Tag: WordPress

All things WordPress @ http://wordpress.com, http://wordpress.org, and WordPressMU @ http://mu.wordpress.org

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One Theme Per Author? No!

Back on August 23 there was a WordPress theme review meeting that included a discussion (and vote?!) about restricting the number of new themes an author can submit to the WordPress theme repository. Current guidelines/rules make that a limit of one. Yes, a single theme (although supposedly updates to approved themes do not count)!!

I apparently missed that meeting (although I did go back and “vote” against the rule earlier today); and, I opened a discussion related to it on the WordPress #themereview Slack channel (it’s a long read now).

Hopefully I got my point across about it not being a good idea but there does not seem to be many, if any, supporters for changing it now (even if it was meant as a three month trial); although the idea to remove it when the queue is only a couple of weeks long was suggested. Unfortunately my schedule does not readily allow for midday meetings when the theme review team meets to discuss their latest ideas, or review past decisions … and using the rule as a queue shortener?! Really?

Little did I know all those years ago when a friend expressed his concerns for creating guidelines related to theme submissions that they would come to fruition. Even though I am no longer directly involved with the theme review team admins (or whatever appeasement title they choose to be known as) I can only hope that finding the time today to start the discussion will keep it fresh enough for the next theme review team meeting.

In the meantime, I am going back to developing my “new” theme; and, wondering where to publish it. Since the WordPress theme directory/repository and its myriad guidelines/rules may be making it not the best place to do so anymore (again?!!) I will have to start looking elsewhere.

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Thank You

Bringing awareness to a rare disease is no easy feat. Generally speaking, most people do not go out of their way to find a rare disease and although there are over 7000 rare diseases out there it usually takes yourself, a family member, or a friend to contract one before you even know it existed in the first place.

Some of you may know my wife, Terri Caissie, and some of you may know she has Hashimoto’s Encephalopathy (Autoimmune) with Progressive Cerebellar Ataxia … but how many of you know what that is?

Terri and myself had tried to get the details of this disease in front of more people to consider and learn about but until very recently we were not having much success. This changed … and for that I am writing this post to say thanks to the people that are affecting this change.

First off, we’d like to thank Tom McFarlin for his post. This caught the attention of others in the WordPress community and sparked a post by Jeff Chandler at WP Tavern; thank you very much, too!

Look what happens with a post on WP Tavern:

WordPress News 2015-12-13

What does that mean to awareness for HE? Considering WordPress powers 25% of the Internet … THAT. IS. HUGE!! Thank you!

Thank you again for the people sharing these links; and, thank you for those that have donated monies to help Terri. We are very grateful for your support.

Our hopes of bringing awareness to those with Hashimoto’s Encephalopathy (or any other rare disease) are buoyed up beyond anything we could have imagined when Terri started her YouCaring campaign.

Thank you, again, to the WordPress community … without you this would not be happening.

 

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Set The Bar High

There are just some things that really get under my skin and comments like this “… beyond the support levels expected from this volunteering forum” really burn me up.

You might ask, where ever did you see that? The WordPress forums of all places?!

Now, to qualify this, I spend a great deal of time every working day in the WordPress forums and I cannot accept this, period.

Whether you are providing support as a volunteer; out of the goodness of your heart; giving back to the community; or, just providing quality support for your plugin you should always strive to improve. This not only benefits yourself but you also become better at helping others as well.

Set the bar high! Do yourself a favor … as well as those you are trying to help. Don’t accept “the support levels expected” … go beyond, go above and beyond!! Give back to the community by making it better not maintaining the status quo.

How do you set the bar high in your support efforts?

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Work With WordPress Not On WordPress

“Working with WordPress” and “Working on WordPress” may seem synonymous but the philosophy of each phrase will definitely affect the code you share and support going forward.

When you work with something, it becomes a partnership, a collaboration, a team effort and more often than not an ongoing relationship; while working on something is more like getting it done and moving on … like fixing a car.

All of the major functionalities of most any application, plugin, theme idea can be found in WordPress core code already, the key is in the creative implementation of that code.

Obviously you may need to add some custom code to accomplish building your idea or adjust some specific functionality to be applied differently but that is also the basis behind using the various API and hooks readily available in WordPress. You just need to extend where needed and fine tune the rest. It’s WordPress … anything is possible!

It’s all there for the … taking. Yes, you can take the code and use it as you see fit, just remember to give credit where credit is due and provide the proper attributions.

Not sure where to find something, or even if it exists? Try these developer references:

Maybe you just need a nudge in the right direction? Have you tried any of the numerous Slack channels where many WordPress community members share their time and thoughts (not to mention ongoing development conversations)?

Stay in touch with what is happening with WordPress development, too. Keeping up with new functionality and corrections to core will only benefit you in the long-run. It might even spark an idea using some new functionality being added to core.

As you continue to improve your own WordPress projects, especially with a community of thousands contributing back to it, you will most likely need to build less and less on WordPress while moving to building more and more with WordPress. You may even be one of those contributors that makes life easier for another WordPress developer.

