TWIG allows you to use regular expressions within its templates, this makes it possible to easily check if a post is sticky in Timber for WordPress.
Comparisons in TWIG
This is the template that is called within the loop on the index.twig to show each post.
The post.class holds the full set of classes assigned to a post, which includes the class “sticky”. We do the match magic and you can use that to style your sticky posts differently ;)
“Timber helps you create fully-customized WordPress themes faster with more sustainable code. With Timber, you write your HTML using the Twig Template Engine separate from your PHP files.
This cleans-up your theme code so, for example, your php file can focus on being the data/logic, while your twig file can focus 100% on the HTML and display.”
Twig is a modern template engine for PHP
When building plugins or addons, sometimes we need to save custom files within WordPress.
These can be custom JavaScript or CSS files that a user edited and are loaded to override core functionality.
In most cases inline styles and scripts are an option, but not always the most elegant way. Everyone has to decide that for themselves. (wp_add_inline_style) Not talking about performance between inline and external files here :)
Another option is the wp_head action:
Many ask where can or should I save files created within a plugin.
When dealing with file creation and uploads, security is always important. That relates to any other platform doing similar operations. A folder created within a plugin directory is not less or more secure than a folder created in the upload directory.
Its important to have the correct file and folder permissions set:
There is a detailed article about permissions over at WordPress as well.
When it comes to creating files in PHP the term cross-site-scripting often comes up. When the system creates a file it is owned by the webserver and on a shared hosting account those files could be altered by another user on the same webserver. This could allow them to inject malicious code and compromise your sever.
That is why the WP_Filesystem was created, to make things more secure and make sure that the owner of files is correct.
WordPress provides a nice clean interface to create folders and save files to the upload folder. Here a simple example from one of my current projects.
Prepare the filesystem
Get upload dir information and prepare directory to save to
Check if file exists, create folder, delete similar and save. In my case I am adding a custom key and the page id to the file.
If the direct way is not possible, you can also use or force the FTP approach (request_filesystem_credentials).
This will check for the ftp credentials and request them with a form if needed.
This is just a very rough outline of how to do it, but should get you started.
The custom maintenance mode message in WordPress, during upgrades and installs, is far from beautiful :) Time to change that!
You can do your own page by adding a pure PHP maintenance.php into your /wp-content folder.
Now go and build a nice page !
Just remember that during maintenance no WordPress functionality is available!
The files author-course.php and author.php can not be overwritten in a WPLMS child theme directly. The only way is to override the filter in the child theme functions.php:
“WPLMS is a Learning Management System for WordPress. It is an e-learning WordPress theme for course management, instructor and student management using which you can create and sell your courses online. “
When mapping shortcodes using vc_map, you can assign icons to your new Visual Composer element.
If you created a container element, that wraps around other elements, the child element icon will currently be overwritten with the parent icon. A fix is apparently on its way :)
Currently the only way is to skip the icon option completely and use pure CSS for that.
You can enqueue a CSSs file for the admin through a vc_map option “admin_enqueue_css“.
The CSS targets the icon of the displayed element in the editor and the icon when adding new elements to the layout.
This video should give you a good idea what the addon can actually do.
In my last article I gave you a rough overview of the features & requirements. Here some more details and additions:
The addon is mostly done. I am finalizing the main admin area this week and will do a final cleanup next week, for the first beta release.
Many people have asked me for a release date. I currently plan to have a fully working Beta in the next 2-3 weeks. Will offer the Addon to a small closed group of customers first, before I think about other release options. I think I will offer between 20-30 slots for the beta run. If you are interested let me know.
Regards Alexander
Update: Video Preview
I am still busy finalizing the Fullpage.js Addon for Visual Composer. Hope to have some more images or even a video next week :)
Some requirements for the Visual Composer Addon:
The Addon will ease Fullpage.js integration immensely, but for a more advanced integration some CSS / JavaScript knowledge will always be needed. Do checkout the main Fullpage.js documentation for more information.
WordPress is fun, but many of my clients take the plugin fun to new levels :)
Depending on how well plugins / shortcodes have been integrated, linked JavaScript & CSS files can clutter up your pages really fast.
The problem is that many plugins do not load external files on demand. Same applies for WebFonts that have been added to the system.
Its no fun hunting down all those resources and slim down pages manually, but sometimes there is no way around it.
In WordPress CSS & JavaScript files are enqueued by plugins / themes.
CSS / JavaScript
To remove files from pages you need to unregister (CSS / JavaScript) those files using their specific handle. This also allows you to replace a specific file with your own version.
The big problem is finding the names of the enqueued files, their handles. They are often hidden deep in the plugins. But if they are registered somewhere, you should be able to find them somewhere :)
Add this to your functions.php and you will get a nice overview of all the styles and their handles registered. You can do the same for the registered scripts.
This will get you an overview of all the registered files. Now its only a matter of doing the unregister operation with some simple WordPress conditional logic.
Yes there is and it is called “Asset Queue Manager” …
“This tool allows you to monitor, dequeue and requeue scripts and styles that are enqueued on your site. It is designed for frontend performance engineers who want to view and manage all assets enqueued on any page and control the minification and concatenation themselves.”
Messing with styles can be ugly, but often wont break things completely. Messing with JavaScript includes can cripple a setup badly. So you should be really sure which scripts / styles can be deactivated on specific pages. Please do not experiment on a live website … I warned you ! :)
Many developers hesitate to call WordPress a PHP development platform. I know what I am talking about, as I developed a platform of my own. PHP platforms normally only provide a skeleton and we need to
With WordPress you get most of this out-of-the-box, with some predefined structures.
Having a flexible administration backend in place makes it easy to concentrate on the things that matter for a project, which is designing a frontend experience.
And especially with the JSON REST API finding its way into the core slowly, you are completely free when it comes to using the stored data in your frontend designs.
Sure that was possible before, just with some more work on our side ;)
But WordPress embracing the “freeing of data” through JSON, shows us where the ride is going.
There has not been a single project of mine in the past year, that has not used the REST API in some way. And all of this fits perfectly into the new single page app universe.
WordPress interfaces with your javascript framework setup (client side templating, DOM manipulation, data binding, routing …) and frees you from any design handcuffs.
It has become much easier and faster over the past 2 years to say “YES” to many of my clients wishes.
Its nice to finally see data flow from the server to the client and back that easily.
If you are not exited about this … I am :)
In a current project I am using pages as templates, to load content into specific containers on the website. The website will be using up to 15 different languages.
The main language setup is done through WPML, which creates linked content per language. This helps, as some languages will fail terribly when translating them through a pure gettext setup, as the words setup is often completely different.
But there is always static stuff that can be translated directly through the language files. For that I use a simple shortcode that allows me to keep the native language as a basis in all linked content. Easier to move around, as I can actually read and understand it :)
Call the shortcode from the functions.php
The shortcode function itself. This loads the language textdomain from the specified location and translates the string.
How to use it in your post or page content
