01: Setting up a Local Environment

By Devin

This is the first lesson in the WordPress Theme Development Course. In this video we cover how to set up a local development environment for WordPress using Local by Flywheel.

If you already have a local development environment set up that you like (using Vagrant, MAMP, Valet, or something else), feel free to skip to the next video. There’s nothing in this series that requires you to use a specific development environment set up. Continue reading →

Working on a Theme Development Course

By Devin

I just started work on video course for learning WordPress theme development. It’s designed for folks who are familiar with using WordPress and would like to start building themes professionally (for clients or for their own work). The plan is to release the entire video series for free.

Since the focus is on professional development, I’ll be covering developer tools as much as actual theme development. Introducing topics like local environments, version control and build tools all together as it relates to WordPress themes will (I think!) be really useful for new developers getting up to speed.

If you or a friend has been looking to move into WordPress theme development, get on the mailing list and I’ll let you know when the first video is available.

Sign Up to Get Notified When the Course is Ready

Continue reading →

How to Modify the Look of a WordPress Site with CSS

By Devin

If you want to make a few design tweaks to a WordPress theme (and don’t see an option for it in the Customizer), you’ll likely need to use some custom CSS. Thankfully, WordPress has a great built-in Custom CSS module that allows you to safely add CSS code or override existing styles. This gives you almost unlimited design control over a site!

This video explains how to find the selectors in your theme using the Chrome developer tools and then add your own custom styles in WordPress.

Create a WordPress Admin with Code

By Devin

A few times I’ve gotten into a situation where I have access to WordPress files (via SFTP or other means) but I’m otherwise locked out of the site (my user hasn’t been created or was accidentally deleted). In those cases, the quickest option is generally just to create a new admin user with code.

If I know which theme is active, I’ll generally just drop this code into the bottom of functions.php for that theme, refresh the site once or twice in the browser, and then delete the code (important: make sure to delete it!)

<?php
add_action( 'init', function () {
$username = 'admin';
$password = 'password';
$email_address = 'webmaster@mydomain.com';
if ( ! username_exists( $username ) ) {
$user_id = wp_create_user( $username, $password, $email_address );
$user = new WP_User( $user_id );
$user->set_role( 'administrator' );
}
} );
view raw create-admin-user.php hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Continue reading →

Example Cart Restrictions in WooCommerce

By Devin

I’ve been working with a “Trial Product” in a WooCommerce store which needs to be the only item in the cart during checkout due to shipping requirements (and because it doesn’t make sense to order a trial if you’re also going to order the actual product).

To make this clear to the customer, I’ve restricted what can be added to the cart in specific situations:

1) If the “Trial Product” is already in the cart, additional products should not be added. WooCommerce will instead display a notice asking the customer to remove the “Trial Product” from their cart if they wish to add different products.

2) If products are already in the cart, and the customer attempts to add the “Trial Product”, a notice will display asking the customer to remove the other items from their cart first. Continue reading →