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“Hi Max. Last night, whilst watching Game of Thrones, I had this awesome idea for a new WordPress project. What I’d like you to do is…”
And so it begins…
And so it begins
You and your developer, Max, shoot a few emails back and forth and then you both realize that you’re going to need some UI/UX work done. You forward on the email trail (well, most of it, because you ended up having more than one email thread) to Kit, your UX go-to gal, to bring her up to speed.
DesktopServer is computer software that makes WordPress development on your local computer quicker, easier, and more feature-rich. Version 3.4.0 (they like to copy the WordPress Core version numbers) was released June 18, 2012, with a pleasing list of new features and bug fixes.
For those already using DesktopServer, notice the download page no longer has separate installation files for “new install” and “upgrade install”. Instead, there’s just one installation file per operating system (Windows or Mac) per version (Premium vs. Free version). This new installer gives you the option to upgrade or install a fresh version.
Some other great new features include:
Saving time always make me feel more productive. But let’s face it, sometimes you have to spend a little time (and sometimes a little money) upfront in order to make things easier for saving yourself a lot of time in the long run. I find this to be especially true when it comes to building out a line of simple client sites. None-the-less, these tips will ultimately save you time.
1. Think through and develop a plan.
Lunch
I am a lunch reader. Always have been. Give me a half-hour to forty-five minutes and I will break out a newspaper and start catching up on yesterday’s happenings. I recently decided to make my lunchtime habit a bit more productive, though, by reading a chapter a day (give or take, sometimes I do like a lunchtime nap) from PHP & MySQL : The Missing Manual.
The Missing Manual
When using WordPress as a CMS, situations often arise where you need to display, add or update content on your WP site without turning to plugins. While bolting in some PHP alone can do the job, nothing is more seamless that the magic of jQuery’s AJAX.
QueryPosts.com is a new reference for developers that aims to be an even better WordPress code reference than the codex. Explore the site a little bit and you’ll find that function pages have tons of information, source, links to trac and github, and a list of similar and/or related functions.
When you’re migrating a WordPress site from one server to another, there’s a point where you just need to stop writing posts and making changes in the old location. Perhaps you’ve made your final backup before preparing to move the site. Or maybe you’re waiting for DNS to propagate, which can sometimes take up to 48 hours. This isn’t usually such a problem, but with a multi-author site you’ll need to get everyone on the same page.
Clutter. I hate it. Crap everywhere, post-it’s, scribbles, hamburger wrappings, fiftythree beer cans, a broken pencil, an iPhone charger, USB cable for unknown peripheral, a hand out from the local Thai place, two printed quotes, a dirty espresso cup, napkins, some coins, two iPads, a pen for the Wacom board nobody uses, and so on. Clutter. I really do hate it.
Tons of menu items and unnecessary options. I hate that too. Option pages for themes and plugins that are just over the top, settings for everything which leaves the end-user staggered and with nothing that truly helps.
The Daily WordPress Reference is a very handy WordPress email newsletter for developers. I only recently discovered it and subscribed immediately. Each newsletter contains one function, a description of what it does, usage, parameters, return values and a few examples of how to use it. At the end it links to the codex where you can find out more information.
You can view past issues of the newsletter on the Daily WordPress Reference signup page to see if you like the content they’re sending.
Here’s an example of what the newsletters look like in your inbox:
I’m going to start you guys off with a quote today, signed the always excellent Konstantin Kovshenin:
Is it considered “cool” to copy/paste all my plugins into my theme’s functions.php file?
Now why would he write something like that? It is part of a paragraph (obviously) that makes fun of all these “paste this code into your theme’s functions.php file” tutorials out there. Sarcasm all around, and you all know how I love that shit. And irony, irony is also great fun. Ironing, not so much.
