Tag: WordPress (Page 185 of 219)

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

Adding PDFs To WordPress Comments with PDF Comments

July 9, 2013 / Tom

This plugin is no longer maintained or available and comments on the post have been closed.

When I first got into WordPress development several years ago, I began experimenting with selling two premium plugins for approximately one year. During that time I learned a lot about what makes or breaks a successful plugin (and what kind of things can seriously drain you from a support perspective).

In fact, I eventually killed both of those projects off because I no longer had the desire to work on them, maintaining the support required more time than I currently had, and I had not really selected the best business model for selling them.

Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time working on client projects, free projects, writing, speaking, and working to build other WordPress-based products.

For those who have been following this blog for some time, you know that I’ve been doing research on WordPress support systems, I’ve been working to rebrand my LLC, and I have been refocusing all of my efforts specifically on WordPress (and dropping support for other platforms, frameworks, etc.).

Today, I’m happy to announce that I’ve recently partnered with the guys at FooPlugins to release my first premium plugin in the past couple of years which makes adding PDFs to WordPress comments a breeze.

How To Programmatically Send Email in WordPress

July 8, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

Late last year, I shared a post in which I provided some steps on how to change the email sender in WordPress. Specifically, the post provides the steps necessary to change the name and the address from which the email is sent.

You can read the post in its entirety here – and it’s a quick read – but the short if it is that it uses the following filters:

`wp_mail_from`
`wp_mail_from_name`

The thing is, I never actually shared how to programmatically send email in WordPress. Though there’s a specific function for doing this, it can get a little more complicated if you’re writing an advanced feature of a theme, plugin, or an application.

How To Have WordPress Check if a User Exists

July 2, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

When it comes to building web applications, I’m a fan of letting a user use their email as their primary login – in fact, I’d go as far as to say that I wish our email was our primary identity: They are unique, it’s a single thing to remember, and we all must have them in order to get online these days.

To that end, whenever I’m working on an application that requires a username and password, I always default to using the email address for the user’s identification. Everything else can be managed in a profile setting, right?

If you’re building an application in WordPress where you’re building custom registration mechanisms through your own views, validation, and so on, you may find yourself needing to check to see if a user already exists.

And if you – like me – often use email as the user name, there’s a really easy way to perform this check.

Help Scout Workflows — An example of a Help Scout Email

Using Help Scout For WordPress Support

June 27, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

A few months ago, I wrote about Finding The Right WordPress Support System in which I laid out my points for what I’d look for in a support system. The post ended up generating a lot of really good feedback, and – as of last week – I officially chose Help Scout as my WordPress support system.

Obviously, it’s been about three months since I originally published that post so I clearly took my time (read: evaluated services after the responsibilities of my day job) deliberating on which service I to use.

As with any more decision, there were a number of factors that contributed to this decision.

The Truth About Building Premium WordPress Plugins

June 26, 2013 / Tom / 0 Comments

Earlier this week, I was talking with a fellow developer about building premium WordPress plugins (though this is true for any premium WordPress product) and he simply remarked:

It is amazing how much work goes into a single premium plugin.

Nothing profound, sure, but there’s a lot of truth to it, and I periodically get emails asking what all should one expect when it comes to building and releasing free and/or premium WordPress products.

With that said, here are some of my thoughts on all of the above.