October 2013 • Post Status

How big can a WooCommerce store be?

The folks at MarketPress did a poll to see how big of shops people … Read more

The Events Calendar to get more ticketing support with new EDD add-on

edd-tickets-events The Events Calendar is a popular events solution from Modern Tribe. It’s my personal favorite events calendar that I believe well balances features and simplicity. It could perhaps be simpler than it is, but it’s not near as complex as some of its competitors.

Many of the features for The Events Calendar are delivered with add-ons. Their latest add-on, due out soon, is a tickets add-on that integrates with the Easy Digital Downloads eCommerce plugin.

Easy Digital Downloads is a great eCommerce plugin that handles exactly what you’d expect: digital downloads. But it also handles subscriptions and other non-physical goods very well. It’s an excellent plugin from Pippin Williamson.

Modern Tribe already released a similar tickets add-on to integrate with WooCommerce, and if you already have a WooCommerce store, it’s probably perfect for you. I’ve used WooTickets a few times with great success. Likewise, if you already have a store running Easy Digital Downloads, the EDD add-on would be a great option.

However, if you don’t currently run a store already, but you want to sell tickets, the new Easy Digital Downloads store may be a more logical option, as it’s a bit lighter weight and doesn’t require or expect configurations for physical products and other powerful features WooCommerce comes with.

If you want to get a handle on the Easy Digital Downloads ticket add-on, Rob LaGatta did a nice demo of how to use it, which you can see below.

Half ski getaway, half mini conference for WordPress business owners

It’s called Big Snow Tiny Conf, and it’s happening at Sugarbush, VT in January. … Read more

WordPress 3.7.1 is out

WordPress 3.7.1 is out with eleven bug fixes. If you are already on WordPress … Read more

Explicit browser support

Browser support is not a minor thing to consider when building web projects. Whether developing a website for a client or building a product, one of the most important things to clarify right away is what level of browser support is to be expected.

Browser support should be an explicitly defined item, even for small tools and projects.

Put browser support in the contract

When we do client work, browser support should be in the contract. I’m not terribly opinionated on what level of browser support is proper, but it’s always a good idea to have access to the client’s current analytics to see what browsers actual web visitors are using. You can make a more informed decision that way, versus using global numbers.

Desktop browsers that generate the most debate for what is right to support are older versions of Internet Explorer. Specifically, IE8 seems to be particularly controversial right now. While the browser still has 10% market share, a high number in my opinion, I see many template providers and website consultants ignoring support for it.

Pitfalls of vague browser support

This worries me a bit. If people that make products, like a slider script for instance, don’t explicitly state browser support, inexperienced developers may assume browser support is good. Then, when they use it on a client site, it could cause problems. Best yet is when the client themselves are on an old browser and the feature doesn’t work.

I’m not blaming people that release free code for developers doing dumb things. I’m saying people that release any code, free or commercial, can save themselves headaches by explicitly stating desktop browser support.

Examples of vague browser support

Let’s take my friends at WooThemes for instance. They make great products. However, on two of their most popular items, it’s difficult to figure out browser support.

Lessons learned building and supporting a WordPress theme

Konstantin Kovshenin shares the lessons he’s learned from building and supporting his free Expound … Read more

WordPress is one of the best decisions you can make

A recent article on Long Beach Post suggested the decision to use WordPress in … Read more

Get to know the new functions in WordPress 3.7

The fabulous documentation site, QueryPosts, has you covered with the new functions added to … Read more

Disable automatic upgrades in WordPress, the right way

The number one point of concern since yesterday’s release of WordPress 3.7 is about … Read more

What’s new in WordPress 3.7, “Basie”

WordPress 3.7, “Basie”, has just been released. It’s been named in honor of Count Basie. The WordPress 3.7 development cycle is the quickest turnaround between major versions of WordPress ever.

You may not notice a whole lot of sexy new (visible) features in this version, but the release is a huge win for the platform.

WordPress 3.7 highlighted features

Let’s start with the biggest highlights for WordPress 3.7

Automatic background updates

The new WP_Automatic_Updater class is likely the most significant feature for 3.7. Automatic upgrades are now available for minor versions of core, but it can also be extended to theme and plugin updates by choice. For the best rundown of the upgrade process and exceptions, definitely read Dion Hulse’s summary of the feature and also the new Codex page on the updates and various options around the feature.

