WordPress.org

WordPress doesn’t send out too many emails. They’re usually only generated for an important notice, or when an action is required on your part. However, there are a few different circumstances under which you may not want WordPress to send any emails.

For example, when working on a development site, or even a production site, you may inadvertently trigger emails that send to real users when testing or making changes.

The best developers are able to stay invisible. Ideally, you don’t want any users to know or suspect that you are working on the site, so it’s important to suppress emails that might be triggered by your work. Fortunately, there are two plugins that will do this for you automatically.

Stop Emails

The Stop Emails plugin, created by Sal Ferrarello, works silently to prevent any outgoing emails from being sent using wp_mail() function. WordPress will continue to act normally, as if the emails were sent successfully.

When the plugin is active, you’ll see a notice in the admin area to remind you that emails are not currently being sent.

Stop Emails also has a filter that you can use, which will allow you to log emails and send the information to the php_error.log:

add_filter('fe_stop_emails_log_email', '__return_true');

Disable Emails

Disable Emails is a similar plugin, created by WordPress plugin developer Ross McKay. It stops any and all emails, using the standard wp_mail() function by replacing it with an empty function. Disable Emails is different in that it is totally silent and does not show an admin notice to remind you that emails are stopped.

It also has a more explanatory readme.txt file that cites several scenarios wherein you might consider shutting WordPress emails off:

• Demonstration websites that allow users to do things that normally send emails
• Development / test websites with live data that might email real customers
• Bulk-loading data into websites which might trigger emails
• Adding new sites into multisite installations

Both of these plugins are aimed at developers who probably want to turn emails off temporarily or only on a development site. You could also use the plugin to create a totally silent WordPress site that never sends out any notifications, although this is probably not recommended.

Email notifications are still one of the easiest ways to keep your finger on the pulse of your website when you don’t visit every day. If you opt to use one of these plugins temporarily on a live site, it’s important to remember to turn the plugin off when you’re finished working.

Recently we explored the question of whether or not a clear path for WordPress.org plugin adoption could help to lower the rate of abandonment. Some have suggested that having a standard (unofficial) adoption tag might help to bring more exposure to plugins that need a new owner.

“Adopt-Me” was suggested as one possible tag for developers to use to identify plugins that they would prefer to adopt out rather than abandon. WordPress developer Christian Foellmann is the first to make use of the tag. If you visit the “adopt-me” plugin tag page, you’ll find his Google Analytics MU plugin available for adoption.

Foellmann put his plugin up for adoption because he was no longer able to provide adequate support for it. “I really believe that you have to ‘choose your battles’ when it comes to open source contribution,” he said. “You need to make sure that you do not stretch yourself too thin. So I finally realized that I can only support a plugin (project) properly if I deploy it myself.”

“Free to a Good Home”

Foellmann has a rather unique reason for wanting to find the plugin a new home. “I run all my sites in multisite installations so the tracking of a complete network is something really appealing at first,” he said. “Until you realize the implications of EU and especially German privacy law. When it comes to user tracking the functionality of the plugin can get you into hot water – fast.” It’s for this reason that he’s decided to remove the plugin from his toolbox.

Already on the lookout for a best practice for plugin adoption, Foellmann saw our recent article and decided to be the first to use the “adopt-me” tag in hopes of keeping his plugin alive. He said that the ideal new owner would be a current user who is wiling to keep development open on Github. Foellmann will happily transfer over the Github repo.

Will the “Adopt-Me” tag take off?

The “adopt-me” tag will never catch on if nobody knows about it. Though the tag is technically unofficial, it will require developers to use it and recommend it, if there’s any possibility of it becoming a useful designation on WordPress.org.

When I discussed the matter of an unofficial tag with Samuel “Otto” Wood in a previous conversation, he had little hope of it gaining any traction. His thoughts:

I don’t think it will take off because it’s edge-casey and relies on authors giving away their plugins intentionally instead of simply letting them die from neglect.

His assessment would indicate that most developers who abandon their plugins are likely not motivated enough to put their extensions on the path to adoption, even if there is a known tag.

Foellmann has more hope for his Google Analytics MU plugin, which is actually a fork of a plugin that he originally tried to adopt. Since there was no process at the time and the plugin’s author was unreachable, he was forced to fork the original plugin.

This type of situation may be a contributing factor to the repository having so many plugins which seem to perform the same function. No path for adoption makes it easier to fork an existing work to make small changes or updates.

When I asked Foellmann if he thinks the “adopt-me” tag will take off, he said, “I really hope so. It might reduce the number of corpses rotting away in the repo.”

Is anyone else planning on making use of the tag?

Bob Dunn, who’s been teaching WordPress for years, has launched an all new website dedicated to helping people learn WordPress. The new site is filled with tutorials, up to date information about WordPress, and in the near future, complimentary eBooks. I got in touch with Bob and asked him a few questions about the new site.

How will Bobwptutorials differentiate itself from other WordPress learning sites?

When I was thinking about what this new service might look like, I kept hearing the voices of the thousands of people I have trained. They shared their frustrations with listening to audio without the visual references they needed. Some of them had tried other video tutorials but couldn’t keep up and absorb the information because the trainer’s pace was too fast.

Everyone learns differently and people need to find the instructional style that works best for them. My teaching style is different from other WordPress trainers. My tutorials are less formal, less scripted and more like I am having a conversation with my students. I give them a little more time to take in the information so it makes more sense. I provide screenshots as well, so students who learn better through visual styles can get what they need. That’s not everyone’s style of learning, but some people are naturally drawn to my approach.

But what really sets BobWPTutorials apart from the others is that I have a deep focus on two themes, Genesis Child Themes and WooThemes so members can explore the themes thoroughly and figure out what they need upfront, before they make a purchase. This has been a recurring issue with people who have come to me after having a bad experience. They have bought a theme and now they find it isn’t the one that will work best for their needs.

