Mike McAlister published a phenomenal article this evening titled “You Can Do Better Things”. It is targeted at the WordPress theme design / developer industry and really hits the nail on the head. There is a problem that many theme and plugin authors face that one might call “buyers’ demands”, and it’s the idea that [...]
View Post Mike McAlisterIn Episode 8 of Plugin Thoughts, I discuss some of the benefits of creating clean, readable code, and some of the downsides to writing poorly formatted and unreadable code. Whether you build plugins or themes, CSS, HTML, Javascript, or PHP, this applies to you. This entry is part 8 of 9 in the Plugin Thoughts [...]
View PostIn episode 7 of plugin thoughts, I show you a demonstration of just how much CSS you don’t need to write for your WordPress plugins. WordPress core has a very large amount of CSS and you can utilize it when developing your plugins. This entry is part 7 of 9 in the Plugin Thoughts Series
View Post CSSThere are a lot of ways that you can help out with and contribute to the WordPress project, but one of the easiest, and definitely most helpful, is by contributing to the expansion and improvement of the WordPress Codex. The next time that you come across a Function Reference page, or any other Codex page, [...]
View Post codexI am an avid proponent of developers supporting their products, and supporting them very well. I am also very strongly opposed to those developers and studios that choose to ignore support, or simply refuse to ever take responsibility for issues in their work. These are the kinds of developers and studios that always seem to [...]
View PostThis episode of Plugin Thoughts discusses reasons why you, as a WordPress plugin developer, should make an effort to understand how WordPress core functions. By gaining an understanding of how core works, you not only improve the quality of your plugins, but you also make it much easier on yourself when it comes to debugging [...]
View PostWhen developing for WordPress, both in themes and plugins, do not forget that many, many core functions exist and that it is not always necessary (or wise) to write your own custom methods. Most core functions have actions and filters included, so when you write your own function to replace the one in core, these [...]
View Post Jason Bobich, post_thumbnail_htmlIn episode two of Plugin Thoughts, I talk about how and why to use filter hooks in your plugins to make it easy for your users and other developers to change text in your plugins. This entry is part 2 of 9 in the Plugin Thoughts Series
View Post add_filter, apply_filtersEpisode One of Plugin Thoughts discusses the method of using action hooks and filters in your WordPress plugins to make them more extensible and easier to modify / extend for other developers and users. This entry is part 1 of 9 in the Plugin Thoughts Series
View Post add_action, add_filter, apply_filters, do_action