Why work on something, some might even say re-inventing the wheel, when you can simply get behind the wheel and start driving with WordPress from the start … or work with WordPress and help others get the start they may need to bring their awesome ideas to life.

I will always advocate working with WordPress, what are your thoughts?

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My 2013

The year 2013 stood out more than past years, enough so to write this post..

Our “babies” left us this year … our babies being our fancy pet rats. We rescued, and provided a sanctuary at times, as well as adopted fancy pet rats for close to ten years but as difficult as it was we chose to take a pause in that work this year with the passing of our last babies over the summer time. They are beautiful, intelligent, addictive little creatures but we are among the few that see them that way and they require a great deal of work to ensure they live a safe and comfortable life. A life any family pet deserves.

I changed jobs this year, some may even say I started a new career, too. I spend nearly 25 years with E.C.E. (Canada) Ltd. serving many roles with many titles but essentially it could all be boiled down to customer service. It was a tumultuous year for E.C.E. as well with new ownership taking over but they will survive and strive if by nothing more than the passion of that new ownership … or so at least I firmly believe and wish them all the best going forward with.

After many months of discussions and negotiations I started my second career as the Lead Happiness Engineer – NextGEN Gallery at Photocrati Media; in its essence a customer service role but one with great potential for growth. The opportunities offered by a small company can be immense, especially one that is building its product offering on the WordPress platform. Obviously there is the possibility of growing the Lead Happiness Engineer role, but there is also the possibilities of being able to actually use my WordPress knowledge and the code writing skill sets I have built as well with contributions to the Photocrati Media products currently being offered and the new products, features, and options being considered for the future.

We, Terri and I, traveled this year, too. It wasn’t that we has set out in the beginning of the year to cross something off our bucket lists but we created the opportunity all the same. We rode the world famous trolley cars of San Francisco. Although we had far reaching plans to visit the Grand Canyon, Yosemite Park, and the Hoover dam (not necessarily in that order) the US Government happen to “close” at the same which was actually quite fortunate in hindsight as our travel plans were forced to be drastically changed but, also in hindsight, our west coast vacation was a much better holiday. We stayed in Monterey for a few days and then moved up to San Francisco for a few more days.

Looking forward to 2014 already has a significant event on the horizon, Terri and I will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary … not certain what else this year holds for us but we have each other and I am certain we will have things to do and places to see.

Happy New Year!

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Why WordPress?

A young gentleman Terri and I have had the good fortune of getting to know wrote some very kind words in a recent email. I’d like to share them here because this is why Terri and I work with WordPress and why we are involved in the WordPress communities both local and abroad:

I also just wanted to thank you for giving me the idea of doing this presentation. You and Terri have been my inspiration into recently starting my own Web and IT Company, which I hope will be good to go soon. With the combination of both your knowledge and insight, I realized that anything is possible with WordPress, and that I’m only scratching the surface and need to dig deeper. (I feel like there is gold inside.) Anyways, I’ll just sum this up and say thanks for all of your help, and for everything you and Terri do not only for myself, but for the WordPress Community.
Nelson Steffens

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wp_get_shortlink() Should Always Return a URL

It was about two years ago that I noticed there was a minor issue with how wp_get_shortlink handled things with the default permalink structure. This is what I wrote in my original ticket:

Currently the code used in the link-template.php file causes the wp_get_shortcode function to return an empty result if the WordPress installation is using the default permalink structure. This causes at least issues with the_shortcode function and can be expected to cause issues any place that wp_get_shortcode is called when the default permalink structure is being used.

Obviously this was not a pressing issue but it was fixed on the 25030 Changeset. Props went out to sillybean, layotte, and cais (me!).

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I Quit My Job Yesterday

I started 24 years ago … and I quit yesterday! I tendered an appropriate Letter of Resignation but I’ve always wanted to say:

I Quit! Cha-Cha-Cha!

(Although I did write my wife after using that as the subject line … we both laughed about it later.)

It reminds me of an old television ad for the lottery. I didn’t actually win lottery, I did something better.

I have taken a position with a great company that works with WordPress; no, it’s not Automattic even though someone tried guessing on Twitter.

My new title will be: Lead Happiness Engineer – … er, well, if I gave my whole new title then what fun would it be for anyone else playing along.

Care to guess?

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Welcome to WordPress 3.6

You have just updated your WordPress installation and are looking at the latest “About WordPress” page.

You are reading about:

  • A “Colorful New Theme” (Twenty Thirteen)
  • How you can “Write with Confidence” (Explore Revisions, Improved Autosaves, and Better Post Locking)
  • New “Support for Audio and Video” (New Media Player, and Embed Music from Spotify, Rdio, and SoundCloud)
  • and, you are seeing improvements “Under The Hood” (Audio/Video API, Semantic Markup, JavaScript Utilities, Shortcode Improvements, Revision Control, and External Libraries)

Now that you have read about all these great improvements, please take a moment to click on the “Credits” tab on the About page and have a look at all of the contributors to this latest version.

I’m quite proud, and humbled, to say I was one of the many contributors to core for this release; and, would like to thank everyone for their contribution(s)!

Thank you to one and all!
Thank you to one and all!