A Sample Of The Free Videos Available

So I wanted to hit that pain point. For each theme, members get an overview tutorial that lets them know what they can and cannot do with it out-of-the-box, without customizations. (Because most people who work with me fear code.) One of the hardest things for users to do is to visualize what their site might look like by just looking at the theme demo. The second video helps members set up their chosen theme step by step, primarily that all-important home page. In this second video, I also give them other setup options, so they understand they are not stuck with the exact look of the theme provider’s demo.

Lastly, I have added Video Highlights. This is a separate text and screenshot instruction that goes over the major points of the video. This way a member can revisit the important details without having to watch the entire video again.

Based on your experience, what is the most common area of WordPress people struggle with?

Wow, where do I start? I think in a general sense, it’s the non-intuitiveness of the interface. Lots of smart people get lost there and some of the simplest features are well-hidden. One example: During a training session, I shared how to expand the editor window by dragging the edged corner. You cannot imagine how many “ah-ha’s” I heard in the audience. One person even shared that they had been frustrated by that for six months.

Lots Of Themes To Choose From

Another thing people struggle with is theme choice. I know several WordPress people who say “just grab one and start with it”. But I have seen too many people struggle because they hadn’t thought through what they need their theme to do. Some will wallow in the sea of themes for months, frustrated and still not finding what they are looking for.

Those are just two of the areas users struggle with. It really depends on the person and their comfort level with technology. I know some very smart people who have Masters and Doctorates, but, still, they find it all very confusing.

On average, what demographic represents the majority of your customers?

It’s all over the board, but my one-on-one training is skewed toward the 40+ crowd. If I had to choose, I’d say it’s stronger on the female side. Often, they are people who are at a certain age and changing careers, starting a new business, stepping into the world of technology, or wanting to grow their hobby or interest. A lot of people in that age bracket feel they have been left behind by technology. I tend to attract them probably because of my age and my patience, maybe. You need to be a very patient person to be a WordPress trainer.

I have dealt with all ages, skill levels, genders and ethnic backgrounds. I’m a pretty laid-back guy with an open mind and a love for people.

WordPress is an ever-evolving piece of software. Are you finding it harder or easier to explain how it works to new users?

It’s true, it keeps me on the ball, keeping up with the changes and communicating them to my clients. But I wouldn’t say it’s any harder to explain as time passes. It can always be a challenge to teach an old dog a new trick. But it’s also what I love about my job. Constantly learning new things and finding ways to make the new and difficult easy for the next person to understand. I love that things change and evolve.

Out of curiosity, what membership plugin are you using for Bobwptutorials and why did you choose it over others?

I’m using Woo Commerce and a combination of extensions, including Groups and Subscriptions. My choice had a lot to do with my history with WooThemes, and, yes, Genesis child themes. With my personal training and Bobwptutorials, I focus on Genesis child themes and WooThemes. Why? Because I have used them both since I started with WordPress back in 2008 and I know and trust them.

My site bobwp.com is built on a Genesis child theme, so I wanted to make my second site with a WooTheme, you know, to share the love. When I first came up with the idea of this site, I contacted Matt at WooThemes, laid it out and said, can I make this work with a WooTheme and WooCommerce (the latter of which I already had some experience with)? He said yes, so that decided that. I love things that are simple, and if I can use something I already know well, I’m on it. I have tried a couple of membership plugins in the past on other sites, some I like, some not so much. But I can say there are some really good membership plugins out there. This was just the best route for me to go for this site.

Bob Is The Man

Be sure to check out the four free videos he’s made available. For example, this video explains the differences between posts and pages. I found it to be informative without being boring. If you are having trouble learning WordPress and need a patient individual to help guide you through the trenches, Bob Dunn is an excellent choice.

The Titan Framework is a new WordPress options framework that was released on WordPress.org this week. This set of tools was created to make it easy for WordPress theme and plugin developers to add options to their projects. This first release contains more than 20 options, including meta boxes, Google font selector, a media uploader, multicheck categories and taxonomies, theme customizer options and more.

Titan claims to be the easiest options framework you’ll ever use. With just a few simple lines of code you can quickly add customization options that are easy for clients to use and understand. For example, to get an instance of the Titan Framework for your plugin, you’d add just one line to the the main plugin file:

$titan = TitanFramework::getInstance( 'my-plugin' );

Setting up an admin page and menu for your options is as easy as adding a couple lines of code:

$panel = $titan->createAdminPanel( array(
    name => 'Theme Options',
) );

This helps to keep your code clean with the Titan engine powering the details related to building options.

The Titan Framework Was Built For Efficiency

I had the chance to speak with Benjamin Intal, Titan Framework’s creator, to ask him why he decided to put another WordPress options framework out into the wild, despite the fact that there are already so many. Intal said that Titan resulted from a bit of spring cleaning he completed on his themes.

“When I started creating WordPress themes 4 years ago, as my number of projects grew, I had a hard time managing all the code from the different themes I had,” he said. “By instinct, I started unifying all the similar code to make things more manageable. After months of work, I ended up with a huge framework that handled everything the theme needed.”

From there his private framework evolved as he learned more about WordPress best practices. Intal began removing much of the functionality and turning it into plugins:

My mindset was that every feature should be included with the theme. As I learned more and more about the ins and outs of WordPress, I learned that what I did was a big no no. So now, I’m dissecting those themes, and turning its innards into plugins. One of those is the Titan Framework.

Intal’s spring cleaning resulted in a powerful set of options that speed up development. He uses it regularly in client projects. In one example he needed to provide information on various locations on a map, so he created a custom post type for locations and Titan powers most of the meta box options for inputting custom fields such as latitude, longitude and other location properties.

While Intal maintains the framework for the purpose of efficiency in his own work, it’s now something that anyone can use. “Titan Framework focuses on ease of use,” he said. “For me, that translates to minimal coding and fewer things to remember.”

