I recently decided to try experimenting with multi networks for multisite on WordPress. Since I often write my best blog posts while I am learning a new technology, I thought I would go ahead and try to blog about it as I learn it! What does “Multi Network” mean? You probably already know that WordPress …(Read More)
How to Modify a WordPress Plugin
It’s a common request. You love your WordPress website, the theme is beautiful, and the plugin does almost exactly what you need, but there’s just one thing that you would like to change. You want it to do something differently. How can you modify that WordPress plugin? Are you sure? Before you try to modify …(Read More)
Performance implications of serving base64 encoded images
This started when I was trying to build a secure system that would store user input. The fundamental question is, if you allow authenticated users to upload image files and store them on a web server, how do you then prevent someone else from viewing those files? In the process of attempting to answer the …(Read More)
Simple Contact Form
Like many web developers, I occasionally post some of my ongoing projects to my GitHub account. One project that I uploaded several months ago is the Simple Contact Form. What is the Simple Contact Form? This is a semantically valid HTML5 contact form, for all your web contact form needs. It features JavaScript fallbacks for older …(Read More)
Are prepared statements slower than escaped strings?
The debate rages on within the programming community: should you use PHP prepared statements to prevent SQL injection attacks against a MySQL database, or is the performance hit so substantial that you’d always be better off simply escaping your inputs? The background Prepared statements are more complicated to write: after establishing the database connection, you …(Read More)
How to add a custom CSS class name to a WordPress navigation menu
Sometimes the simplest things seem very complicated. I absolutely could not find a way to add a custom CSS class name to a header navigation menu in WordPress. It seemed like it should be such an essential function that it would be baked into the core. But when I searched around on Google, all the …(Read More)
WordPress functionality: The thin line between theme and plugin
Stumbled across this just now: the official WordPress guidelines for separating style from functionality. What WordPress functionality may be incorporated into a theme, and which functions should be left to the plugin developers? The line is tighter than you might think. And it turns out, it is a line I have crossed. The guidelines state …(Read More)
The Widgeon Starting Point
A Responsive WordPress Theme Starting Point The Widgeon Starting Point is a starting point for your responsive WordPress theme, with SEO-friendly HTML5 and CSS3. Fully expandible! Download the Widgeon Starting Point. The Widgeon Starting Point is an empty theme for WordPress. It is a blank slate for WordPress theme development. Fill in the blanks with …(Read More)
How to Create a WordPress Theme
This post discusses the basic fundamentals of how to create a WordPress theme from scratch. A WordPress theme is more than just a visual layout & design for your WordPress-based website. The theme files also provide structure to your code, and functionality to your pages. You don't have to start from scratch Of course, the …(Read More)
Responsive Starting Point
Web designers: finish your work more quickly! This responsive HTML5 time-saver is a starting point for your next web design project. The Responsive Starting Point is (update: no longer) available here as a .zip file download. (I would post it on GitHub if I thought it mattered. This project was the basis for the Widgeon Starting …(Read More)