2. Februar 2016

LMS meets SaaS

As I said before, Learning Management is really taking off and I get many client requests to do some kind of integration or custom solution for them.

In one of my latest articles I started listing solutions for WordPress, WordPress and the LMS universe.

But those solutions might not always be the best fit for your project. Many of them actually try too hard to be everything. The amount of cross linked functionality is getting insane and increases the point of failure.

In some cases a trimmed down solid solution might be the better way to go. SaaS (Software as a Service), part of the cloud trend, is providing more and more options, this includes the LMS arena. Stop worrying about the software and concentrate on your content again. The SaaS provider takes care of functionality, support, updates and delivery. This is nothing new, solutions like TalentLMS or Litmos LMS offer this for some time now.

Modern SaaS solutions provide Public APIs, that allow you to seamlessly integrate them with your current solution. So in case of a LMS, that part of your project could be handled by the SaaS provider, while e-commerce, social and other content areas remain under your full control.

One solution I am currently looking at is Intuo, which is a fresh startup out of Gent / Belgium. They provide a solid set of features and a clean API to handle single signons and content access. That would allow a seamless integration into WordPress for example :)

We are looking at a very crowded LMS market, but always nice to have options :)

Enjoy coding …

30. Januar 2016

Make columns sortable in WP CodePress Admin Columns

CodePress Admin Columns allows you to manage and organize columns, for posts, users, comments and media lists in the WordPress admin panel.

This little tweak allows you to add sorting to your columns. Add and adjust depending on the columns you have setup.

function admin_columns_users_registered_column_sortable( $columns ) {
    $custom = array(
        "column-user_registered" => "user_registered",
    );

    return wp_parse_args( $custom, $columns );
}

add_filter( "manage_users_sortable_columns", "admin_columns_users_registered_column_sortable" );

function admin_columns_users_registered_column_sortable( $columns ) {

$custom = array(

"column-user_registered" => "user_registered",

);

return wp_parse_args( $custom, $columns );

}

add_filter( "manage_users_sortable_columns", "admin_columns_users_registered_column_sortable" );

Enjoy coding …

29. Januar 2016

WPLMS 2.0x wait with the update until the dust settles (Update: 11.02.2016)

Anyone using WPLMS 1.9x should wait and not update to 2.0x yet.

Not all bugs are fixed and I see many users having problems, just by reading the support forums and the comments over on Envato.

I have a vanilla test environment of WPLMS 1.9x on my testserver and i had no problems until 2.0 came along.

The last customtypes plugin update today killed the setup completely. Many of the old child themes break or have parts broken. Fresh sample data is not working either. Sadly some of my customers already did an update themselves …. perfect ! Will be a long weekend.

I am doing a complete reset of my test environment and waiting for the next update :)

Rant: This theme / plugin is getting too bloated in many areas. Two many unknown variables, due to the huge amount of dependencies …

UPDATE

28.01.2016: 2.0.1 – broken customtypes .. 2.0.2 should be around the corner ;)
29.01.2016: 2.0.2 – released , tested, a lot of fixes, but its not their yet ! Still having massive problems on a clean system using the modern theme and sample data… 2.0.3 please :) Course section is completely broken now, only shows header and first part of the left sidebar!
30.01.2016: 2.0.2 clean install still failing and not working 100%, checking upgrade install from 1.9.9.1. Clean install with 1.9.9.1 + Sample data is working. Upgrade to 2.0.2 still has bugs and errors. Modern theme is not working!
02.02.2016: Another course plugin update to fix Visual Composer errors. Still seeing little errors here and there. I am sure there will be more updates this week :) Upgrade from 1.9.9.1 works now without errors and site is functional. Have not tested all admin / instructor functionality yet. I reset the settings to defaults after the upgrade to make sure nothing is missing …
11.02.2016: Another update to almost all plugins. Will continue and wait for final fixes. Will see how this version performs …

26. Januar 2016

A PayPal Instant Payment Notification (IPN) toolkit for WordPress

All PayPal IPN data is saved and available in your WordPress admin panel.
Developer hooks are provided for triggering events based on the transaction type or payment status of the IPN.
Extend the plugin with your own plugins or theme functions

Author: Andrew Angell

BitBucket Repo

23. Januar 2016

Favic-o-matic … your own favicon in every flavour

Favic-o-matic is a favicon generator, that transforms your png design into favicons and the required html to include them.

