artiss.blog

Category: Development

  • WordPress, PHP 7 and Yoast – Why we should’t be forcing users to upgrade

    WordPress, PHP 7 and Yoast – Why we should’t be forcing users to upgrade

    Right now, WordPress recommends being hosted on PHP 7 but it’s not an absolute requirement. However, since adding this as a recommendation more and more people have switched over. Having said that, according to stats provided by W3Techs, usage of PHP 7 currently stands at 3.7% across PHP users and is 8% for WordPress.

    So should be be doing more to push WordPress users? Yoast thinks so and is currently forcing a non-dismissible, ‘big, ugly’ admin message to all users who haven’t upgraded.

    (more…)
  • How to surface old posts on your WordPress site

    How to surface old posts on your WordPress site

    If you have an old post on your WordPress site that you think deserves greater recognition then an age-old way is to modify the published date, pushing to the top of your blog. But this isn’t a great way to do it – links can be broken (WordPress is great at directing URL changes to the new location but it’s not infallible), sitemaps may not update correctly and, well, Google is unlikely to appreciate it, as far as SEO concerns.

    Instead, some smart coding changes will allow you to easily mark posts as note-worthy and have them listed at the top, all without changing any URLs.

    (more…)
  • Designing WordPress Plugin READMEs for the new directory

    Designing WordPress Plugin READMEs for the new directory

    The WordPress.org plugin directory has had a massive overhaul and, as a result, plugin information is now shown differently to before. For plugin developers, therefore, a tweak to how you present your README (and associated assets) can ensure your plugin is presented better.

    (more…)
  • My WordPress plugins and future support

    My WordPress plugins and future support

    Don’t panic, I’m still supporting them 😉

    However, I’ve realised that I’m doing a lot of work to maintain backwards compatibility for quite old versions of WordPress. But why? It’s a small number of users and is there a point in me updating a plugin, say, to add new security features if it’s running on an old, insecure version of WordPress? You should really have your site on the latest, or near to latest, version of WordPress at all times.

    So, with the next release of each of my plugins, they will now have a minimum requirement of WordPress 4.6.

  • WordCamp London – a diary of a WordCamp virgin

    WordCamp London – a diary of a WordCamp virgin

    For my first ever WordCamp, I thought I’d go ‘all out’ – the full 3 days and volunteering as well. Oh, and it’s the London WordCamp too, the largest in the UK.

    So, I thought I’d write about my experience – the highs and the inevitable, exhausted lows.

    For those who don’t know what a WordCamp is – it’s a get together of fans, users and companies about WordPress. They happen all over the world and are of varying sizes.

    (more…)