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…
Kevin Leary
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…
Lessons Learned from 10 Years as a Freelance Web Developer
In 2008 I began freelancing through kevinleary.net, and I’m still freelancing today. It’s been a challenging journey and along the way, I’ve learned a lot about myself and what it takes to be successful as a solopreneur. If you’re considering a career as a self-employed web developer or…
Fixing the Dreaded “SyntaxError: Unexpected Token in JSON”
If you’re seeing a SyntaxError: Unexpected token < in JSON at position 0 error in your browser console at angular.js: 13920, or Line 13920 or angular.min.js, then it’s likely that you’re working with HTTP API’s, possibly using $resource or $http, and one of the API’s has an…