When creating the Titan Framework, Intal wanted to make a standardized way of adding options, so that it’s easy for developers to remember how to accomplish common tasks. He described the problem he was trying to solve and how Titan can improve your workflow:

In WordPress, admin options, custom fields and theme customizer controls are all different from each other. These are set up differently and getting the saved values for each type is performed differently. Titan Framework unifies all these so that you won’t really have to know whether you’re using an admin option, a custom field or a customizer control. Everything is just an option. Because of this, getting your saved values is just one simple method: the getOption method.

How to Include the Titan Framework in Your Project

Currently, if you want to use Titan with your work, you’ll need to have the plugin activated alongside your own theme or plugin. This will allow you to call the framework’s functions inside your project. Refer to the developers’ documentation on the Titan project page for further instructions and a snippet for checking to see if Titan has been activated.

“Ideally, Titan should always be a plugin that’s separate from your theme or plugin so that Titan can be updated for bug fixes or new features,” Intal said. However, he recognizes that some developers might want to bundle the framework within their projects. He plans on performing an update soon that will make that possible.

Future Additions to the Titan Framework

Intal has plans to expand the number of options in the framework, which currently includes most of the basics. He’ll be adding a palette selector, widget area selector and menu selector further down the road.

He also plans to include functionality for easily creating and selecting widget areas, as well as new functions for creating shortcodes.

Ital said that what he’s trying to accomplish with Titan is not based on a desire to improve deficiencies he’s seen in other frameworks. “When I was in the process of creating Titan Framework, I honestly did not dive into the other existing frameworks since I already had everything I needed to complete it,” he said. “I’ve just started now to check out what’s out there and I’m finding that there are a lot of great frameworks such as Redux and OptionTree.”

Of course, if you’re trying to learn how to code plugin and theme options from the inside out, then using an options framework is not the way to go. The idea behind using a framework is to save yourself time in development and focus on building your project. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel every time you need to add a few options. Titan saves you the hassle of having to code them from scratch. For more information and examples on how to use it, check out the Titan Framework homepage and documentation.

photo credit: kthread – cc

In the old days, WordPress theme developers used to build loads of specific functionality into their themes, i.e. recipes, portfolios, testimonials, analytics, fundraising capabilities, custom post types etc. Commercial theme providers competed fiercely with one another to see who could pack the most functionality into their offerings. Many companies sought to become a one-stop-shop for everything an individual or business might need in order to launch an online presence.

The practice of locking users into using a theme by tying their content/data to the use of the theme is now highly discouraged. WordPress theme shops have slowly started to separate function from design in favor of preserving data portability.

This past week we’ve seen more evidence of this trend as two major theme providers have released plugins for functionality that users might previously have expected to find within themes. Justin Tadlock, who has long been a vocal advocate of data portability in themes, released a new free Restaurant plugin. The plugin allows restaurants to manage a food and beverage menu and works as a companion to themes.

WooThemes released Projects this week, a new plugin to handle portfolio capabilities. They said that preserving data portability is one of the main reasons behind this decision:

You’ve probably already noticed that our product strategy has deviated to separating features and code wherever possible, shifting our functionality into plugins, rather than bundling into each theme…It also ensures your data is portable, which aligns with a core WordPress philosophy.

UpThemes’ recent open letter to the WordPress Community is further demonstration that the tides are turning in favor of data portability. In it, they openly admit that it was impossible for them to continue to support all of the extra stuff that they had been building into themes:

Gone are the days of locking custom post types in a theme. No longer do we build pluginesque functionality into the core of a theme. We now build themes that rely on existing, awesome plugins that offer features that can be used with other themes, should you choose to update your design or build your own theme.

UpThemes is starting fresh and making use of plugins such as Church Theme Content and Recipe Schema to add extra functionality, instead of packing it all into themes.

We’re witnessing the end of an era in WordPress theme development. Bloat is no longer acceptable. Theme authors are creating leaner products with a stronger focus on designing for specific use cases. Anything extra is plugin territory.

This should be quite liberating for theme authors who no longer bear the pressure of having to pack all kinds of complex functionality and options into their products. Themes and plugins will no longer overlap as heavily as they have in the past but will act as compliments to one another.

Tips For Consumers

photo credit: Leo Reynolds – cc

If you’re looking at this issue from a consumer standpoint, the most important thing to remember is that you are the guardian of your own data. If you choose a theme that locks you in, you are the one who will suffer the inconvenience of trying to transfer data when you change to a new theme.

Before installing a new theme, whether its free or commercial, ask yourself if you’ll be able to take all of your data with you, if and when you decide to stop using that theme. If the theme advertises dozens of capabilities, examine each of them to make sure that they don’t tie you down.

Last year we discussed this issue in a post about why you should never add analytics code to your WordPress theme. This is because analytics have nothing to do with the design of the theme. It’s a function that you’ll need to maintain throughout years of using WordPress with many different themes. You don’t want to have to transfer that data every time. Store it in a plugin and be done with it.

The same goes for portfolios, testimonials, recipes and custom post types. You’re likely to want this data on your website for years to come. Make sure that the theme you choose will give you that freedom. Find plugin substitutes for any data-driven functionality that is built into your theme. It’s not as convenient, but ultimately you’ll be glad that you kept your data separate from the design.

So you just created and released a cool WordPress plugin that solves a problem. It’s now among 29,000 other plugins on the plugin directory. How do you tell the world your plugin exists? WordPress.org doesn’t have an area to publish press releases or announcements of new plugins.

photo credit: jono dot com – cc

However, all plugins published to the repository show up on the newest plugins list. This list has an RSS feed but you have to know where to look to subscribe to it. In WordPress 3.8, the dashboard widget showing the newest plugins released was removed.

