get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'foo', true ): $post->foo. Accessing Post Meta and More Via $post->meta_key
It turns out there's a much better way to fetch post meta than
Author Archives: Ian Dunn
Using git-svn to Manage Plugins in the WordPress.org Repository
Unfortunately, the WordPress.org plugin repository doesn’t provide a way to maintain your plugin with Git. In the past, I’ve either just used Subversion, or hosted an extra copy on GitHub, and setup Git and SVN side-by-side in the same directory. Awhile ago, I briefly considered using git-svn, because it would allow me to avoid using Subversion entirely, […]
Finding all Sites That have a Plugin Active
I wanted to find out which sites in a Multisite network had a certain plugin active, but couldn't find an existing solution I was happy with. So, I wrote a WP-CLI command to do the job.
Rename WordPress’ Database Prefix with WP-CLI
I wanted to update the database prefix one this site, but most of the tutorials out there have you do it manually. There are some plugins available, but I didn’t trust most of them, and the ones that I did were kind of bloated with other features, and I didn’t want to mess with the […]
WordCamp Seattle 2016 Call for Speakers
We’ve opened the call for speakers for this year’s WordCamp Seattle. Give it a shot if you have any ideas, best practices, use cases, or stories you want to share with the community. I think people are often hesitant to put themselves out there, and that’s definitely understandable, but the WordPress community is really welcoming, and I think […]
Regolith
I just finished the first version of a new WordPress installation template called Regolith. I’ve been using my personalized fork of Mark Jaquith’s WordPress Skeleton for the past several years, but recently came across Bedrock and really liked it. I started playing around with it, but quickly discovered that the tools and practices it embraced were a bit overkill for […]
Trouble Symlinking DocumentRoot on Shared Hosting
I ran into some trouble setting up Deployer on Media Temple's Grid service, and it took me awhile to find out the answer, so I figured I'd share it here.
If WordPress Uploads Fail on a Dreamhost Shared Plan
TL;DR: DreamHost kills processes on their shared hosting plans if they run too long, which can screw up all kinds of things in non-obvious ways. To fix it, either disable lots of plugins, or upgrade to a better hosting plan. I spent too much time this week trying to track down this issue for a […]
Generating Dynamic Placeholders for $wpdb->prepare()
$wpdb->prepare() is often called with each un-sanitized value explicitly passed as an individual argument; for example: $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT id FROM wp_posts WHERE id > %d AND `post_status` = %s", $min_id, $status ) The function will also accept an array of un-sanitized values, though, like this: $wpdb->prepare( "SELECT id FROM wp_posts WHERE id > %d AND […]
Building keyboard shortcuts into web applications
Scott Hanselman’s post on adding hotkeys to web applications is good food-for-thought if you have any power users, or just want a better experience when using the applications you develop.
Icons are Usually Poor UX
UX Myths enumerates the reasons why the use of icons generally leads to poor user experience.
Logging WordPress REST API errors
I wanted a simple logger for errors in REST API requests and didn’t find one online, so I wrote this one:
wp_kses() Not as Slow As You Might Think
Zach Tollman benchmarked wp_kses() and found that the conventional wisdom about its performance isn’t always true.
Open Source World
TED Radio Hour has a great episode about the pre-technology roots of the ideas behind today’s Open Source movement, and how they’re being applied beyond the digital realm, to things like architecture, deep-sea rovers, and even democracy itself.
Pagination UX Fails
Pagination is one of my biggest pet peeves, and Avoid the Pains of Pagination does a good job of explaining the primary reason: Users have better experiences with scrolling than clicking. The mouse wheels, touchpads and touchscreens of today make scrolling faster and easier than clicking. To get to the next page in a pagination, the user has […]
The Web We Lost
The Web We Lost does a great job of contrasting the values of today’s big tech companies and the values that made the Internet and Web so radically different from the mediums it replaced. The tech industry and its press have treated the rise of billion-scale social networks and ubiquitous smartphone apps as an unadulterated […]
Quick Navigation Interface
I just pushed a new plugin to the WordPress.org repository that lets you quickly navigate around wp-admin using just the keyboard, similar to Dash/HUD in Ubuntu or Spotlight in OS X:
Update: Version 0.2 is out now, and it’ll also include your posts, pages, and other content types in the results.
Challenging Your WordPress Assumptions from 2009
Nacin gave a great talk at php[world] dispelling a lot of the myths about WordPress that still exist in the developer community.
Flushing Rewrite Rules on All Sites in a Multisite Network
TL;DR: Loop through all sites and delete_option( 'rewrite_rules' ). Don’t call flush_rewrite_rules(). Full example. Every once in awhile I’ll run into a situation where something will break permalinks on all the sites in a WordPress Multisite network, like a plugin network-activation gone wrong. On a single site, it’s easy enough to fix by manually visiting Settings > […]
Why Websites Get Hacked
Why Websites get Hacked is a good high-level article to sends to clients or friends who don’t understand why someone would want to attack their site — and therefore doesn’t see the need to protect it — or are curious about how it happens.