WordPress Archives

Interview with Tobias Fendt- Theme Designer and WordPress Developer

September 28, 2016 by Prajakta Gupte Leave a Comment

In today’s interview, we’ll be talking to Tobias Fendt.

An entrepreneur and WordPress fanatic from Bavaria, Tobias has shared with us his amazing experience with theme designing, WordPress development and blogging.

His blogs, a passion that he’s turned into a business, show us how creative and versatile Tobias really is, since he writes about fitness and investments apart from WordPress.

We wanted to know more about this young web developer, fitness freak and football lover. So we asked him a few questions about his personal and professional life.

Let’s take a look at how Tobias’ journey has been so far!

(Note: Here’s the original version in German)

Tell us about yourself and how you got started with freelancing

Hi, my name is Tobias Fendt. I’m a Web & WordPress developer from Germany, from the beautiful Bavaria to be precise.

I spend most of my time designing and developing my own WordPress Themes and managing multiple blogs in a variety of niches. I ventured into freelancing quite early.

What is your typical workday like?

My alarm rings at 07:00. That’s when I usually start my day. I then dedicate some of my time for exercise. I run for about 30 minutes, then comes a nutritious breakfast and at about 09:00, I’m ready for a productive day.

Everyone who has ever dealt extensively with time management knows the saying “Eat the Frog” and the eponymous book by Brian Tracy. This means, major tasks should be completed first thing in the morning. Once these tasks are completed, you’ll have put the most unpleasant and difficult task of the day behind you. The remaining tasks will seem so much easier and you will ultimately be more productive .

I spend most of my time coding and programming new WordPress themes or implementing new ideas on my existing blogs and pages.

You’ve been blogging for over 5 years. What role does blogging play in the life of a web developer?

I dedicated the first 3 years of being a web designer solely to my clients. In 2009, I started my first blog about fitness. I’ve always been athletic and busied myself with diet and exercise. Initially, I used to blog without planning well.

When I saw the number of visitors rising slowly, I worked more and more on SEO, social media, content marketing and blogging. Two years later, my blog was one of the most widely read German fitness blogs. I had managed to take up blogging as a business, as it provided me with a regular income.

Today I have several blogs in different niches. My team writes regularly on Food Fitness about healthy eating and weight loss. With Immoanleger, we help newbies invest successfully in property. Apart from these two sites, I have about 10 smaller niche sites that are advertised through affiliate marketing.

In your opinion, what are the 3 core skills needed to complete a project successfully?

To make it short and quick: Discipline, Time Management and of course the necessary Skills.

What according to you are the qualities that separate great web designers from the good ones?

A client of mine, who’s also a designer, gave me a very good compliment a few years ago. He said to me with great enthusiasm, “Tobias, you have what is referred to as a “design-eye”.

In all these years of me working as a web designer and developer, I have viewed and analyzed around 50,000 websites. Every time I make note of what makes the site successful- the good points and the bad. Certain aspects such as generous spaces and a structured arrangement of elements on the website seem “beautiful” to the human eye. Good web designers can create a website layout design that’s good. Great web designers make designs which make you go, “Wow!”.

But this is often a double-edged sword. From my experience I can say that, not all sites that look beautiful work well. You can have the most beautiful site, packed with the latest web design trends… but if you do not bring your visitors to perform a certain action, then the most amazing design is worth nothing. Often the simplest pages are also those which actually generate revenue. There is simply no element which sticks out and the call to action stands quite in focus.

What’s the biggest marketing challenge you continuously face?

The biggest challenge is to get to new customers.

I keep a regular check on my blogs, where we get traffic, which is then converted into customers. However, it’s not the same with WordPress themes. I sell these on a market place, to find potential customers.

Name any one WordPress Theme you wish you had built

There are many good WordPress Themes.

The quality has been getting better in the recent years. But if you look at the sales of premium WordPress themes, it would be nice if I had the idea to build Avada 🙂

The Avada theme has an incredible 250,000 purchases in the past 4 years! The author of this theme has cracked the 10 million mark – with just one WordPress Theme. That’s really impressive!

Which is your favorite WordPress Plugin?

A plugin that I can make good use of on all my sites, is the SEO Plugin by Yoast. I feel every website administrator, who does search engine optimization, should have this SEO Plugin on every WordPress site.

If you weren’t a WordPress developer/ designer, what career path would you have chosen?

Footballer 🙂 I love to play football and I can say that I’m also good at it. But it’s too late, as I am too old for that now. 😀

Thank you Tobias for sharing your experience with us. We wish you luck for your future and look forward to hearing more from you.