News Plugins Released On WordPress.org

If Your Plugin Solves a Problem, We Want To Hear About It

The best way to get your plugin noticed is to contact authors of websites that primarily focus on WordPress. For example, you can contact us. When pitching your plugin, don’t pretend it’s a sales pitch. Provide the name of the plugin, it’s target audience and the problem it solves. There is no guarantee that WPTavern or any other website will write about your plugin, even if that information is provided. But it’s worth a shot.

When we write about plugins on WPTavern, they’re either cool, innovative, or solve a problem for a large number of users. One of the hardest things to do as a writer is to write about something that is not interesting. The plugins reviewed on WPTavern are seen by a huge audience. I love hearing stories from new plugin authors of how an article on WPTavern put their plugin on the map.

WordPress Podcast Dedicated To Plugins

Plugins A-Z is a podcast dedicated to WordPress plugins. Hosted by Marcus Couch and John Overall, they discuss new plugins that have caught their eye. You can get in touch with them via their contact form. Don’t only submit information about your plugin, but extend an offer to be on their show as a guest. Who knows a plugin better than the person who created it?

Subreddit Dedicated To WordPress Plugins

A few weeks ago, we mentioned Reddit was a good place to hang out if you enjoyed discussing WordPress topics. There is a subreddit available dedicated to WordPress plugins. Developers are welcome to show off their plugins for feedback and offer custom development services when needed.

Plugin Developers Are Problem Solvers

In general, plugin developers are not looking for fame. Most plugins are solutions to a problem or scratch a developer’s itch. By releasing a plugin into the wild, the hope is it will solve the same problem for others. Thank you to every plugin developer who has placed their code onto the WordPress.org plugin repository. More often then not, those plugins are solutions to problems.

If you know any other outlets authors can use to promote their new plugins, please share them in the comments.

Postcard is a new free social sharing app for iOS that landed in the app store today. The app makes it easy for you to share content from your phone to multiple social networks at once.

The golden feature of this app is its “Custom Network” capability, which allows you to share to your own website. Many times people will share content, such as a quick status or photo, to Facebook or Twitter. The content is then hosted on the social networks, which gobble up all the traffic.

Postcard addresses this problem by allowing you to set your own website as the “host” network and direct all the traffic to your site where the content is hosted.

WordPress Plugin Connects Postcard to Your Website

Given that WordPress is the world’s leading publishing platform, Postcard’s creator decided to launch with WordPress integration available from day one.

This plugin performs two main functions:

1. Links the Postcard App to your WordPress site
2. Makes it possible to display content sent via Postcard on your site

When you send your content to be hosted on your site, you won’t have any of the character restrictions that come with sharing to other social networks. The plugin creates shareable permalinks attached to the messages that you share to Facebook, Twitter and other networks.

The Postcard WordPress plugin also gives you a number of shortcodes to use in the post/page editor for inserting content that comes from the app. The shortcodes make it easy to display an archive, feed or gallery of your Postcard content. The content can also be filtered using the designated attributes, such as tags or count:

[postcard-feed tags="interesting,useful"]

The Postcard Social Networking Plugin is available for free on WordPress.org. With the plugin and the app working hand-in-hand, you can create an archive of all the data that you share to social networks from your phone, even if you don’t choose to use shortcodes to display it on the front-end.

Own Your Content and Boost Traffic to Your WordPress Site

Kyle Newsome, the app’s creator, said that the ability to share to your own website is the feature that he is the most excited about: “It represents most strongly why I started building this app in the first place – to help people solve content ownership and control issues I see prevalent in the shape of social media today.”

Newsome designed Postcard to be a tool that can help people to keep their website content fresh. “There is a big opportunity with this app to make sure your website doesn’t go stale as you post regular short form content to social networks,” he said. Since many people are already putting quite a bit of effort into updating their social networks, Postcard gives you a way to broadcast to all of them while passing the resulting traffic on to your own website.

One important thing to note is that Postcard doesn’t store your content or use it to create a social network of any kind. I asked Newsome to clarify how it works. “It doesn’t store data or use 3rd party servers,” he said. “All credentials are local and securely stored on the phone.” This is an important distinction when comparing Postcard to other apps that claim to let you own your own data. If you use the Custom Network feature, the app simply couriers that data to your site where you own the content.

An App to Fundamentally Change How We Use Social Networks

Postcard presents a new way to interact with social networks. When announcing the upcoming launch, Newsome said, “For those of us who are active content creators, I think this marks a very important change in the way we use social media.” Having your own website as the canonical source for the content you create has value beyond the traffic that you gain. That link to your site and the fact that you host the data assigns ownership of that content to you. It also provides a lasting archive of your content that can be sorted and presented in any way that you choose.

Right now Postcard is only available for iOS. I asked Newsome if an Android app is in the works. He replied, “Yes, cross-platform is in the plan. I’m looking at ways to hit both desktop and more mobile platforms.” As soon as these tools are available, Postcard will be set to double, if not triple its user base, given that Android currently dominates the smartphone market. We’ll keep you updated as these tools continue to develop.

While there is not an official way to create child plugins, the topic has been discussed in the WordPress community over the past few years. I caught up with Ian Dunn who submitted the idea three years ago to see if it still has merit.

From an architectural standpoint, creating a child plugin isn’t really practical. It works for themes because they have a very specific, defined set of behaviors, but plugins are completely different.

Ian recently published a post highlighting the right way to customize plugins. The first suggestion he offered is to get in touch with the plugin author and let them know what changes you’d like to see.

If that doesn’t work, the next step is to extend the plugin without modifying its core. The easiest way to accomplish this is to create a functionality plugin that will run alongside it. You can take things one step further by using Plugin Dependencies by Scribu to control when the functionality plugin is activated. Plugin Dependencies allow you to specify if a parent plugin is deactivated, it will also deactivate the plugin dependent upon it.

