Have you updated WordPress recently to find notices warning you of something related to your Widgets? These notices will show up if you have your site in debug mode (which you should in your local environment, but not on your production website) with the setting in wp-config.php.
Notice: The called constructor method for WP_Widget is deprecated since version 4.3.0! Use
__construct()
instead. in /wp-includes/functions.php on line 3457.
Here is an example of what you likely have currently in your functions.php file to register your existing widget(s) (in old functions.php on the bottom) and then an example of how to update the widget class with the _construct update (in new functions.php on the top).
Maybe one day the Web will be perfect and complete and I will not need to reach for polyfills. However, if that happened I think I’d stop being interested the Web because it would then be a stagnant pond and not a surfable ocean.
Dave brings up that as web developers, we’re quick to complain that that shiny new feature doesn’t have enough support to rely on it and that there should be some sort of global consensus or priority of features so that the most important new features are added to browsers and make all our lives easier. That quote at the end hits the nail on the head though, if it were easy and uniform, then we’d collectively get bored. We thrive on solving problems so much it seems we’ve created more problems.
Used this little known, but nice gem today. It’s a core WordPress function that gives human relative time from any other datetime in “U” format. Like so:
This gem helped me out today as I was working with the Twitter API to create a custom WordPress widget. I was about to do exactly this and was not looking forward to it, luckily I did a quick search and found this webtips post. Thanks!
If you’re using the Twitter v1.1 API to fetch a user’s statuses from their timeline, then you’ve likely come across the fact that user mentions, hashtags, and urls do not have links in the “text” node of the JSON response the API returns. There is no element to follow the link, and there are no links to follow to check out a mention or hashtag on Twitter site. This can easily be overcome using PHP and parsing some of the data in the JSON response and wrapping the entities in the desired elements.
A chrome extension for analyzing your CSS. Check your properties (and reuse – are they following DRY principles?) and your CSS selectors (and their specificity).
Analyze your CSS in a new way. Consolidate, refactor, and gawk at the 37 shades of blue your site somehow ended up with.
Take a look at all your CSS properties, their frequency and variations. Have too many shades of blue? Inconsistencies often means confusion for your developers and irregularities for your end users.
Are your selectors long? Using lots of IDs? Specificity wars are frustrating and piling on new CSS will only make the situation worse. Find potential problem areas and make a plan to fix.
This code snippet really helped me today and since the post doesn’t have commenting enabled, I wanted to say thanks here! Working on building a WordPress plugin that generates shortcodes and wanted an interface for the user to create their own with a wizard of sorts, so using a media button, shortcode and thickbox all together wasn’t very documented anywhere that I could find until I came across this one and I was happy to be able to lift what I needed from this snippet and see my code working like a charm now. The plugin I’m working on is for the Greenhouse Recruiting site and pulls in a job board onto your site via their API. The shortcode wizard will be included in a release soon so you can see it in action.
add shortcode to a page or post without remembering the shortcode itself… choose the shortcode parameters and then have it automatically place itself in the editor
Here’s a great post from the team at delicious brains, the same team who brings us WP Migrate DB Pro for all our wordpress database migration needs (and do a bang up job I might add). They discuss all the in and out of working with trac and the ticketing system as well as setting up a development site for testing and running unit test, making (and submitting) code patches and using svn to manage it all. It’s an awesome post full of meaty details on how to start getting involved, since if you’re new to it all, it certainly is a lot to figure out on your own. Give it a read and dive in to work toward your own contributions!
basics for finding things to work on, how to handle the WordPress source code, how to submit your work and what you might expect to happen from there.
I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to present at WordCamp Atlanta 2014. That makes the 3rd year in a row I’ve been able to contribute to WordCamp Atlanta!
Here are my slides. I’ll be posting a full blown post of my presentation as soon as I can get it all down. Plus I hear there will be a video posted to wordpress.tv at some point, so, watch for that.
I’ve published another article over on wpdaily.co exploring the concept of hooks. I remember when starting out that people kept mentioning hooks and filters and actions and… it took a while to grasp what they each meant. I think the first time I started to grasp it was when I read the codex and saw this:
You can sometimes accomplish the same goal with either an action or a filter. For example, if you want your plugin to change the text of a post, you might add an action function to publish_post (so the post is modified as it is saved to the database), or a filter function to the_content (so the post is modified as it is displayed in the browser screen).
And realized that actions and filters are each kinds of hooks. In the post I use a metaphor of procedural programming as people standing in a line waiting to register at the DMV. I hope it will help you understand hooks a little bit better. read it now at Hooks, In a Glorious Nutshell – WP Daily.
If not, then this might be your seriously-simple primer. Let me quickly give you some thoughts about hooks, actions and filters. You can probably take it from there.
Order of Operations
Websites and any programming (procedural at least) has an order that things are done in. They are done in this same order every time and many pains are made to ensure this.
Think of something simple that you engage with every single day, like starting a car. Insert keys, turn keys, hold for a brief moment, and then release. Car starts. There is no alternative way to do this with your current vehicle (unless you buy a new one with those fancy “auto start” features). This is a procedure, and order of how things are done.
If something is out of order in can confuse and confound the programming. Especially a website, and WordPress is no different. Things all happen in a certain order when a page is created on the sever via php and delivered to the client as html.
The server reads the php and goes through all the commands pulling data from the database and placing it in the proper place. This is great and keeps everything running smoothly and webpages loading nicely and properly.
Ah, the lovely DMV…
So, Hooks…
Imagine now that you wanted to alter or modify how something, somewhere happened (vague, I know) and needed to interrupt or have access to this execution order. This is where hooks come in.
Think of this execution order as a line or queue at the DMV or at a busy clinic. Everyone comes in and takes a number and sits down to wait their turn. Everyone has their own agenda in this case with their individual business not too dependent on each other, and things will move much much slower than your website, but focus on the ordering concept.
Imagine this is your program, everyone has their data and they bring it to the forefront at the needed time and deposit it or something is done with it. A single file line of ‘actions’ that need doing to accomplish the goal of the program/site/business.
This is similar to a program, website or in our case WordPress. Think about the time each number is called. There is a little space before the person with that number gets to the desk, then they do their business, and there is a time after they leave the desk before the next number is called.
These brief time periods are hooks. In programming sometimes they are set aside and a hook is built into the code, so you can do something before the person gets to the desk, or something with the data they bring after they have brought it.
Where Now?
Now that you’ve got the very basics of hooks and how this works, it’s time for you to learn to build your own, or at least experiment a little.