To connect with Tobias Fendt, you can follow him on Xing, and fitness freaks can follow his blog 🙂

Interview with Frank Staude – WordPress Developer & co-Founder AdminPress

September 7, 2016 by Prajakta Gupte Leave a Comment

If you attended WordCamp Nürnberg this year, or have attended WordPress Meetups at Nürnberg or Hannover, you’ll know Frank Staude.

Frank lives and breathes WordPress.

He’s a WordPress Developer, co-founder of several WordPress Meetups, organizer, volunteer and speaker at WordCamps, and the co-founder of AdminPress.

Frank actively supports WordPress as a moderator on WordPress support forums and as a translation editor.

We asked Frank a few questions about his journey with WordPress and development. Here’s what Frank had to say!

(Note: Here’s the original version in German)

Tell us about yourself and how you got involved with WordPress.

My name is Frank Staude, I am 46 years old and live near Nürnberg.

Back in the year 2010, when WordPress Version 3.0 was out, I wanted to create a Podcast. The CMS we were using didn’t provide us this functionality. The options I had was to either program it for our CMS or use a different CMS for the project, which would provide us suitable functionality. That’s how I started and stuck with WordPress.

It was pretty obvious that I had to make the entire website using WordPress. I then took a small step forward, by completing a client’s project using WordPress. I found out, I can do a lot with WordPress. At this point, I discovered the German forum on wordpress.org. I found many unanswered questions which helped me understand some specific and common problems. That made me understand every single detail in WordPress. As one of the very few active users, I quickly received Moderator rights. From 2011 on wards, I started visiting WordCamps; I met people face to face instead of just following them on Twitter or reading their blogs.

Apart from being a Moderator, I became a translation editor the German translations. I started the WordPress Meetup in Hannover and conducted it till I moved to Nürnberg. In Nürnberg, we organised the WordCamp Nürnberg 2016 and now that the founder has moved to another place, I currently conduct the event. I love to visit WordCamps and other BarCamps and also encourage other to participate in it, where I hold a timely session.

And yes, I have other hobbies too 🙂

You’ve developed a number of plugins. What thought process is involved in converting an idea into a plugin?

The first thing you need is a specific idea. Only then can we begin the thought process of how to use WordPress to get the desired results, as in which filters or actions can one possibly use, etc. When required, you should read the documentation or go through WordPress code, to get a better idea of how a functionality actually works and how it could be manipulated.

Apart from that you should also think about building the solution the WordPress-way. This means that the solution you build, should also works on other WordPress installations. For example when you know PHP well but don’t have any experience in WordPress development, you tend to take the easier way out and build the solution according to your convenience. But what if the code doesn’t work with other installations? This includes making yourself familiar with the APIs, which WordPress provides.

What factors according to you contribute towards making any plugin a success? Do you have any favorite plugins, which are not developed by you?

There is no specific recipe to a successful plugin.

How would you even define successful? I can measure the success of a commercial plugin by its sales figures but what about a free plugin? Number of downloads? Positive reviews? Or because it has helped the client with something it was originally developed for? After all everyone has to decide for themselves, on what basis they would judge the plugin- when it has to be judged.

People have different tastes. I would say, a plugin should do exactly what it promises to do, be intuitive, should come to us without frills and frosting, should not include permanent and aggressive advertising for a “PRO” version and the look should be like the rest of WordPress user-interface and should not have its own deviant UI. Other users may see this differently.

And the list (of favorite plugins):

Torro Forms
Advanced Custom Fields
InfiniteWP

Your advice for someone starting out with the development of a WordPress plugin

To identify what users need, it is necessary to find out what people would like to do or what problems they have. This can be done by going through forums (which I think is much better) or attending a WordCamp or making a local WordPress Meetup visit – as you get to know people and their needs, you can also take suggestions for plugins. You can also get feedback for some of your ideas.

Most WordCamps offer a so called contributor day before or after the actual camp, where all work together on WordPress (develop, translate, plan, etc) – and contribute. You should really do something like that once a while as it is a great opportunity to learn, to get insights, to meet new people and generally to join this great community.

To start with, you should try simple tasks instead of having the I-can-build-all-plugins attitude. That way you can get familiar with the various APIs.

You’re an active member of the WordPress community and also a translation contributor for WordPress. According to you, has the language barrier affected the growth of German developers in the community?

I don’t see it that way. Every developer has the habit of reading/creating the documentation in English. Moreover, most of the meetups (not just the WordPress meetups but all those found on meetup.com) in bigger cities are held in English. And when I look up to the next generation, I see that they face lesser problems as compared to an “old sack” like me, as we did not speak or practice English for several years after school.

What I see as a problem is when people waste time in trying to dig themselves deeper into the community. You should be able to balance your time and know what you’re spending it on.

You’ve been a speaker at several WordCamps. How would you describe your first experience as a speaker?

