What Do You Do With a WordPress Plugin That’s No Longer Being Updated?

by Timothy Bowers January 26^th, 2012 12 Responses

The latest installment of our WordPress Q & A Sessions is about older plugins and what you should do with them.

Today’s question comes from Katrina, a WPMU reader and owner of the site Kat’s Cafe. She asks . . .

How should one deal with an older (but much-loved) plugin that is no longer being updated by the developer? Should you simply uninstall it and find a replacement? Or should you try to do some updating yourself?

What’s the safest way to tweak a plugin, without putting your site at risk?

-Katrina

Updating old WordPress plugins by yourself, when the developer doesn't

Development

WordPress Question: How Can I Moderate Changes Made To My Site?

by Timothy Bowers January 20^th, 2012 9 Responses

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve had some very interesting WordPress questions sent in by our readers here at WPMU, and some great suggestions and ideas from the WordPress ninjas in our community.

If you haven’t yet done so, please send us a WordPress question, for the chance to win a 3 month membership at WPMU DEV.

Friday’s question was sent in to us by a reader named Bob. He asks:

How to hold WordPress modifications for approval

Development

WordPress Question: How Can You Create an Easy Staging Environment?

by Timothy Bowers January 13^th, 2012 13 Responses

Our WordPress Q&A Session continues! We’re asking you folk to send in your questions about WordPress, and we’re handing out free memberships at WPMU DEV for your troubles. Check out the details here.

Today’s question is about creating a staging environment for WordPress development, and comes to us from a member of the WPMU community named Matt.

What’s the easiest way to create a stable staging server, in parallel to the production server, when building a WordPress site? And what sort of system or tool would I need to push from staging to live, with as little fuss as possible?

-Matt

How to set up a staging environment for WordPress

Development

Want To Contribute To WordPress? Not A Developer? No Problem!

by Tom Ewer January 13^th, 2012 5 Responses

The non-developers amongst you might reasonably assume that there is no way in which you can contribute to WordPress. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Yesterday, I revealed one way in which a non-developer can help, by submitting bug reports via the WordPress Trac. Today, I have a whole swathe of additional options for you.
Contribute To The Codex

Community, Development

Interview with Brad Markle of the Memory Viewer Plugin

by Mason January 4^th, 2012 3 Responses

It’s no secret that we’re fans of killer tools that help WordPress users be more efficient. We’ve already mentioned the new(ish) plugin, Memory Viewer, here on WPMU.org and even recommend it to members over on WPMU DEV.

So we were stoked to sit down and discuss with Brad Markle of Inmotion Hosting (virtually via email of course) and gather some of his thoughts behind this handy plugin.

First off, Brad tell us about your Memory Viewer in your own words.

Development

Christmas Reading For The WordPress Developer

by Tom Ewer December 22^nd, 2011 2 Responses

Perhaps you are still rushing around doing last-minute Christmas shopping. Or maybe you scoff at the idea that the 22nd is “last minute” – after all, there are still two days until Christmas Eve!

Either way, inspiration is often hard to come by. If you are searching for gift inspiration for a WordPress developer (or if you feel like treating yourself), you are in the right place. Any WordPress designer can benefit from one or more of the books below.
WordPress Bible

development, Plugins

Stop Your Clients From Deactivating Important WordPress Plugins

by Timothy Bowers December 16^th, 2011 16 Responses

There’s nothing worse than a client stumbling through their WordPress installation and messing with things they don’t understand.

You know how it goes. One fine day the curious client decides to experiment with all those shiny knobs and buttons in the WordPress dashboard. Within a few minutes they’ve broken their site, and they get straight on the phone to blame the whole mess on you.

Many developers try to avoid this unfortunate scenario by restricting the client’s options to a bare minimum.

Remove the deactivate link from WordPress plugins

Development, Tutorials

5 Places to Find a Good WordPress Developer or Designer

by Timothy Bowers December 14^th, 2011 17 Responses

Despite the limitless DIY possibilities that WordPress offers, at some point many folk will still want to hire a developer or designer to take their site to the next level.

Luckily, there ain’t no shortage of ‘em. Around the world there are thousands upon thousands of WordPress professionals who sell their services on a contract basis.

The question is: where do you start looking? If you’re new to the game and looking to hire some WordPress talent for the first time, these are a few suggestions to get you started.

Code Poet

Development

Learn WordPress For Free With These 10 Great Resources

by Timothy Bowers December 7^th, 2011 26 Responses

UPDATE: For beginner WordPress users, we’ve expanded on this article and created a new 7 day plan for learning WordPress – check it out!
The most inspiring thing about WordPress is that anyone can learn and master it, without spending a cent, in a relatively short period of time.

If you’re fairly new to WordPress and feel like learning it would take a lifetime, remember that the software was only released in 2003 – eight short years ago. Plenty of people have become WordPress professionals since then. (As of this year, an estimated 20,000 people make their living with WP).

Learn how to use WordPress with free tutorials

Development

Another 5 Things Your WordPress Site Doesn’t Need

by Timothy Bowers December 6^th, 2011 39 Responses

This is the third segment in a series on removing stuff from WordPress. I recommend you check out Part 1 and Part 2.

The last couple of articles on this subject garnered plenty of interesting responses and suggestions from our readers, which I thought warranted a third post in the series.

So here we go with yet another 5 things that you can remove from WordPress, all in the name of making your site faster, simpler and more secure.

1. Your WordPress version number