1. November 2015

Get translatable strings from templates into Poedit

Some options to get those translatable strings out of your templates. I will be adding new things, as I discover them :)

xgettext-template – Handlebars & Swig
gettext-twig – {% trans “string here” %}
rtwix – Ruby based TWIG translations extractor
twig-po – Extract translation keys from twig templates and move them to PO
Twig-Gettext-Extractor – tool which extracts translations from twig templates

Enjoy coding …

31. October 2015

Timber , TWIG & PoEdit

Timber / Twig templates are normally not recognized by Poedit. Its just a matter of tweaking the C/C++ extractor within the settings panel.

Add TWIG to the filetypes: *.c;*.cpp;*.h;*.hpp;*.cc;*.C;*.cxx;*.hxx;*.twig

Gettext calls, like {{__(“Points Conversion Rate”, “wplms-extras”)}} in Timber, are being extracted from your templates after that.

Easier than using the gettext extractor :)

ADDING GETTEXT FUNCTION TO TWIG

$function = new Twig_SimpleFunction('__', function ($args) {
 return __($args);
});
					
$twig->addFunction($function);

$function = new Twig_SimpleFunction('__', function ($args) {

return __($args);

});

$twig->addFunction($function);

Enjoy coding …

30. October 2015

WPLMS + MyCred Points + Instructor Commission Points payout

I am currently working on a WPLMS enhancement for a customer, that allows to simplify the payout of instructor commissions. The whole system runs on the MyCred Points System and students pay for courses with Points. The problem is how to easily payout the instructor commissions via PayPal.

There is currently no addon for MyCred available that does that magic, so I build one myself.

At the moment the payment process via PayPal is completely manual, due to budget constraints. I am basically generating a custom “Send Money” link that prefills the PayPal email and amount to send.

The interface itself handles the payout sessions, tracks the instructor balance, paid and unpaid points.

Here some images to illustrate the admin dashboard:

This list the instructors and their point balance and allows to start the payment process.

Payout sessions make sure, that only one session can be started per instructor, as the instructor could earn new points during the process. The points converted can be changed, allowing you to payout a fixed amount of points.

Its a 3 step process. Login at PayPal. Open the “Send money” dialog and send money to instructor. Confirm that you manually send the money and than register the payment and payout points in the system.

The session can be cancelled at any point. You can also leave the session open and continue at a later point.

On the frontend I added an interface to the BuddyPress Profile, that allows the instructor to track his payouts and balance.

The whole setup could be updated using PayPal Adaptive Payments, to make the whole process completely automated. Something to consider for the future :) Pretty happy with the manual process so far and it will be a great help for my customer to keep track of the commission payouts.

The whole setup is currently targeted for WPLMS, but can easily be adapted to other setups using the MyCred Points System.

Enjoy coding …

20. October 2015

HyperDB – replication, failover, load balancing, and partitioning for WordPress

HyperDB is a plugin for spreading your websites load across several servers and databases. Its currently used in production on WordPress.com.

Partitioning, separate your data and spread it across multiple servers.
Replication, master / slave setup for security.
Failover, if one database fails, the other takes over.

Just started experimenting with it :)

HyperDB

9. September 2015

PHP 5.6 + phpMailer + WordPress + Connection Errors

Since version 5.6+ PHP is verifying peer certificates and host names by default when using SSL/TLS. This is causing problems on some servers / websites, where the config has not been setup correctly. If you can not fix the setup yourself, make sure to talk to your server host to fix that issue.

For PHPMailer (Github) there is a workaround:

$mail->SMTPOptions = array(
    'ssl' => array(
        'verify_peer' => false,
        'verify_peer_name' => false,
        'allow_self_signed' => true
    )
);

$mail->SMTPOptions = array(

'ssl' => array(

'verify_peer' => false,

'verify_peer_name' => false,

'allow_self_signed' => true

)

);

This should only be a workaround until your configuration has been fixed. You are suppressing certificate verification and compromising your security!

As WordPress is using PHPMailer as its main email library, this can be tweaked by using the phpmailer_init hook:

add_action( 'phpmailer_init', 'configure_smtp'  );

function configure_smtp( $phpmailer ){
 $phpmailer->SMTPOptions = array(
    'ssl' => array(
        'verify_peer' => false,
        'verify_peer_name' => false,
        'allow_self_signed' => true
    )
 );
}

add_action( 'phpmailer_init', 'configure_smtp' );

function configure_smtp( $phpmailer ){

$phpmailer->SMTPOptions = array(

'ssl' => array(

'verify_peer' => false,

'verify_peer_name' => false,

'allow_self_signed' => true

)

);

}

Add this to your themes functions.php.