I do not prefer to be in the “limelight”, rather it seems like a hurdle, every time I register for a session. Before my first WordCamp appearance in Hamburg , I had held many sessions at our Meetup – so it was just about 10 to 15 people in the evening and a good speech-delivering training for me.

However, I almost died when I saw the large auditorium in Hamburg, where my session took place. Fortunately my first session was with Torsten Landsiedel, so I didn’t have to stand alone in the front 🙂

Which industry experts would you love to work with someday and why?

To be honest, there’s no one in particular. By organizing several Meetups, the WordCamps in Nürnberg and by participating in many WordCamps you will learn a lot in many different ways from all the nice people in the WordPress community. You may either have friendly relations with most of the people, or you may have worked together on projects with the rest. And so you learn that there exists no such term as “celebrity status”.

If you weren’t a WordPress developer, what career path would you have chosen?

As stated in question 1, WordPress was an unexpected turn for me. If it had not been WordPress, it might have been Joomla, Drupal or Typo3. If the question is, what I would do if I did not work in IT, I must say it’s a good question. “Something with computers” has been my dream job ever since I was in school. If I did not program, I would probably still be in the admin area – which comes under the term DevOps.

Also, I love cooking but don’t want to take it up as a profession.

Frank, I enjoyed reading your logical and insightful answers. They reflect your years of experience with WordPress and the WordPress community. For those interested in connecting with Frank, you can follow him on Twitter @staude, or better yet, attend a WP Meetup in Nürnberg if you’re in town. 🙂

Interview with Stefan Priebsch- the co-founder of thePHP.cc

August 5, 2016 by Prajakta Gupte Leave a Comment

Hailing from Wolfratshausen, Stefan Priebsch is a software consultant and the co-founder of thePHP.cc– a leading consultancy for PHP and Open Source technologies.

Last week, I had the opportunity of interviewing Stefan. From my brief interaction, what I learnt was that apart from being a leading expert in the technical field, Stefan is a courteous and accommodative person.

Stefan has authored several books and spoken at various conferences. And today we’ll take a look at what he has in store for us. 🙂

Over to you Stefan!

(Note: Here’s the original version in German)

Tell us about Stefan when you take PHP out of the equation? How do you like to spend time when you’re not solving complex PHP problems.

My name is Stefan Priebsch. I am an IT consultant, well versed with PHP and surrounding technologies. I help companies with successful software development. I have published various books, often spoken at conferences and delivered lectures at the Rosenheim university.

Apart from that I love to cook and I try to spend a lot of time with my wife and two kids. My busy professional life leaves me with less free time. Maybe that’s one thing I would wish for.

There’s a story to every successful company. How did PHP.cc happen?

I started offering PHP training in the year 2008 along with Sebastian Bergmann and Arne Blankerts. In the training we were often asked if we could also provide consultation. That’s how we came up with the idea of forming a consulting firm. So thePHP.cc, was then started in the year 2009; it stands for – The PHP Consulting Company

In your opinion, how has the rise of JavaScript impacted PHP? Is it on its way to becoming obsolete like ASP or will they continue to work in synchronization like they do now?

PHP is a server-side technology, which must always be complemented by a client-side technology. We have noticed so far that both the languages complement each other. For example, today we have some interesting applications like Web Sockets connected to Node.js for JavaScript.

However, I don’t really think that JavaScript or any other language can completely replace PHP.

Can PHP compete with other languages like Swift, .NET, JavaScript, Python given that languages are generally considered to be technically superior

Isn’t it obvious? Each language has advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses. I would not agree with the statement that other languages per se are better than PHP.

There is a wide range of alterations/innovations in PHP 7. It has a special overhauled backend because of which PHP 7 not only works fast but also is resource-efficient.

Out of all the projects you’ve closed over the years, which ones stand out the most interesting and the most challenging?

Over the years, I have partly accompanied various firms and helped them establish the PHP development department so that an existing e-commerce solution could be replaced with a custom solution. There were some very exciting projects with many interesting and challenging tasks to complete.

However there were more professional and personal differences than technical issues. Successful development is largely dependent on how you deal with people. Technical skills are also very important but they are easier to learn as compared to social skills.

Do you advocate using a framework in projects? Which framework(s) would you recommend and why?

Every software project needs a framework. But the question here is, how big should the framework be? By framework I mean inversion of control container, which encapsulates the basic request cycle.

My colleagues and I create our own micro framework. That means anyone in the team can extend and customize it, whenever needed. Additional third party components can then be applied as required, with respect to dependency inversion- the D in the acronym SOLID.

You have advocated that PHP can be used in enterprise projects. Typical enterprise clients prefer Java or .NET. Is it really possible to deliver a project of enterprise scale in PHP?

