I recently was working on a chatbot for a website and wound up using a great PHP library for the task, BotMan. With BotMan, you can follow the really well-done documentation to set up a BotMan endpoint. This is where any client would call to send requests and where logic would be placed to respond… Continue reading WordPress Plugin for the BotMan Web Widget
Category: Web Development
Creating Unique IDs for ACF Repeaters
I love Advanced Custom Fields and find it to be an essential tool for developing with WordPress. I ran into a challenge recently using Repeaters where I needed to be able to target particular rows for JavaScript. I wanted to be able to depend on each row having a unique identifier that would not change.… Continue reading Creating Unique IDs for ACF Repeaters
Using Tinkerwell with Local by Flywheel
I have been using a wonderful web development tool, Tinkerwell, in my workflow to test and refine queries and code while I build out websites. For those not familiar with Tinkerwell, it is an application that allows you to run and test PHP code and immediately see the results. It is like Tinker for Laravel… Continue reading Using Tinkerwell with Local by Flywheel
Hiding Advanced Custom Fields in the Admin
This is going to be a quick tip today. There are times when you may want to use an Advanced Custom Field for development but don’t want it to clutter the admin interface. One scenario that I have run into, which I plan on blogging about in the future, is adding a unique ID to… Continue reading Hiding Advanced Custom Fields in the Admin
Using an enqueued file’s modified time to break the browser cache
If you’ve been a web developer for a while you’ve likely uttered the phrase, “Empty your cache,” or “Hold shift and click reload” to a user not seeing some of your newly-published changes. When you tell a client to take a look at some revisions, you want them to see the newest version of the… Continue reading Using an enqueued file’s modified time to break the browser cache
Enqueue Scripts Dynamically
I have often found myself building a website where only one or two pages need some JavaScript functionality. It seems like a waste to load something like a Masonry library on every page when it may never be needed. Fortunately, conditionally loading a JavaScript in WordPress is pretty simple. First, though, if you are not… Continue reading Enqueue Scripts Dynamically
Quick Tip – Filtering Projects in PhpStorm
I use PhpStorm for most of my web development. It is a great IDE for PHP and WordPress. One thing that I have always found a little strange is its interface for managing projects. It is very… basic. Really, the only features it contains are grouping projects into folders and changing the icons for projects.… Continue reading Quick Tip – Filtering Projects in PhpStorm
Using Gravity Forms’ Constant Contact Function to Subscribe Users
I recently was working on a project where the client had a Constant Contact account and Gravity Forms installed on their WordPress site. Using Gravity Forms’ add-on for Constant Contact it was easy to subscribe users to Constant Contact lists for those forms created with Gravity Forms. However, the project was also utilizing The Events… Continue reading Using Gravity Forms’ Constant Contact Function to Subscribe Users
Use Tab Modifier Extension to Distinguish Environment
One of the issues I often have when working on a site that has launched is that I often need to switch between the local and production versions of the site. This, of course, means that I keep each location in a different tab so I can easily change between the two. However, because both… Continue reading Use Tab Modifier Extension to Distinguish Environment
Adding Post Type and Slug to the Body Classes
When I first started working with WordPress, in order to style things on a particular page, I often would use the page or post’s ID to target the styles for that page. After all, out-of-the-box, WordPress gives you a class on the body tag containing the post type and the ID like postid-455 or page-id-525.… Continue reading Adding Post Type and Slug to the Body Classes