It’s not often that I quote Jane Austen, but she had it so right when she said, “Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.”
Moved to DigitalOcean
I’ve moved nearly all of WebAware’s websites to DigitalOcean, and stuck NginX in front of everything.
Fix broken tables in twentyfifteen WordPress theme
WordPress 4.1 brings with it the twentyfifteen theme, which I find to be a rather nice blog theme. Unfortunately, it adds a new wrinkle to any tables on your website — often breaking them! Here’s the simple fix.
Sort WooCommerce products first in search results
When shoppers search a WordPress website, you want them to find products first before listing any articles and pages. And it’s surprisingly easy to achieve, with a simple filter hook.
Use Autoptimize effectively
Keeping your WordPress website fast can become pretty tricky once you start installing plugins and off-the-shelf themes. Everything seems to want to load at least one CSS stylesheet, and sometimes a dozen or more JavaScript script files. Some also inject great chunks of CSS and JavaScript into every page. Luckily, there’s the handy Autoptimize plugin to help you sort all of that out.
Set the tab size on GitHub, Gist, and Bitbucket
I indent with tabs. There, I said it. Viewing my code (and that of other tab indenters) on GitHub, Gist, or Bitbucket can be annoying because the default tab size in the browser is equivalent to 8 spaces. Modern browsers let you change that through CSS, and here’s some bookmarklets that do just that.
I twut
So I finally got a Twitter account. I figure everyone else is doing it so it must be nearly over, time to join. I’ll be twotting any new plugins and plugin updates there, so if you need notifications for those, please follow @webawareross. Just don’t expect to hear about which legumes I curried for breakfast (was borlotti beans today, will be split green peas tomorrow), what I’m listening to (Katalyst), or RT of k.rudd selfies.
Move Gravity Forms field labels above input fields
Gravity Forms has some nice compound fields to make it easy to accept things like names, addresses, and credit card details. One annoying thing it does, though, is put the labels for the input fields below them instead of above them. Here’s how to move Gravity Forms field labels above input fields where most people would expect them to be.
Tracking WordPress plugin compatibility with Trello
For a while now, I’ve been using the amazing Trello to help me keep track of various tasks. Sure, I use various bug trackers like Mantis and GitHub Issues too, but for some of the more high-level tasks it’s just easier with Trello. One job it’s particularly good at is helping me keep track of plugin compatibility testing.
Load Gravity Forms scripts for custom field
Gravity Forms is a very easy to use yet flexible tool for building forms in WordPress. It uses quite a bit of JavaScript and custom CSS, so it’s careful to only load its scripts and stylesheets when needed. But if you put a form into a custom field, e.g via Advanced Custom Fields, how will Gravity Forms know it needs to load them?
Remove register link from WordPress wp-login.php
I recently had to enable user registrations on a WordPress multisite, so that shops on that site could allow customers to register. I don’t want users to register any other way, only through specific applications on specific subsites. Enabling user registrations adds a “register” link to the wp-login.php script page. That invites trouble!
Order Form for WooCommerce
I have a new plugin, and it’s my first premium plugin (i.e. it’s not free!) — Order Form for WooCommerce. I’ve had it in the works since late last year when I wrote to meet some requirements for a client’s website, and it’s taken me until now (late April) to release it to the world at large. Please have a play with it on the demo site. US $25 US $40, cheap! :)