Tag: WordPress (Page 24 of 220)

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

Using Functions in Place of Globals: get_post_field

April 24, 2019 / Tom

As PHP has continued to move forward and WordPress (and its developer-economy) works to begin using more of the more modern features, one of the things we still see happening is the use of globals within WordPress.

To some degree, it’s inevitable: Significant parts of the application were built using globals when that was the facility that was a primary feature; other parts, though, have moved forward by providing classes or functions that prevent us from needing to do that.

Case in point: get_post_field is a solid alternative to using the $post global that provides much of the same information in a slightly more modern (and arguably safer) way of reading the data.

How to Manipulate the DOM Using PHP

April 23, 2019 / Tom

When it comes to manipulating the DOM, the first thing many of us likely think of is using JavaScript to do whatever it is we need to do.

Not only does the language natively support functions for doing this, newer features of ES6 give us more powerful ways to build client-side scripts. And if you’re using jQuery with WordPress, then you have the same library of functions for, ahem, querying the DOM that we’ve had for years.

But manipulating the DOM on the client-side isn’t always the best option. Instead, you may want to do so on the server-side. And because of some of the features built into PHP, it’s not much different from how we do things using JavaScript.

Manipulate the DOM Using PHP: Manipulate the DOM Using PHP: DOmDocument

Other than, of course, we’re doing so on the server.

Tools for Writing Better WordPress Code: The Composer Lock File

April 17, 2019 / Tom

Before wrapping up our discussion on Composer, we have one important thing left to discuss: The vendor directory (and by extension, the Composer lock file).

Specifically, we need to talk about why we don’t need to commit the vendor directory to the repository but how our contributors can be sure they have the latest version of the software needed to work with our code base.

Using code quality tools to write better WordPress code is important, yes, but understanding how to properly manage dependencies and our repository is important, too. So before looking at said utilities, let’s review the lock file, the role it plays, and why we don’t need to commit the vendor directory to our repository.

Using Custom Filters with Shortcodes

April 16, 2019 / Tom

Once you understand the Shortcode API and how filters work, it’s easy to implement them in WordPress.

Custom Filters with Shortcodes: Shortcode API

And when you’re able to mix the two, you can do much more than usual than when they are operating independently of one another.

Specifically, you can filter data that are in the result of the shortcode, and this can be especially useful for other developers. If you’re familiar with implementing custom filters, then doing this within the context of a short code isn’t much different.

But if you’ve never used either the shortcode API or the functionality before, it’s still easy to do.

Structuring API Functionality (with a Separation of Concerns)

April 12, 2019 / Tom

I don’t have a lot of experience when it comes to creating APIs. I’ve done a fair share of work when it comes to integrating WordPress with third-party APIs, but I’ve spent very little time working on creating a system that has its API with which other systems can interact.

As far as the latter is concerned, I’m actually in the middle of doing that (and I’m learning a lot). The gist of the project is there’s an iOS app that’s interacting with WordPress via the REST API in a bi-directional way.

Structuring API Functionality: The WordPress REST API

I’m eager to share more about it, but I need to do so when the project is further along.

But when it comes to working with third-party APIs and then building components of a WordPress project that interact with them, two of the things I consistently find useful are:

using a proper library,
diagramming the system,
separating the functionality into parts.

And the last two points above are what I’m looking to cover in this post.