What Plugin Dependencies Does

Hooks are a way for one piece of code to interact with and modify another piece of code. If the plugin you want to modify offers hooks, you can use them to extend the plugins functionality. According to Ian, if the developer added hooks, you just need to write a separate plugin that runs alongside the plugin you’re customizing and register callbacks for the custom hooks that the plugin provides.

Code Snippets In Action

Code Snippets by Shea Bunge is an easy way to manage code snippets to extend plugins. Code Snippets is cool because it adds a GUI to create and manage code snippets. The snippets are executed as if they are located within the themes functions.php file. This added benefit alleviates the possibility of functions.php filling up with hundreds of lines of extra code. Using Code Snippets to extend plugins instead of functions.php prevents the changes from being lost when a user switches themes.

In Summary

The mantra of never editing core WordPress files should be observed for plugins and themes. The goal is to extend or remove functionality without having those changes disappear after an upgrade. It’s frowned upon to place code snippets within a theme’s functions.php file. Instead, use a functionality plugin or use the Code Snippets plugin to manage them. Plugin authors are encouraged to add hooks where they’ll make the most impact. If you’re unsure on how to add custom hooks to your plugin, there is a great explanation available within the plugin developer handbook.

John Blackbourn’s Query Monitor has quickly become a favorite debugging plugin for WordPress developers ever since it was released last November. The plugin has 227 stars on github and has been downloaded more than 5,000 times from WordPress.org.

One of the unique features of Query Monitor is the ability to narrow things down by plugin or theme. For example, it displays the template filename for the current page, available body classes and active parent and child themes.

Query Monitor also highlights all the WordPress conditionals on the current page. However, if you’re using bbPress or BuddyPress, the plugin isn’t able to pick up on these specific conditionals. The good news is that Stephen Edgar created a separate plugin to do just that.

Query Monitor bbPress & BuddyPress Conditionals is now available on WordPress.org. When you add it to your bbPress or BuddyPress-powered site, you’ll be able to view conditionals related to those plugins:

In the example above you can see the plugin in action on a BuddyPress site with additional conditionals displayed:

• is_buddypress()
• bp_is_activity_component()
• bp_is_directory()

The ability to quickly view these conditionals is useful when creating bbPress/BuddyPress themes and plugins. It can also be handy when working with new and unfamiliar extensions, as you try to track down what’s happening on the current page. From there you can visit the BuddyPress template tags codex page or the bbPress conditional tags reference for more information on working with these conditionals.

I have a few engagements in the coming week in the San Francisco area and online:

• Later today I’ll be on the WordPress-focused podcast Dradcast.
• This evening there will be a Patent Happy Hour co-hosted by Engine Advocacy, EFF, and Automattic.
• On Thursday the 20th I’ll be speaking with Kent Goldman as part of the First Round Capital Dorm Room Fund Speaker Series at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
• Friday the 21st I’ll be talking with Reid Hoffman as part of the LinkedIn Speaker Series at their campus, and it will also be broadcast online.
• Tuesday the 25th I’ll be on the WP Think Tank panel discussion with a number of other notable WordPress community members.
• On Wednesday the 26th I’ll be interviewing Ben Rattray of Change.org at the Commonwealth Club.

template_redirect is a popular WordPress hook, for good reason. When it runs, WordPress has made its main query. All objects have been instantiated, but no output has been sent to the browser. It is your last stop to hook in and redirect the user somewhere else, and the best place to do so if you need full knowledge of the queried objects. But what it is not good for is loading an alternative template.

I see code like this a lot:

add_action( 'template_redirect', 'my_callback' );

function my_callback() {
  if ( some_condition() ) {
    include( SOME_PATH . '/some-custom-file.php' );
    exit();
  }
}

The problem with this code is that anything hooked in to template_redirect after this code isn’t going to run! This can break sites and lead to very odd bugs. If you want to load an alternative template, there’s a filter hook for that: template_include.

add_filter( 'template_include', 'my_callback' );

function my_callback( $original_template ) {
  if ( some_condition() ) {
    return SOME_PATH . '/some-custom-file.php';
  } else {
    return $original_template;
  }
}

Same effect, but doesn’t interfere with other plugin or theme code! This distinction should be easy to remember:

• template_redirect is for redirects.
• template_include is for includes.

As more WordPress themes require the use of featured images to look their best, managing those images on a per-post basis can be a time consuming task. Luckily, there is a plugin available that makes things easier. It’s called Quick Featured Images developed by Martin Stehle.

Quick Featured Images Plugin Header

Although it’s hard to make out due to the poor screenshots on the WordPress plugin repository, the plugin adds three specific actions that are controllable via filters.

1. Adding featured images: You can set and replace an image as the new featured image to hundreds of posts in one go.
2. Exchanging featured images: You can replace or update an existing featured image with another image in one go.
3. Deleting featured images: You can remove any existing featured image from its attributed posts in one go.

After activating, you’ll find the tools in Media – Quick Featured Image. I immediately noticed how different the page was versus the rest of the WordPress backend.

Crazy Background Image With Colorful Progress Bar

I wouldn’t mind the colors used for the progress bar if it were not for the background image. It’s distracting and unnecessary. The WordPress backend is not an area where plugin authors should take the liberty of being cute using background images like the one in the screenshot. I want every settings page to be consistent with what ships with WordPress core. I don’t want to be surprised by pretty images or weird colors.

So How Does It Work?

I found it difficult to get past the first step of the process. The first three options all have links to choose an image. Naturally, I clicked on those links thinking it would open the media library allowing me to select an image. But none of the links worked. There is an area that allows me to select an image underneath the settings shown in the screenshot. However, the choose image links should work the same way.

Choose Links Don’t Work

Once I selected an image, I moved on to step two. From here, I can select from a number of filters. These filters give users the ability to specifically control which posts are modified.