Some have been skeptical of auto updates for WordPress, but I embrace them. Really projects like Chrome and iOS are pushing this concept forward to the mainstream, and it makes sense for WordPress to able to constantly improve silently as well. People just want their CMS to work. Nobody likes doing updates; no normal people at least. So long term, even major upgrades should get auto update treatment, and I think long term that’s what will happen.

Plus, the team is being super careful to make auto upgrades work well. They are performed via SSL, and in testing, the failure rate is practically zero (in fact, I think it is zero).

A better password meter

Everybody needs better passwords. Bad passwords are created out of laziness or lack of education. A better password meter will help prevent both.

The new password meter uses Dropbox’s zxcvbn library, and it’s a significant improvement.

Improved (more relevant) search

WordPress search has sucked for a long time. It’s not been based on relevance, but on dates. According to the primary ticket for this feature, Andrew Nacin cites the following for the new order for choosing what to return in WordPress search:

Full sentence matches in post titles.
All search terms in post titles.
Any search terms in post titles.
Full sentence matches in post content.

This enhancement solves a major pain point that nearly every WordPress user with any significant amount of content has been facing for many years.

Better global support with language packs

The new “language packs” feature in WordPress 3.7 will allow for, “faster and more complete translations.” To get started making your themes and plugins be able to use these tools, check out Samuel “Otto” Wood’s guide. Language packs will be separated from WordPress core and maintained independently from core, themes, and plugins.

Language packs are also going to be updated silently along with minor updates, so that better support for more languages can be supported quicker. Translating WordPress to more languages is a clear way for the platform to continue staggering growth. As I noted in my primer on l10n and i18n, nearly a third of all WordPress installs are non-English. But even beyond that, only about 750 million people count English as a first or second language, so most of the world that could be using WordPress would struggle mightily without a translated version.

More goodness in WordPress 3.7

So, those are the dominant features of WordPress 3.7. But that’s not everything, by a long shot.

You’re using transients wrong

Ryan McCue has written an insightful post about caching data in WordPress with the … Read more

Why didn’t the government use WordPress for HealthCare.gov?

Oh man, my worlds are colliding. Dylan Byers writes in Politico, asking why the … Read more

AppPresser: A foundation for using WordPress to make mobile apps

AppPresser is a foundation for people to use WordPress based tools to build mobile apps for the iOS and Android platforms.

AppPresser is a collaborative effort between Scott Bolinger, Brad Williams, Brian Messenlehner, and Lisa Sabin-Wilson. You may notice that Brad, Brian, and Lisa are partners of WebDevStudios, but AppPresser is a separate entity from WebDev.

I talked to Scott and Brad about AppPresser to find out how people can use it, and to see how they envision this product (or service?) maturing.

Essentially, AppPresser is a suite of tools for use in WordPress by WordPress developers. So, if you have a website, but you want a mobile app, you can use AppPresser to act as a wrapper of WordPress and use WordPress to build your app. AppPresser has the other parts available to make the WordPress-based app fit the iOS and Android app stores.

Is this just a wrapper for websites?

We’ve seen simple website wrappers before, and so have the folks behind AppPresser. They are adament that AppPresser is more than a simple wrapper for a regular website.

We’ve checked out all of the plugins that “make your site an app” but they all really just wrap an existing site and submit it to the app store.

-Scott Bolinger

They even note that the iOS store in particular doesn’t like apps like that and typically rejects them. AppPresser is designed to allow WordPress developers to take advantage of device technologies that aren’t available for most websites.

Some sample things AppPresser helps with are integrating with the device camera, geolocation tools, and phone contacts. So, for the camera, AppPresser could have a shortcode available to WordPress developers that lets a developer use a shortcode, just like they’re familiar with in WordPress, and tap into the camera upload feature for iOS and Android devices.

Structuring an app

AppPresser at a base level is a plugin, and they use device detection within the plugin to identify that a visitor is coming from an app on a device. Someone could have AppPresser enabled on their main website, or it could be hosted on a subdomain or something separate. But for something like an eCommerce catalog it would likely be the same site as to not have problems syncing content.

Enabling AppPresser and using device detection doesn’t mean the site won’t work as expected on regular Safari or Chrome browsers in devices. AppPresser instead switches out the theme, similar to a plugin like WP Touch, only from the app view, and the app functionality and theme would only be applied when such a setup is detected.

How big can a WooCommerce store be?

The Events Calendar to get more ticketing support with new EDD add-on

Half ski getaway, half mini conference for WordPress business owners

WordPress 3.7.1 is out