Adding custom functionality to WordPress for business themes and plugins always involves working with action and filter hooks. This is WordPress’ event architecture, and it’s a core reason why it’s so extensible. The action hooks and filters changes from install to install, because most plugins provide a set…
Kevin Leary
Fixing WordPress cURL Errors
WordPress uses a single class for all remote HTTP requests, WP_Http. This class uses cURL to handle these requests, and quite often I see developers encountering issues with localhost requests and self-signed certificates, especially if you’re using your own local certificate authority to sign your local development…
jQuery Select Dropdowns: Common Patterns
If you’re working with jQuery and you want to select an < option> based on it’s text value, rather than it’s [value] attribute you can use the selector pattern: option[text=”Option A”], where Option A is the text label of the option you need to work with. HTML As…
The Evolution of JavaScript Module Patterns
The evolution of JavaScript module patterns has been a huge headache for web developers. Attempting to work with plugins and libraries that all use different module patterns overly difficult, but once you understand each pattern and how to work with it you can begin to translate and make…
Export & Import All Databases on a MySQL Server
When I upgrade MySQL I like to start with a backup of all my MySQL databases. I have 50+ databases in my localhost server, so it’s best to bulk export them all to a single.sql file with one command. I need this export to be easy to…
Using Moment in Angular/TypeScript
Using Moment in a TypeScript Angular app is easier than you think. Here are the steps you’ll need to take to get it setup. Basic Moment Usage Run the following commands inside your Angular CLI project to install Moment and it’s corresponding interfaces. npm i -S moment; npm…
Currency Formatting in JavaScript & TypeScript
There’s a simple, native way to format numbers and floats as currency strings in JavaScript. I’ve seen all kinds of approaches to this common scenario. The toLocaleString method is built-in to JavaScript, 100% supported in majority browsers, and requires no external libraries or dependencies. I’d recommend it as…
Display HTML in Angular Components
Displaying HTML in an Angular component that’s stored in a template variable isn’t as straightforward as you’d expect. In order to properly store and display an HTML string in a component without issues, you’ll need to take one of two approaches depending on the tags and attributes in…
Quick Fix for WordPress ob_end_flush() Error
From time-to-time I see the following error on your WordPress website, usually at the very bottom of your pages below the footer. ob_end_flush(): failed to send buffer of zlib output compression (1) This happens when your WordPress theme or plugins use output buffering but don’t flush the output…
Ionicons in Angular: Web Component Fix
Ionicons 4.x provides a web component that you can use to add an icon with < ion-icon name=”…”> < /ion-icon> . Using this web component in an Angular app doesn’t work though, and many developers have reported that Ionicons 4 is broken when used with Angular. If you’ve tried to include…
Mac Dock & Multiple Monitors
Unfortunately the native Mac OS X dock can’t be used on multiple displays. You can get it setup so that it’s available on both, but what most people are after (myself included) is a seamless dock that spans two external display monitors reliably. I’ve tried all of the…
How to Disable the WordPress Gutenberg Editor
WordPress 5.0 will be released on 12/7/2018, and with it comes a new editing experience known as Gutenberg. Good Idea, Wrong Implementation Not exactly what we wanted. I’ve been actively working with Gutenberg now for about 2-3 months, and while I like the concept and agree a…
Test a Website for ADA Compliance & WCAG Accessibility
ADA website compliance is an important aspect that every business owner should understand and be aware of. It’s always been important to develop a website following the WCAG and ADA compliance guidelines, but most websites out there don’t. It’s now more important than ever with potential legal implications…
Famous Fortune 1000 WordPress Sites
WordPress is a highly flexible publishing platform for the web that powers all kinds of websites, from local small businesses to Fortune 1000 enterprises. Examples of big brands using WordPress aren’t easy to find, so I decided to do my own research and compile a list of business…
Fix Hanging Words in WordPress
Hanging words are known as typography widows, they’re those annoying scenarios where you find yourself with a single hanging word on it’s own line in an HTML element, like this: Everything looks great until we size down the viewport and find that we have a single word left…
Accessible Dropdown Menus for WordPress
Here’s a quick function that you can use to make any dropdown menus accessible in your WordPress theme. This assumes that you’re running a layer of JavaScript to actually make.sub-menu items appear when a top level menu item is hovered or clicked on. It wouldn’t be good…
Quickly Disable the WordPress API
WordPress comes pre-packaged with a robust REST API that’s great for certain use cases, but it also poses some security risks and concerns. If I’m you’re not using the REST API actively, it may be best to disable it. There is a plugin that will do this for…
jQuery Syntax Error Unrecognized Expression
As I upgrade older sites to use jQuery 3.3.1 I commonly encounter the following error: Uncaught Error: Syntax error, unrecognized expression: … This error occurs when you are trying to select something with an invalid selector. jQuery 2.x and 3.x handle Sizzle related errors differently than 1.x, and…
