Category WordPress

Entries 4 Total

I’m Speaking at WordCamp Providence!

Sep 27, ’12 5:55 AM

Towards the end of August, Underscore.js and Backbone.js were added into WordPress core in preparation for release 3.5 (trac changeset link). Having these two libraries available by default is a powerful step forward for JavaScript development within WordPress, but many beginners are unaware of or intimidated by these newcomers. I am pleased to announce that I’ve been accepted to speak on October 27th at WordCamp Providence, where I will be giving an overview of how these new tools differ from jQuery and how the three libraries can be used in concert to build more robust front-end code in your plugins, themes and web applications.

→ See the talk description on the WordCamp Providence website!

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How we can have Nice Things: my slides from WordCamp Boston 2012

Jul 14, ’12 2:36 PM

I delivered a talk this morning at WordCamp Boston 2012 on how to find ways to fit web development tools into your workflow—you can find the slides online at http://talks.kadamwhite.com/wcbos12/.

The genesis of this talk was a conversation in which some friends expressed frustration at hearing about not being able to use “cool” front-end technologies with WordPress. It is true that WordPress and its LAMP stack are “old fashioned” compared to, say, a CouchApp, but for example you can make Node.js work for you by running your build process with something like Grunt.js even if you don’t incorporate Node into any part of your public-facing web stack. The best tools are flexible, and I use stylesheet pre-processors (with demos in LESS) to show how you can slot a tool into several different aspects of your workflow.

Tools that help us make website are invaluable for keeping up our speed and productivity as developers, and playing with the “latest and greatest” helps us stay excited about what we do and engaged with the community at large. We’ve gotten good at making advanced sites for our clients—we deserve to have some cool toys ourselves now and again.

For all who attended, I hope you found the talk useful! I have added two pages of links to unit testing and style guide resources at the end of the talk for those who wanted some further reading. For additional resources for workflow and developer tools—far, far more resources than you could shake a stick at—check out Aaron Jorbin’s slides from “Developing an Automated Workflow,” also presented today at WordCamp Boston 2012.

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Bypass the WordPress password form by using the_password_form

Jan 9, ’12 8:05 PM

Last month, I found Kieran Lane’s blog post on bypassing the WordPress password-protected post form while researching how to allow a client to skip the password form via a URL parameter. Kieran’s solution required editing a WordPress core file, and at the time neither of us had found a less brittle way to solve the problem. Fortunately, it is possible to do just this by using WordPress’s the_password_form filter:

function bypass_password_form( $output ) {
  // Check for a hash of the password
  // exactly as in Kieran's example
  if ( $_GET['pwd'] == md5( $post->post_password ) ) {
    return apply_filters(
      'the_content',
      get_page( get_the_ID() )->post_content
    );
  }
  // Or return the output as normal
  return $output;
}
add_filter('the_password_form','bypass_password_form');

They are not well documented, but there is almost always a way to do something in WordPress using filters—it can just take a few weeks of digging to find the right one! If you are managing your own site, modifying the core files may be fine, but I encourage any WordPress contractors or developers to research and share ways they have found to avoid customizing the core. Having this kind of functionality in a plugin or your theme’s functions.php will make for fewer headaches for clients when they need to upgrade ;)

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Stepping Into Custom Post Types

Jul 23, ’11 4:23 AM

My slides for today’s presentation have been uploaded to Slideshare! I will post a link to the video when it is available.

Stepping Into Custom Post Types
View more presentations from kadamwhite

UPDATE 9/11/11: The video of my post types talk is now online! My sincere thanks to Kurt Eng for all the effort WordCamp Boston put into filming these talks.

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