop

July 31, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

When it comes to writing custom queries in WordPress, `WP_Query` is the API to use. And I could be mistaken, but I do see a lot of people urging developers to avoiding using `query_posts` in WordPress in favor this newer-ish API.

But the thing is that `query_posts` still has its place in WordPress development namely in modifying the results of the data queried for The Loop when rendering blog content; however, one of the the biggest caveats is the performance that `query_posts` can have on the performance of the blog.

I’ve recently been working on a plugin where I needed to exclude posts from The Loop based on the category. At first, I was going to use `query_posts` but I ultimately hit a few snags, so here’s an alternative way to exclude categories from the WordPress Loop.

Unicode Characters, Regular Expressions, JavaScript, and WordPress

July 29, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

For those who have been into computer science for any amount of time, you’re likely familiar with Joel Spolsky, his blog Joel on Software, and/or perhaps any of his books.

A couple of years ago, I read an article called The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!).

I’m not ashamed to admit that, at the time, it wasn’t very applicable to me. Yes, it was interesting, yes, I cared, but I didn’t have a practical way to implement it simply because there was nothing that I was working that warranted the information in the article.

But here was one of my biggest takeaways:

If you completely forget everything I just explained, please remember one extremely important fact. It does not make sense to have a string without knowing what encoding it uses. You can no longer stick your head in the sand and pretend that “plain” text is ASCII.

Fast forward a couple of years and I was working at a place where every piece of application code that we rolled out had to be internationalized because it was accessible by a variety of countries all across the world – now it was more practical (and it’s not much different than WordPress, huh?).

And now, I’m finding myself working more with unicode characters in WordPress more than I ever have before.

Here’s the thing that few people talk about: Sites, themes, or HTML in general will specify a character set that can drastically affect how the content in your page is rendered.

A Few Thoughts on WordPress Affiliate Programs

July 26, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

A few months ago, a number of companies – ours included – began to suspend or completely end their WordPress affiliate programs.

Naturally, this created a bit of a backlash.

In all fairness, not all customers were particularly upset. Some were disappointed, sure, and rightly so but moved on with their blogs; others were far more upset about the apparent injustice that was served by companies opting to pull the plugin on the program.

Since news in WordPress opts to ebb and flow week to week, this has been something that’s passed, but I’ve begun to see some comments beginning to crop up again specifically around affiliate programs in the WordPress space.

Shipping Software in WordPress (Why Perfection is Unattainable)

July 25, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

One of the blogs that I enjoy following – much like most developers, designers, and techies – is the 37signals blog.

Generally speaking, it’s a great blog to read if you’re into following a company’s philosophy and process, but one of the guys – Nick – shared a great post the other day that struck a chord with me personally as it relates to shipping software especially in the WordPress economy:

Shipping beats perfection.
Be open. Share your work.
Anybody can fix anything.

– Khan Academy’s development mantras are stunningly simple and powerful.

Good stuff, right?

But how exactly does this apply to me (or even others) in the digital publishing space.

Backing Up WordPress To Dropbox

July 19, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

There are a lot of services out there that provide stellar experiences as it relates to backing up your WordPress installation, but one plugin I’ve always been fond of is WordPress To Dropbox.

In short, the plugin is a free plugin with a couple of premium upsells one of which I have found to be completely worth the purchase.

Additionally, this is one way that you can keep costs low for backing up your site if you aren’t able to pay for some of the premium services or if you’re already paying a pretty penny for Dropbox.