If your browser is set to prefer dark color schemes you almost certainly noticed that our site looks a bit different over the past couple weeks. What was once a sea of blues and bright whites is now a sea of blues and dark greys. By default the site will automatically enable the dark mode if your browser requests it. Otherwise, you can enable it anytime by clicking the icon in this site's header. If you are already in dark mode, you can switch to light mode by clicking the icon in this … [Read more...]
Category: Programming
Retrieving PHP Error Logs in WordPress
When submitting a support request for a WordPress plugin, one of the first things that will typically be asked for is the contents of your site's PHP error log. The error log provides a ton of useful information about plugin conflicts or PHP version issues which can help whoever is troubleshooting either rule out or narrow down the issue. WordPress makes retrieving and/or sharing your PHP error logs straight-forward and once you know how you'll probably start using it to troubleshoot on your … [Read more...]
Case Study: Plugin Demos
From the beginning of our PRO plugins, we have received many contact form submissions requesting a demo of our plugins. Over the years we have pointed users to various examples or explanations of how a plugin functions for their use case. Now, after a few rounds of scope and extensive development we have launched demonstrations of our plugins. Challenges We realized early on the biggest challenge for demonstrating our plugins was going to be that the plugins are largely WordPress admin … [Read more...]
Plugins Mega Menu
During one of our UX audits we discovered a bottleneck for users trying to access the documentation areas of our plugins. The path required a user to start at an individual plugin page and use the links within to arrive at the documentation. For prospective members, this process followed the natural path. For existing members this process added 1-2 extra clicks to arrive where intended. Introducing the New Mega Menu Hover over the "Plugins" menu item in the header of this website to … [Read more...]
Disabling WooCommerce Blocks
We are a big fan of the WooCommerce plugin for its stability and the ability to create our own custom templates. We are also a big fan of clean UX and performant enterprise level websites. One thing we have never been a fan of was WooCommerce Blocks. Don't get me wrong, the blocks are really cool. In a world of Full Site Editing it's reasonably necessary for WooCommerce to provide blocks for users to have the ability to build the site code free. Assuming you are working on a single site … [Read more...]
Gutenberg Block Editor – Translating TypeScript
WordPress versions 4.9 and below allowed you to translate text in your JavaScript by passing JSON objects via wp_localize_script. While this system works great it has some limitations. With the release of WordPress 5.0, support was introduced to allow developers to translate their theme or plugin directly within JavaScript. Translating in JavaScript has some nice benefits: The available tools work great if you are using plain JavaScript and no form of Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) in your … [Read more...]