Filters Control Which Posts Are Modified

The next page refines the filter used. In my example, I used the tag filter and chose Nodeki as my tag. Quick Featured Images detected three posts with the applied tag. Use caution as the changes applied can not be undone.

Apply Changes To Posts

After applying the changes, I double checked all three posts to see if the featured image had been changed. Each post showed the new image I chose in step one.

Quick Featured Images Works As Advertised

Aside from the colors, background image, and the choose image links in step one, this plugin worked as advertised. The handful of filters available to narrow down posts, including custom post types and custom taxonomies make it easy to apply changes to a specific subset of content. If you need to edit featured images for a number of posts, especially if it’s to use the same image, this plugin should do the trick.

On this weeks edition of WordPress Weekly, Chris Wallace founder of UpThemes.com will be our guest. We’re going to dive deeper into the reasons why their open letter was written and published to the WordPress theme community. We’ll talk about what the state of WordPress themes are in 2014 and what UpThemes plans are for the future. I labeled their open letter as a wakeup call for theme developers, we’ll see if Chris agrees.

This weeks episode will be recorded one hour earlier than normal to accommodate our guest. Recording time will be 2 P.M. Eastern instead of 3 P.M. If you have any questions or concerns you’d like me to bring up to Chris during the episode, please leave them in the comments.

It’s frustrating for plugin authors when users mark their plugin as broken when in fact, it’s an incompatibility with the user’s hosting environment. Too many broken plugin reports could damage the reputation of the author even if it’s not his/her fault. Pressing Matters proposed a solution to the problem that while good for developers, is not great for users.

Adding Two More Sections Of Data To The Plugin Header File

Their first request is for two additional sections of meta-information to be added to the plugin file header. This way, developers could specify the minimum PHP and MySQL requirements needed to successfully use the plugin. As a plugin user myself, I don’t like this method because I don’t think users should have to worry about what version of PHP or MySQL is running on their webhosting server. The plugin should either work or gracefully display an error message explaining why it won’t without causing the entire website to crash.

The second technique uses an explicit if statement to check whether the minimum system requirements are met. If not, a prompt would be displayed informing the user the plugin is incompatible and then ask the user to upgrade. The last part of this solution is confusing. What would the user need to upgrade? It’s not like they can upgrade PHP and MySQL versions on shared hosting servers.

Gary Pendergast Has A Better Way Of Accomplishing The Goal

WordPress Developer Gary Pendergast has a better way of accomplishing the same goal. Using the code in his post, plugins are only activated if a specific version of WordPress or higher is installed. With this technique, plugin authors maintain full control over when plugins are activated. If an incompatible version of WordPress is detected, a disabled notice will appear and the plugin remains deactivated.

Gary’s code snippet republished with permission:

//  In this example, only allow activation on WordPress 3.7 or higher
class MyPlugin {
    function __construct() {
        add_action( 'admin_init', array( $this, 'check_version' ) );

        // Don't run anything else in the plugin, if we're on an incompatible WordPress version
        if ( ! self::compatible_version() ) {
            return;
        }
    }

    // The primary sanity check, automatically disable the plugin on activation if it doesn't
    // meet minimum requirements.
    static function activation_check() {
        if ( ! self::compatible_version() ) {
            deactivate_plugins( plugin_basename( __FILE__ ) );
            wp_die( __( 'My Plugin requires WordPress 3.7 or higher!', 'my-plugin' ) );
        }
    }

    // The backup sanity check, in case the plugin is activated in a weird way,
    // or the versions change after activation.
    function check_version() {
        if ( ! self::compatible_version() ) {
            if ( is_plugin_active( plugin_basename( __FILE__ ) ) ) {
                deactivate_plugins( plugin_basename( __FILE__ ) );
                add_action( 'admin_notices', array( $this, 'disabled_notice' ) );
                if ( isset( $_GET['activate'] ) ) {
                    unset( $_GET['activate'] );
                }
            }
        }
    }

    function disabled_notice() {
       echo '<strong>' . esc_html__( 'My Plugin requires WordPress 3.7 or higher!', 'my-plugin' ) . '</strong>';
    } 

    static function compatible_version() {
        if ( version_compare( $GLOBALS['wp_version'], '3.7', '<' ) ) {
             return false;
         }

        // Add sanity checks for other version requirements here

        return true;
    }
}

global $myplugin;
$myplugin = new MyPlugin();

register_activation_hook( __FILE__, array( 'MyPlugin', 'activation_check' ) );

According to Gary:

It’s only a little extra code when added to a plugin, provides complete protection, and won’t cause any weirdness on the front end of your site. It’ll just deactivate itself either on activation, or when someone visits wp-admin.

It’s a bit of code that can go a long way towards making sure users are not ambushed with a broken site when activating a plugin that is incompatible with their setup. If you know a better technique, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Swedish designer Anders Norén is relatively new to the world of WordPress theme development but his breathtakingly simple themes are a refreshing addition to the ecosystem. Last August, Norén released Lingonberry, a responsive, retina-ready theme with beautiful typography.

Delighted by the success of Lingonberry, which has received more than 8,000 downloads from WordPress.org, Norén decided to develop more themes. In the past week, he’s added to his collection on WordPress.org with the release of two elegant blogging themes: Wilson and Hemingway.

Demos for Wilson and Hemingway can be found on Norén’s themes page, along with Lasseter, his first commercial product, which is sold through Mojo Themes.

No Framework: Norén Starts From Scratch

I had the opportunity to chat with Anders Norén to get an inside look into his design and development process. His approach to crafting themes might be considered “old school” but he says it drives him to improve.

When beginning something new, he takes only the essentials from previous works and uses them as building blocks. “Every time I start work on a new theme, I strip down my latest theme to the bare essentials and take it from there,” he said. “I could probably save myself some time by using a formal framework as a starting point, but I think it’s healthy to keep in touch with the fundamentals and rewrite old code. My understanding of WordPress gets a little better every time. That’s what I tell myself, at least.”