Favic-o-meter makes sure that every browser shows your favicon perfectly :)

21. Januar 2016

WordPress and the LMS universe

In the past 2 years, the e-Learning market has been exploding. Online Learning Management Systems (LMS) have become very popular, to build e-learning platforms.

They not only offer text based content, quizzes, assignment management, course evaluation, social features, but also allow the integration of video, audio and other linked content. Many support SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model), allowing the exchange of learning content and results.

THE LMS UNIVERSE

Over the past few years, I have been helping clients to build or transform their e-learning platforms. Sometimes its better to build a customized LMS solution from scratch :), than tweak or customize an offered solution. It all depends on the features you want to see integrated and on the budget available ;)

In this article I want to share current solutions offered for WordPress.

I will divide them into themes and plugins for now. In the future I plan do some feature comparison as well :

Theme based or Standalone Plugin (standalone might be preferred)
Course functionality (course, units, quizzes sections …)
Course linking / Course Groups / Exclusive courses
Course categories
Course Evaluation
Course curriculum
Course timeline
Course reviews & ratings
Course Stats
Free courses
Variable pricing
Course notes / Comments
Course Admin area
Course Frontend creation
Assignment functionality
Certificates
Messaging
Custom Email Templates
Course Events
BuddyPress Integration
BBPress Integration
WooCommerce integration
Import & Export functionality
Login
Student profiles
Instructor frontend interface

PLUGINS

These are standalone plugins, that provide LMS functionality and integrate into your WordPress themes. Ease of integration and options differ.

THEMES

These themes mostly dependent on one of the plugins above or offer only a simple subset of LMS functionality.

THEME & PLUGIN

Integrated solutions, that are supposed to offer a tight integration of WordPress, theme and its own plugins.

WPLMS (started the revolution at Envato)
One thing that sets WPLMS apart from many of the above is the frontend interface. So instructor tasks happen on the frontend not in the WP Admin. Also when it comes to assignments, WPLMS is currently the best solution. Even if the assignment management is not yet perfect, its better than what many of the other solutions offer.

Enjoy coding …

9. Dezember 2015

WordPress 4.4 Clifford makes its entrance …

Here we go, WordPress 4.4 is available …

Changelog

11. November 2015

vUnit – microlib that allows you to size elements based on the viewport dimensions

Really neat solution, that allows you to build a quick viewport based layout, without relying on the still buggy CSS units.

<head>
    <!-- Add vUnit.js to the head to avoid FOUC -->
    <script src="path/to/vunit.js"></script>

    <!-- Instantiate vUnit.js passing a CSSMap with properties you want to play with -->
    <script>
        new vUnit({
            CSSMap: {
                // The selector (VUnit will create rules ranging from .selector1 to .selector100)
                '.vh_height': {
                    // The CSS property (any CSS property that accepts px as units)
                    property: 'height',
                    // What to base the value on (vh, vw, vmin or vmax)
                    reference: 'vh'
                },
                // Wanted to have a font-size based on the viewport width? You got it.
                '.vw_font-size': {
                    property: 'font-size',
                    reference: 'vw'
                },
                // vmin and vmax can be used as well.
                '.vmin_margin-top': {
                    property: 'margin-top',
                    reference: 'vmin'
                }
            },
            onResize: function() {
                console.log('A screen resize just happened, yo.');
            }
        }).init(); // call the public init() method
    </script>
</head>
<body>
    <h1 class="vw_font-size15">This title font-size is 15% of the viewport width.</h1>
    <p class="vh_height50">This p's height is 50% of the viewport height.</p>
    <p class="vmin_margin-top5">This p has some margin-top<p>
</body>

<head>

new vUnit({

CSSMap: {

// The selector (VUnit will create rules ranging from .selector1 to .selector100)

'.vh_height': {

// The CSS property (any CSS property that accepts px as units)

property: 'height',

// What to base the value on (vh, vw, vmin or vmax)

reference: 'vh'

// Wanted to have a font-size based on the viewport width? You got it.

