WordPress.com users now have a feature available to them that should have been in the core of WordPress a long time ago. They call it, Widget Visibility. Users can either hide or show widgets based on category, author, tag, date, or page. This covers the most common use cases without having a need to use…
While WordPress 3.6 is almost ready for release, one of the features that is already generating a love/hate relationship is the new Post Formats UI. This new UI exposes the Post Format functionality that is now relegated to a radio button post meta box. While researching this feature, I came across a discussion on the…
On my recent article discussing the search functionality within WordPress, a few folks in the comments suggested alternatives to try. One of those was the ElasticSearch plugin. My main complaint in that article was that there was not an easy way to tap into the Elastic Search service without having access to a dedicated server…
While reading an article on WPLift about Ghost by Nathan B Weller there were a couple of points brought up that I thought would make for a good discussion. One of the issues deals with the attractiveness of the WordPress back-end. Additionally, the drawbacks of the WordPress platform do not stop at its growing complexity.…
May 27th, 2013 marks the 10 year anniversary of the release of WordPress. While I have not used WordPress for all 10 years of its existence, I have used it since 2007 which I believe was around the 2.3 days. I vaguely remember 2.5 being anticipated as a big release. In fact, I think WordPress…
It’s time to clear up the debate once and for all. Despite all the doubts (and some haters), WordPress core is without a doubt one of the most secure platforms you can choose to put a site on. Of course, a WordPress install is only as secure as the plugins it leverages — but that’s…
WPBeginner.com has a great tutorial on how to style the WordPress comment form as well as the layout of the comments. Most of the changes are simple CSS edits but determining where those CSS attributes are located can sometimes be harder than making the edits. Their guide shows you how to add buttons to the…
While the Tavern is definitely back in business, there is one specific goal I have in mind that I would like to accomplish. That goal is changing the content direction of the site so that it’s not created by one person, all the time. There are so many smart WordPress people throughout the overall community…
ExperimentWith.com is an idea that’s still at the seedling stage but has the possibilities of being built into a testing platform for various projects. I thought it sounded like a cool idea so I got in touch with James Lane, one of the founders behind the site to ask him what it’s all about. Q:…
I’ve taken the MP6 plugin for a test drive and so far, my eyes love what they see. MP6 is an experimental plugin for testing out new ideas for the various UI elements that are within WordPress. My first reaction after activating the plugin was, WOW. The textual elements on the screen instantly became easier…
Siobhan McKeown has published what many in the community are calling the most thorough, researched, guide on contributing to WordPress. Articles like these pop up from time to time because the WordPress project is ever-evolving. Just a few years ago, contributing to the WordPress project outside of writing code was not as straightforward as it…
The wait is over for those that have wanted an affordable offering from VaultPress. The service announced on May 8th that a new service level called VaultPress Lite would be available for an astoundingly cheap $5.00 per month, per site. The plan covers the basics: Daily backups that happen automatically, so you can focus on…
Earlier today on Twitter, WordPress community member Travis Ballard @Ansimation published a link to a plugin that will have people thinking twice before they sign up to a WordPress based website. Ironically, it’s called WPEvil and saves passwords into plain text instead of hashes. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that passwords are…
Brian Krogsgard of Poststat.us has raised an issue that I never considered concerning the demo content displayed within themes on the theme repository. While commercial theme demos do a great job showing off what a theme is capable of doing, for at least some themes on the repository, the demo content ruins the look of…
Over at Design Is Philosophy, Morten Rand-Hendriksen raised the question if after 10 years, is it time to fork WordPress? The gist of the post is an argument/discussion that’s been made over the years at different times. It boils down to figuring out a way to remove all the stuff that’s not needed in WordPress…