Designing to Learn

Although Norén makes a little bit of money from his commercial theme, he said that the primary reason he creates themes is to learn new things. “If I couldn’t make money from it, I’d do it for free,” he said. “It’s a great learning experience as well.” Norén described how valuable the WordPress theme review process was when he first started developing themes:

When I submitted the first version of Lingonberry, the list of errors the automated theme scanning detected covered the screen. The first version of Wilson, my latest theme, had zero errors. Going through the process of submitting Lingonberry to WordPress.org and getting it approved taught me as much about WordPress theme development as six months of client work. I would recommend anyone working with WordPress development to do it at least once.

In addition to learning, Norén also creates themes for the pure enjoyment of seeing other people use them. “The reason Lingonberry wasn’t the last theme I submitted to WordPress.org was the response,” he said. “Seeing Lingonberry being used in a thousand different ways by thousands of people around the world was amazing – still is, for that matter. It’s an indescribable feeling. It’s a great acid test for your code as well.”

Keys to Achieving Simplicity in WordPress Theme Design

I asked Norén what his guiding principle is when it comes to design. Not surprisingly, his answer echoes the sentiments of successful designers around the world: “I strive for simplicity,” he said.

When it comes to achieving simplicity in the context of a WordPress theme, Norén has a few pointers for what that looks like. “In terms of visual design, that means that everything is secondary to the content,” he said. “Reduce the design to the bare necessities. Remove the excessive stuff until it hurts.”

There’s a fine line between simple and painfully stark, but Norén knows not to cross it. “Simplicity is always my goal,” he said. “But I never take it as far as I would like to. Simplicity is really, really hard. Still, there are a lot of people in the WordPress community who are doing it right. Okay Themes and Themezilla are two examples.”

Crafting Themes For Specific Use Cases

Norén isn’t fond of the previous trend in WordPress theme development, where products claim to do everything short of cooking your bacon and folding your laundry. He’s not willing to dump all of this functionality into his themes.

“When it comes to designing the functionality, some people want themes with dozens of theme options and custom page builders with twenty content types,” he said. “That’s fine, but it’s not the kind of theme that I’m interested in developing. I want to build themes that look and work great the moment they’re activated. And, of course, themes that are responsive. There’s no excuse for releasing a theme that isn’t responsive in 2014.”

Instead of packing a million options into his themes in hopes of selling to every possible type of customer, Norén opts for creating themes with specific use cases and providing minimal options. The results highlight the difference between a carefully crafted product and something that’s mass produced. There’s no comparison.

Finding the Courage to Sell a Commercial Product

So far, Norén has released more free themes than commercial ones, which is not often the case if one makes it his business to develop themes. I asked him if he’s planning to create a theme shop of his own in the future.

“I think the reason why I’ve released most of my themes for free is a combination of Lasseter‘s lack of success and the enjoyment I get from seeing people use what I’ve made,” he said. “That said, it’s not like it’s impossible to charge for something and have it be successful.” In terms of dollars and cents, Norén said his first attempt at selling a WordPress theme hasn’t been worth the effort.

“It really comes down to insecurity on my part,” he confessed. “It’s easy to surpass expectations when you give something away for free. The bar for free WordPress themes is still pretty low, even as more and more high quality themes are being released.”

However, the success of his free themes on WordPress.org is bringing him courage when looking at a possible future in the commercial theme business. “Seeing the popularity of Hemingway and Wilson, I’m starting to feel ready to give premium themes another go. I have a few ideas that I have been kicking around. It would be great for it to grow to the point where creating a theme shop would be feasible, but I’m not planning on it.”

Anders Norén is one of the pioneers in the current WordPress theme revolution aimed at bringing themes back to the basics. Whether he brings his design principles into a full-fledged commercial effort or keeps them alive in the form of a hobby, his work inspires others to consider the value of keeping it simple. “Whatever happens, I have no intention to stop developing WordPress themes,” he said. “I’m having too much fun.”

The Aesop Storytelling Engine was created to empower the art of digital storytelling by making it easy for WordPress publishers to create interactive, feature-rich posts. Before Aesop came on the scene, these types of long-form storytelling posts often required quite a bit of code and were not easy for your average user to create.

The project reached another milestone today with the The Aesop Story Engine plugin now approved for WordPress.org. This further broadens Aesop’s audience to millions of WordPress users and enables notification for updates within the admin. The core storytelling engine includes more than a dozen storytelling components, which are created on the fly as you design a story within a WordPress post.

Theming Aesop Story Engine

It’s important to note that the plugin provides only basic styles and will not look like the demos you may have seen, especially as pertains to Timeline and Chapter components. To get the most out of Aesop you’ll need a theme that supports it.

If you want to adapt your theme or develop a new one for Aesop, documentation is available. It covers the markup that is generated for each of the components and includes information on actions, filters, custom meta and theme implementation.

After the plugin reached its funding goals at the end of January, work began on refining the story telling engine and developing commercial themes for the project. I checked in with Nick Haskins, Aesop’s creator, and he said that he’s got one commercial theme in beta. “Now that the plugin is out, themes are the priority,” Haskins said. Backers of the project are currently beta testing the first theme and he hopes to have one available in approximately two weeks.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a basic theme example, download the Aesop Theme Sample from github. It demonstrates how to implement the story engine component design. Please note that the sample theme only includes styles for the single story as an example.

More information on the open source storytelling engine is available on the plugin’s homepage. For an in depth look at the future of Aesop, check out our recent interview with Nick Haskins on the WordPress Weekly podcast.

How the north ended up on top of the map by Nick Danforth.

