Last week WordPress.com announced that Google Analytics is now available for its customers on the business tier, which is priced at $299.00 per year. Users have been clamoring for the feature for years. While many enjoy using the built-in Stats feature, it is severely limited in comparison to Google Analytics and the data is not…
Cover photos in user profiles is a design feature in place on many major social networking sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and G+. Users enjoy having the ability to further personalize their profiles beyond the default square avatar. Twitter was one of the last to add this feature to timelines in 2012, and when it did,…
I’ve used WordPress for more than seven years and I can’t think of any features it has that are innovative. I believe part of the reason is that I’ve been stuck in the WordPress bubble for so long, I haven’t been exposed to different ways of doing things. I only know the WordPress way and…
Human Made has acquired Australian based WordPress development agency Sennza. Human Made is a development shop with more than 20 employees and has offices scattered across the world. They’re also a WordPress.com VIP partner. Sennza and its three employees will continue to work from their office and become Human Made Australia. The move gives Human…
Roughly one year ago this month Pippin Williamson made the first commit to Easy Digital Download’s “Library” repository on GitHub. He created the library to be a community-maintained repository of code snippets that modify the default behavior of Easy Digital Downloads. So far the library has received 113 commits from eight contributors, which has resulted…
If you create plugins and themes for clients and host them on GitHub, then you may have encountered the hassle of having to move those files over to your client’s installation. On super cheap hosting packages, where SSH access is not an option, this process inevitably requires manually copying files over via FTP. This is…
Those who are new to WordPress theming are often confused by the mixture of PHP and HTML markup in templates. It’s easy to accidentally break theme functionality when everything is placed in the same file. For that reason, there’s a strong contingency of developers who prefer to integrate the Twig PHP templating engine with WordPress,…
George Stephanis, who is a member of the Jetpack Pit Crew, published a post over the weekend that explains why Jetpack is not a collection of plugins. According to Stephanis, dependency management in WordPress sucks. In a nutshell, a dependency is when a library, framework, component, theme, or plugin requires the existence of another to function.…
If you own or operate a business and need a Terms of Service, Privacy, or various other legal documents, check out the Legalmattic repository on Github. In 2014, Automattic open sourced all of its legal documents, including its DMCA takedown notice. If you choose an Automattic legal document as a foundation to write your own,…
Over the weekend, I stumbled across a new resource called WP and Legal Stuff run by Richard Best, a qualified lawyer in New Zealand, England, and Wales. The site focuses on legal matters related to WordPress and open source. Recent articles include: Using the WordPress trademarks for your business, product or service The GPL and…
Earlier this month, I described how the features as plugins first model is a mess. Drew Jaynes, who is leading the development cycle for WordPress 4.2, is already making headway into improving the model. Unlike previous release cycles, feature plugins that are likely to be merged into WordPress have been assigned a core mentor at…
Online community building is like gardening. Whether you’re running an active blog, moderating forums, or managing a social network, you will encounter challenges in maintaining growth. Experienced community builders have a wealth of knowledge to share with those who are new to it, especially when it comes to recognizing and mitigating toxic elements, fertilizing to…
Restaurant themes don’t often land in the WordPress Themes Directory. In fact, there are barely a dozen listed among the 3,000+ themes on WordPress.org. One problem with many commercial restaurant themes is that they are usually marketed as a complete package with everything built into the theme, including menu management. The lack of separation of…
WordPress plugin authors have a great deal of liberty when it comes to structuring and organizing their code. There’s no prescribed file structure, so when you look under the hood of a plugin, you often need to poke around a bit to find out how the author is organizing things. Jason Agnew found this to…
One of my favorite sessions at PressNomics 3 is now available to watch for free on YouTube. Although sessions weren’t recorded or live streamed, Chris Lema used his own gear to record his presentation. He shares the lessons he’s learned throughout his career on managing time and energy. One of my favorite tips is writing…