BASIC PHPMAILER SETUP

$phpmailer = new PHPMailer();
$phpmailer->isSMTP();
$phpmailer->CharSet = 'UTF-8';
$phpmailer->SMTPSecure = "ssl"; // or tls
$phpmailer->SMTPAuth = true; 
$phpmailer->Username = _APP_EMAIL_FROM;
$phpmailer->Password = _APP_EMAIL_PASS;
$phpmailer->XMailer =' ';
$phpmailer->Host= "correct email host";

$phpmailer = new PHPMailer();

$phpmailer->isSMTP();

$phpmailer->CharSet = 'UTF-8';

$phpmailer->SMTPSecure = "ssl"; // or tls

$phpmailer->SMTPAuth = true;

$phpmailer->Username = _APP_EMAIL_FROM;

$phpmailer->Password = _APP_EMAIL_PASS;

$phpmailer->XMailer =' ';

$phpmailer->Host= "correct email host";

And here is how phpmailer->smtpOptions should be used, on a properly configured server:

phpmailer->smtpOptions = array(
'ssl' => array(
          'peer_name'		  => 'your.domain.com',
          'verify_peer_name'    => true,
          'capath' 		     => '/path/to/authority/certificates/directory' # Usually /etc/ssl/certs or /usr/lib/ssl/certs/
          'local_cert' 		  => '/path/to/your.domain.com.crt', # Should be a combined cert & key in pem format
          'verify_peer'            => true,
    )
);

phpmailer->smtpOptions = array(

'ssl' => array(

'peer_name' => 'your.domain.com',

'verify_peer_name' => true,

'capath' => '/path/to/authority/certificates/directory' # Usually /etc/ssl/certs or /usr/lib/ssl/certs/

'local_cert' => '/path/to/your.domain.com.crt', # Should be a combined cert & key in pem format

'verify_peer' => true,

)

);

SSL changes in PHP 5.6: http://php.net/manual/en/migration56.openssl.php
SSL context options in PHP: http://php.net/manual/en/context.ssl.php

Enjoy coding…

3. September 2015

Fixing WordPress + Chrome 45+ admin menu glitch

Chrome 45+ is glitching on WordPress admin menus.

function chromefix_inline_css()
{ 
  if ( strpos( $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'Chrome' ) !== false )
  {
    wp_add_inline_style( 'wp-admin', '#adminmenu { transform: translateZ(0); }' );
  }
}

add_action('admin_enqueue_scripts', 'chromefix_inline_css');

function chromefix_inline_css()

{

if ( strpos( $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'Chrome' ) !== false )

{

wp_add_inline_style( 'wp-admin', '#adminmenu { transform: translateZ(0); }' );

}

add_action('admin_enqueue_scripts', 'chromefix_inline_css');

Github Plugin version

2. September 2015

Speed up WordPress / WooCommerce on none commerce pages

WooCommerce provides great functionality, but loads a lot of resources even if not needed.

If a site loads longer than 5-7 seconds, potential customers already loose interest :)

UNLOAD ALL THAT IS NOT NEEDED

Add this to your functions.php:

add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'cleanup_woocommerce_includes', 99 );

function cleanup_woocommerce_includes(){
 //check that woo exists
 if ( function_exists( 'is_woocommerce' ) ) {
  if ( ! is_woocommerce() && ! is_cart() && ! is_checkout() ) {}
  /*Styles*/
  wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce_frontend_styles' );
  wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce_fancybox_styles' );
  wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce_chosen_styles' );
  wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce_prettyPhoto_css' );
  
  wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce-layout' );
  wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce-smallscreen' );
  wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce-general' );
  wp_dequeue_style( 'wc-bto-styles' ); 		
  
  
  /*Scripts*/
  wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-cart' );
  wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-cart-fragments' );
  wp_deregister_script( 'wc-add-to-cart' );
  wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-add-to-cart' );
  wp_deregister_script( 'wc-add-to-cart-variation' );
  wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-add-to-cart-variation' );
  wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-checkout' );
  
  wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-single-product' );
  wp_dequeue_script( 'jquery-blockui' );
  wp_dequeue_script( 'wc_price_slider' );		
  
  wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-chosen' );
  wp_dequeue_script( 'woocommerce' );
  wp_dequeue_script( 'prettyPhoto' );
  wp_dequeue_script( 'prettyPhoto-init' );		
  wp_dequeue_script( 'jquery-placeholder' );
  wp_dequeue_script( 'fancybox' );
  wp_dequeue_script( 'jqueryui' );

