Tag: WordPress (Page 44 of 219)

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

Uploading Files in WordPress, Revisited: Part 1 – The Client Side

January 15, 2018 / Tom

Years ago, I wrote about how to upload files in WordPress from the administrative area. This post is practically an update to that post, but it covers new considerations that I make and some other processes that I think are necessary.

For this post, I’m going to work off the example of uploading a PDF file and how also to make it available in the Media Library.

In doing so, I’m also planning to cover some considerations that should be made on the client-side and the server-side as well as things for which to look for whenever someone is transferring information across the wire.

Iterating on WordPress Administration Screen Design

January 9, 2018 / Tom

The idea of an “iterative process” is nothing new in software development. It’s present in a number of different methodologies and likely because it works well especially when getting customer feedback.

One of the places that I also find it useful is when building administration interfaces for WordPress plugins.

To be clear, I’m not a designer, so when it comes to front-end work, I always refer to the style guide and the mockups the designer provides to me from the outset of the project. (I only mention this because I think it’s a practice anyone who’s not a designer should follow, but I digress).

But when it comes to working on administration screens or back-end screens for WordPress, I tend to follow a strict rule: Make sure it looks as natural as possible.

How, then, do iterative development and the interface of WordPress administration screens have anything to do with each other?

Object-Oriented Programming: Understanding Interfaces

January 4, 2018 / Tom / 0 Comments

At this point, I’d say that the foundations of understanding object-oriented programming have been laid.

Specifically, I’ve covered:

And, yeah, there’s some debate as to what constitutes the foundations (that is, some don’t toss polymorphism into the mix though I do). But the above four should provide a solid foundation off of which to continue building your object-oriented programming skills.

There are more, but I don’t think they are as deep, detailed, or tough to understand as some of the aforementioned concepts. Then again, different things come easier to others.

Understanding Interfaces

At any rate, the next two topics that are important to understand are:

Interfaces
Abstraction

I’ll talk about each separate but make sure that you’ve read the Fundamentals series first because the above two topics will allow you to rely on them and take advantage of them.

Vague, I know, but let me explain and then go from there.

Two Pillars of Object-Oriented Programming: Part 2 of 2

December 20, 2017 / Tom

As I mentioned in the first post of this series, you’re often going to hear about The Three Pillars of Object-Oriented Programming. You may also hear about The Four Pillars of Object-Oriented Programming.

And it’s not that there’s a total of seven or anything like that. Instead, it’s more about what people consider to be foundational to OOP: Are there three or four major concepts?

You can surmise from the previous article (let alone the title), I believe there are four.

Two Pillars of Object-Oriented Programming: Inheritance and Polymorphism

And in this post, I’m going to cover the final two:

Inheritance,
and Polymorphism

If you’ve done any type of object-oriented programming prior to reading this article, you’ve likely heard of at least one of these.

Regardless, let’s take a look at each of them in more detail.

Jetpack Alternatives Worth the Price

December 18, 2017 / Tom

I joke with friends that Jetpack has become like the operating system of WordPress.

This isn’t to knock the good work the people at Jetpack are doing (because they are doing good work, are actively engaged in the community, and continue to iterate on the product).

But there are times where people don’t want to install Jetpack. Instead, they prefer to use third-party tools for whatever reasons. To each their own, right?

And there are quality Jetpack alternatives.