The groups component in BuddyPress allows members to create their own mini-social networks, each with its own homepage, activity stream, member directory and administrative panel. In networks where groups play a big part of the social activity, it becomes important to have a way to label or classify groups. When a group doesn’t have a…
Security vulnerabilities have plagued the TimThumb script for years. It is most commonly used in cropping, zooming and resizing images in WordPress themes. After the large scale attacks launched against the script a few years ago, one might think that theme and plugin developers would be less likely to continue building with it. However, this…
WordPress 4.0 is on track to introduce several new oEmbed providers, according to the most recent core report from Mike Schroder. The following sites and services have been added to the whitelist of oEmbed providers: TED talks Mixcloud CollegeHumor.com Issuu Polldaddy’s short URL format YouTube playlist URLs The process of getting added to the whitelist…
This month we featured a project called VersionPress that brings version control to WordPress, a concept that has many in the community excited. The VersionPress development team is seeking $30,000 in funding by the end of June in order to get it off the ground. However, they aren’t the only ones working on adding git-based…
A pricing table gives your potential customers the ability to quickly compare and visualize the different feature options within your pricing structure. With a little bit of pricing strategy, these comparison tables can be an effective way of positioning your packages for better sales. Creating and styling pricing tables can be a challenge if you’re…
Over the weekend, Ryan McCue and collaborators released version 1.1 of the JSON REST API plugin. The WP API team is aiming to have it ready for inclusion in WordPress 4.1, which will drop later this year. This release focused heavily on testing, fixing bugs discovered through tests, and improving the API documentation. New routes…
When testing BuddyPress themes and plugins, it’s helpful to have some data to populate the network and demo its social components. Manually adding users with avatars, activity updates, messages, etc, can be a tedious process. Fortunately, there’s a way to automate the creation of demo data. The BuddyPress Default Data plugin instantly creates a bunch…
Last month, Twitter rolled out its new mute button feature which allows users to filter out unwanted tweets. This makes it easy for your followers to turn you off entirely if they feel that you’re overloading them with tweets. Users won’t always opt to unfollow you, so you’ll never know who has pushed the mute…
CLI Cheat Sheet is a handy new resource for any WordPress developer who is just getting started with the command line. This week on the Dradcast, Brad Williams linked to the cheat sheet, which the folks at WebDevStudios put together for their team. They decided to share the resource with the community. The repository is…
Select boxes with a long list of options can quickly get out of hand. One common example is a state or country dropdown. Perhaps you’ve become desensitized to the expert scrolling and mousework required to navigate the most cumbersome select boxes. Ordinarily, they’re anything but user-friendly. Chosen is a handy jQuery plugin created by the…
WordCamp San Francisco is one of the most important WordPress events of the year. Contributors from all over the globe travel to connect and inspire one another at the event where Matt Mullenweg traditionally delivers the annual State of the Word address. This year the activities will be spread out over five days to incorporate…
Earlier this month WordPress developer Morten Rand-Hendriksen released Simone, a free theme based on Underscores. Like many themes, Simone is responsive, wired for translation, utilizes the customizer, and includes editor styles. One feature, however, sets Simone apart – a heavy emphasis on accessibility. Rand-Hendriksen believes that the accessibility-ready tag should be required for all WordPress…
WordPress 3.9 made huge strides toward improving the theme customization experience by adding widgets to the customizer for live previews. But have you ever thought about the possibility of setting up your WordPress menus within the customizer? Nick Halsey is tackling this as part of his Google Summer of Code 2014 Project and has just…
WordPress themes are getting simpler and bolder this year. Bloggers are gravitating toward designs that feature large typography and scaled back post meta in order to allow the visitor to focus on the main content. To compliment this design style, many theme developers are opting to keep the peripherals (widgets, menus, etc) hidden from view.…
BuddyPress Groups are one of the more social components of the plugin, as they’re used primarily for bringing members together around a shared interest, goal, or collaborative project. In some ways groups are like their own mini-networks within a social network, each having its own homepage, activity stream, member directory and administrative panel. Groups are…