  }
 }
}

add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'cleanup_woocommerce_includes', 99 );

function cleanup_woocommerce_includes(){

//check that woo exists

if ( function_exists( 'is_woocommerce' ) ) {

if ( ! is_woocommerce() && ! is_cart() && ! is_checkout() ) {}

/*Styles*/

wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce_frontend_styles' );

wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce_fancybox_styles' );

wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce_chosen_styles' );

wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce_prettyPhoto_css' );

wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce-layout' );

wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce-smallscreen' );

wp_dequeue_style( 'woocommerce-general' );

wp_dequeue_style( 'wc-bto-styles' );

/*Scripts*/

wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-cart' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-cart-fragments' );

wp_deregister_script( 'wc-add-to-cart' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-add-to-cart' );

wp_deregister_script( 'wc-add-to-cart-variation' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-add-to-cart-variation' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-checkout' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-single-product' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'jquery-blockui' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'wc_price_slider' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'wc-chosen' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'woocommerce' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'prettyPhoto' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'prettyPhoto-init' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'jquery-placeholder' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'fancybox' );

wp_dequeue_script( 'jqueryui' );

}

Like always, make sure that nothing breaks. If things break or are required by certain pages add an exception for that!

Check WordPress Condional Tags.

Sources:

REMOVE GENERATOR META TAG

remove_action( 'wp_head', array( $GLOBALS['woocommerce'], 'generator' ) );
remove_action('wp_head', 'wc_generator_tag');

1 2	remove_action( 'wp_head', array( $GLOBALS['woocommerce'], 'generator' ) ); remove_action('wp_head', 'wc_generator_tag');

Enjoy coding …

2. September 2015

One WP website & multiple domains

SINGLE WEBSITE SETUP

Simple add this to your wp-config.php

define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
define('WP_HOME', 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);

1 2	define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']); define('WP_HOME', 'http://' . $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);

MULTISITE SETUP

Use the MU-Domain-Mapping plugin for that.

Enjoy coding …

1. September 2015

WordPress + Query_Posts + Sticky + Pagination

We often have some posts that we would like to promote and keep at the first page of the blog. When you are using pagination, the sticky posts will be added to the standard posts, making the post count per page uneven.

If you want to keep your posts per page count consistent, there is a way to do that.

PREPARE PAGINATION

global $paged;

if (!isset($paged) || !$paged){
 $paged = 1;
}

// Set posts per page
$posts_per_page  = 8;

// Get sticky posts
$sticky = get_option( 'sticky_posts' );

global $paged;

if (!isset($paged) || !$paged){

$paged = 1;

}

// Set posts per page

$posts_per_page = 8;

// Get sticky posts

$sticky = get_option( 'sticky_posts' );

SWITCH QUERY FOR FIRST PAGE

// First page and has stickies
if($paged == 1 && !empty($sticky)) {

  $args = array(
  'post_type' => 'post',
  'paged' => $paged,
  // Adjust posts per page by subtracting the amount of stickies
  'posts_per_page' => $posts_per_page - count($sticky)
  
  );

}else{
  
  $args = array(
  'post_type' => 'post',
  'paged'		=> $paged,
  'posts_per_page' => $posts_per_page,
  // making sure the 2nd page starts with the right post
   'offset' => (($paged-1)*$posts_per_page) - count($sticky)
  );

}
// Do query
query_posts($args);

// First page and has stickies

if($paged == 1 && !empty($sticky)) {

$args = array(

'post_type' => 'post',

'paged' => $paged,

// Adjust posts per page by subtracting the amount of stickies

'posts_per_page' => $posts_per_page - count($sticky)

);

}else{

$args = array(

'post_type' => 'post',

'paged' => $paged,

'posts_per_page' => $posts_per_page,

// making sure the 2nd page starts with the right post

'offset' => (($paged-1)*$posts_per_page) - count($sticky)

);

}

// Do query

query_posts($args);

Enjoy coding …

28. August 2015

How BuddyPress generates Avatar filenames …

Sometimes you want to add your own avatar for a user or build your own special predefined avatar selection :)

WHERE ARE THEY STORED

BuddyPress stores avatars in /wp-content/uploads/avatars/ – USERID – /

HOW ARE THEY STORED

BuddyPress hashes the original filename and stores full and thumbnail images in the above directory.

$full_filename  = wp_hash( "ORIGINAL-FILENAME" . time() ) . '-bpfull.'  . $FILE_EXTENSION;

$thumb_filename = wp_hash( "ORIGINAL-FILENAME" . time() ) . '-bpthumb.' . $FILE_EXTENSION;

$full_filename = wp_hash( "ORIGINAL-FILENAME" . time() ) . '-bpfull.' . $FILE_EXTENSION;

$thumb_filename = wp_hash( "ORIGINAL-FILENAME" . time() ) . '-bpthumb.' . $FILE_EXTENSION;

Now go ahead and build your own integration around that ;)