I’ve become a big fan of Local by Flywheel for local WordPress development (i.e. running websites on my Mac). One thing I do find frustrating is the need to SSH into my Local by Flywheel website when I want to run a WP CLI command. Thanks to some great work by Morgan Estes with his Continue reading
Install Multiple WordPress Plugins with WP CLI
At a recent WordPress meetup we were discussing WP CLI and the comment came up, “When setting up a site, it would be nice to install a bunch of plugins with a single command.” Fortunately a WordPress meetup is a great place to bounce ideas off of smart people and find a solution. Solution 1: Continue reading
Search WordPress Post and Post Meta
Recently, I had to find instances of where specific Gravity Forms were being used. This came with multiple challenges. Challenges Searching for gravityform id=”7″ returns results for just gravityform (i.e. too many results) If the gravity form appears in post meta (rather than the primary content), it is excluded (i.e. missing results) SQL Solution Find Continue reading
WordPress Shortcode
A WordPress shortcode allows you to define PHP to be executed somewhere in your post content. jump to resources The Letter of the Day Imagine you maintain a WordPress website that includes a letter of the day. One way to maintain such a website would be to log in each day and update the letter. Continue reading
WordPress sanitize_title() in JavaScript
I was working on a project where I needed the functionality provided by the WordPress PHP function sanitize_title(). Unfortunately, I needed this functionality in JavaScript. As with many problems in programming, this turned out to be more complex than I originally thought it would be. I discovered there were a number of edge-cases that I Continue reading
WordPress Transients
WordPress transients, like most things in programming, are about being lazy. Unfortunately, in this case it isn’t about making the programmers life easier but rather about making the web server’s life easier (and the people who maintain and pay for the web server). Jump to Resources What is the temperature outside? When someone asks what Continue reading
Why I prefer CMB2 over ACF
When working in WordPress, it is common to extend the platform with Custom Fields that go beyond the default functionality. Two popular choices are Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) and CMB2. My Preference My personal preference is CMB2. At the same time, there are many developers I know and respect who prefer ACF and use it Continue reading
CMB2 Dependency with Composer
Here is the short answer for how I installed CMB2 as a dependency with Composer for my plugin. { “require”: { “webdevstudios/cmb2”: “^2.2” }, “autoload” : { “files”: [ “vendor/webdevstudios/cmb2/init.php” ] }, “extra”: { “installer-paths”: { “vendor/webdevstudios/cmb2”: [“webdevstudios/cmb2”] } } } Details of composer.json Require The require section, tells Composer the package (and version) we Continue reading
Move Toolset Metabox Above WYSIWYG Editor
I recently had a request to move a WordPress custom metabox created with the Toolset Types plugin above the WYSIWYG Editor (a.k.a. Visual Editor). While this seems like a simple request, as so often happens in programming this was more complex than expected. The Solution The solution is to check the global variable $wp_meta_boxes early Continue reading
wp_localize_script Explanation
A long time ago a WordPress programmer wanted to use a PHP value in their JavaScript. No problem they said, I’ll add this in my PHP theme code. Using a PHP Value in JavaScript – version 1 <?php $my_php_value = ‘Hello World’; echo ‘<script>’; echo ‘alert( “‘ . $myPHPValue . ‘” );’; echo ‘</script>’; ?> Continue reading