'.vw_font-size': {

property: 'font-size',

reference: 'vw'

// vmin and vmax can be used as well.

'.vmin_margin-top': {

property: 'margin-top',

reference: 'vmin'

}

onResize: function() {

console.log('A screen resize just happened, yo.');

}

}).init(); // call the public init() method

</script>

</head>

<body>

<h1 class="vw_font-size15">This title font-size is 15% of the viewport width.</h1>

<p class="vh_height50">This p's height is 50% of the viewport height.</p>

<p class="vmin_margin-top5">This p has some margin-top<p>

</body>

Also works nicely in combination with Visual Composer for WordPress :)

vUnit @ Github

Enjoy coding …

11. November 2015

WP-CLI the command-line for WordPress

„WP-CLI is a set of command-line tools for managing WordPress installations“

Available commands:
    wp blog create|delete
    wp cache add|decr|delete|flush|get|incr|replace|set|type
    wp comment create|delete|trash|untrash|spam|unspam|approve|unapprove|count|status|last
    wp core download|config|is-installed|install|install-network|version|update|update-db
    wp db create|drop|reset|optimize|repair|connect|cli|query|export|import
    wp eval-file
    ...

See 'wp help <command>' for more information on a specific command.

Available commands:

wp blog create|delete

wp eval-file

...

See 'wp help <command>' for more information on a specific command.

WP-CLI

8. November 2015

Headless WordPress with the HTTP REST API 2.0+

Using WordPress as a headless system, is nothing new. You can easily build out your own REST API or use the long available HTTP REST API 1.0+ for WordPress.

But with the new HTTP REST API 2.0+ its getting really easy to build out your own REST API Namespace and assign routes for all your JSON needs.

The new REST API will make its appearance in WordPress 4.4, but you can start now by adding the plugin to your system. When the plugin detects 4.4+ it will only load functionality not already present in the core.

A ROUTE

A route tells the API to respond to a given request with a specific function (endpoint). This adds the permalink structure to WordPress so that your functionality can be accessed via an url like this: http://yourdoman.com/wp-json/yourplugin/v1/myfunction/your_parameter

add_action( 'rest_api_init', function () {
    register_rest_route( 'your_namespace/v1', '/your_endpoint/(?P<your_parameter>\d+)', array(
        'methods' => 'GET',
        'callback' => 'your_endpoint',
    ) );
} );

add_action( 'rest_api_init', function () {

register_rest_route( 'your_namespace/v1', '/your_endpoint/(?P<your_parameter>\d+)', array(

'methods' => 'GET',

'callback' => 'your_endpoint',

) );

} );

THE ENDPOINT

The Endpoint is the callback handled by the route. Each endpoint can have additional parameters attached:

custom permissions
default values
sanitization callback
validation callback
field requirements and more

RETURN VALUE

The return values from the endpoint are converted into JSON. You can use the WP_REST_Response object , this wraps normal body data and allows you to return a custom status code.

function your_endpoint( $data ) {
    $posts = get_posts( array(
         'author' => $data['your_parameter'],
    ) );

    if ( empty( $posts ) ) {
        return new WP_Error( 'your_endpoint_no_data', 'No Data', array( 'status' => 404 ) );
    }

    return new WP_REST_Response( $posts, 200 );
}

function your_endpoint( $data ) {

$posts = get_posts( array(

'author' => $data['your_parameter'],

) );

if ( empty( $posts ) ) {

return new WP_Error( 'your_endpoint_no_data', 'No Data', array( 'status' => 404 ) );

}

return new WP_REST_Response( $posts, 200 );

}

Really powerful stuff, that makes it easy to detach WordPress and the actual client using the data provided by it.

You can read more about it here.