Duo Security is a business that provides two-factor authentication services across multiple platforms. Late last week, the company announced on their blog they discovered a security vulnerability in their WordPress plugin. According to Duo, the vulnerability only affects WordPress Multisite installations where the plugin is enabled on an individual per-site basis. The vulnerability may allow a user of one site within a Multisite network to bypass the second factor of authentication of another site within the same network. Within their customer bulletin, they offered the following example:

A multisite WordPress deployment has two sites, Site1 and Site2, with the Duo WordPress plugin enabled for Site1 but disabled for Site2. Under normal circumstances, users logging into Site1 will be prompted for primary credentials and second-factor authentication; Site2 users will be prompted only for primary credentials. A Site1 user may force-browse to the login URL of Site2, which will authenticate the user (as part of the same WordPress multisite network), and redirect them back to Site1, without prompting for second-factor authentication.

To clarify who might be at risk, Duo outlined these three criteria:

• Only WordPress “Multisite” deployments that have chosen to deploy the plugin on an individual site basis are affected.
• Normal WordPress deployments or Multisite deployments with the plugin enabled globally are NOT affected.
• The user must still present correct primary authentication (eg. username and password); only the second factor is bypassed.

Duo discovered the vulnerability is not restricted to just their plugin. The company says the vulnerability exists in other two-factor authentication plugins and they have contacted those vendors to share their findings. If you use a two-factor authentication plugin other than Duo, you’re encouraged to contact the author or vendor. Ask them if their plugin contains the vulnerability and whether or not it’s been fixed.

Duo has yet to announce they have permanently fixed the problem but have recommended a workaround for WordPress Multisite deployments: enable duo_wordpress globally, and disable it for specific user roles.

Power Menus is a new WordPress plugin designed to make it simple to control menu items. The plugin handles both access and visibility on individual menu items and includes the following options:

• Control visibility of menu items for logged-in or non-logged-in users
• Show or hide items per user role
• Limit access to posts and pages
• Redirect users without required access permissions to a chosen page

Once the plugin is installed, all of the options are found under Appearance > Menus. Here you can set the secure page that visitors will be redirected to when they do not have access. If you don’t set the secure page, the default behavior is that the menu item will be hidden but direct access to the URL will still be available.

Power Menus makes it convenient to provide selective access to published content. Although WordPress already has a built-in password-protected visibility option for content, the feature can be cumbersome since you have to provide passwords and the URL to those permitted to access it. With Power Menus enabled, you can include the post/page in your menu and control its visibility based on whether or not a user is logged in or based on user role.

I tested Power Menus and found the plugin to be very easy and intuitive to use. This is one that you may want to add to your plugin favorites, as it’s one of those handy tools you’ll probably need from time to time. Download Power Menus for free from WordPress.org.

The Learning Registry is an open source initiative dedicated to bringing together high quality digital learning resources from federal agencies and public and private organizations around the web. The registry is available for anyone to use – educators, publishers and developers are encouraged to tap into the database and add resources that haven’t yet been shared. It currently contains more than 414,000 resources.

It’s not easy to discover educational resources using traditional search engines. However, the Learning Registry makes it possible for educators to find the specific materials that they need. You can test drive the registry search at the bottom of the homepage. Browse by subject or search by keyword:

You can also browse by standard, i.e. Common Core Mathematics or Common Core English Language Arts.

With the principles of open data making their way into education, we’re about to see an explosion of digital learning resources as content publishers begin to recognize the value of sharing to the registry. Developers can then use this data to build apps that connect educators to the learning materials.

Learning Registry WordPress Plugin

WordPress-powered websites can display data from the Learning Registry using the plugin created by the Advanced Distributed Learning development team. The LR-Wordpress-Plugin includes widgets for retrieving resources by subject, national standard, or arbitrary search terms.

As part of the set-up process you’ll also be required to install the JSON API plugin and Widgetize Pages Light. The LR-Wordpress-Plugin requires a few more extra steps of configuration to get everything up and running, but once you’re finished you’ll have access to a handy array of widgets for displaying data from the Learning Registry:

The most powerful of the packaged widgets provides the ability to search the registry directly from your website. During the set-up process you’ll create and designate the search results page where the information will be displayed. I hooked everything up in a test environment and found that it was able to search and retrieve data as advertsised. You can see a live example of the plugin in action at free.ed.gov:

If you operate a WordPress website related to learning or education, then integrating the Learning Registry plugin is an excellent way to provide access to a huge database of resources.

Richard Culatta, the director of the US Education Department’s office of educational technology, wants to make the registry more useful for educators by getting more experts involved in curating the content. Since anyone can add data, it’s imperative to find helpful ways to classify the information so that educators can find the best content for their students without a lot of searching.

Developers can support this endeavor by creating apps for displaying data and tools that make it easy for publishers to submit resources. Check out the documentation for more details on getting started.

The Learning Registry is an open source, government-funded initiative that everyone can get behind. By providing open access to thousands of teaching resources, educators in poorly-funded school districts and perhaps other parts of the world are able to quickly find high quality resources for their students. In this digital era, educational funding doesn’t have to limit the quality of available resources for teachers. With a commitment to open access and open contribution, the Learning Registry project has the potential to efficiently deliver academic resources on a much larger scale than we’ve ever seen before.

Last year Bootstrap joined the flat design craze with its 3.0 release and a new optional theme. The default box model and basic UI components have been greatly improved. Bootstrap 3.1 introduced an official Sass port, further expanding the framework’s toolbox.

Awhile back, we featured WordPress themes built using the Foundation front-end framework. Since Bootstrap has been around longer, its user base is larger, which has resulted in more WordPress themes. Here’s a selection of the best, built with Bootstrap 3.

Inkness

Inkness is a retina-ready WordPress theme, featuring a grid-based home page and multiple page layouts.
Download | Demo

Fullby

Fullby was inspired by the Twenty Fourteen default theme and built with Bootstrap under the hood. The homepage includes a fluid grid for displaying posts and a featured content area at the top.

Download | Demo