Certainly. There are a number of large enterprises like Yahoo, Facebook, Etsy or Trulia, who have proven this. Many big and popular companies in Germany also rely on PHP for enterprise scale applications. In fact selecting a good technology is not as important as selecting a competent developer.

You are an incredible software architect with an enviable resume. One piece of advice that you may have for all aspiring software architects out there?

I would suggest looking beyond recent trends. Most new technologies and solutions are happily considered as universal remedies. But good solutions are simple and avoid complexity. One can simply be a bit conservative instead of blindly following each and every trend.

For API based applications what is your advice for developers? Should we use micro frameworks ?

I would anyday consider micro-framewoks as a better choice than a heavyweight full-stack framework. It would simply be best if you could build your own framework. That way you can really understand what happens when.

If you weren’t a PHP developer, what career path would you have chosen?

Technically, I am not a developer anymore but more of a consultant and trainer. An alternate for that? I believe I would become an inventor and would try to improve the world a little bit everyday.

Stefan, it was a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for your time. 🙂 Your insights on PHP and software technologies are invaluable to any and every developer. You can connect with Stefan on Twitter @spriebsch or through Xing.

Plugin of the Week: Form Maker- Innovative Form Builder

July 11, 2016 by Pranoti Panchwagh Leave a Comment

With over 1500 form building plugins in the WordPress repository, each with its own arsenal of add-ons, creating beautiful forms has never been easier. From registration, order and reservation to feedback, contact and survey forms, the options offered by form builders for customization are many and varied.

So what sets the Form Maker plugin apart from the rest?

Well, for one, it is a form builder plugin that’s well-equipped, economical and completely responsive to boot. A freemium plugin, it lets you create multiple forms quickly and easily.

Form Maker Plugin Features

The plugin is packed with features, to help with form creation. Here’s a look at some prominent features.

Drag and Drop Builder

The user interface of Form Maker is very straightforward and clean. With a drag-and-drop form builder that lets users add various fields easily. Also, once you have added all the form fields required, you can move, edit or remove them from the main form window itself.

Customizable Form Fields

The free version is limited to the addition of seven form fields when creating a form while the premium versions do not have any such specifications. There are 12 form fields, each with various parameters that can be customized to create a unique form.

The Name, Address, E-Mail, Number and Phone form fields can be edited to have various sectional lengths. The Time and Date form fields can be numerical entry type or using a datepicker. Single and multiple choice questions can be added using the respective form fields.

Hidden and conditional fields can be added that only appear when other, previously specified conditions are met. Also, the forms can have page breaks and columns for pagination, making the form responsive to different screen formats.

Various Themes

There are 41 different themes available for form creation and you can create your own besides. Customizing the button styles, font colors and backgrounds is also possible which gives you a lot of options to kick around and choose from.

Flexible Layout

Form Maker has 9 ready form templates for Contact, Registration, Order, Evaluation and Survey forms. You can either extrapolate from these or build your own from scratch. There is no limitation to the number of forms you build.

Easy Backend Management

Managing forms at the backend is pretty easy with the Form Manager having a chronological list of all the existing and newly created forms. You can look up any particular form you want using the search field so scrolling through long lists is avoided. Note that forms cannot be edited in the Manager itself. You need to navigate to the form page to effect any changes desired.

The Submissions section maintains a categorized database of all information submitted by users for each form. You can block or unblock customer IP addresses from here too. This data can be exported in CSV and XML formats and used for advanced analysis.

Text Areas and File Uploads

Form Maker lets you add pre-filled text-boxes to your WordPress forms. These can be used for giving any specific instructions necessary for front-end users while filling the form. File uploads can be enabled, like signature, photo fields for Registration forms with a pre-specified upload limit.

Multi-Language Support

Form Maker supports 47 languages currently, including simplified Chinese and Japanese scripts. This makes your form localization ready across the globe. Besides, Form Maker support offers translations for any language required other than these.

Resume Form

Unlike some form builder plugins, Form Maker lets you save changes and begin working with the form where you left from. Form Drafts are not maintained separately though and have to be accessed from the Manager itself. Form Maker allows you to re-direct users to posts, pages or other URL’s on submission of the form.

Custom CSS and JavaScript

Apart from the drag and drop builder, developers can incorporate additional JavaScript codes into the existing form outline or change the CSS therein.

Google Maps API Integration

Form Maker integrates with Google Maps for the Add your Address on a Map field. This lets front-end users mark their location on the Google Maps interface instead of typing it in.

This functionality can be extended to displaying two maps in two different form fields in the Pro version.

Form Maker has 12 additional add-ons to extend plugin functionality. Each of these starts from $15 per add-on, per site. The combined pricing plan is more economical though.

Some of the add-ons are:

Conditional Mailing to send emails to specific users based on the submitted information
MailChimp Integration to leverage the features of the professional marketing plugin
The Export/Import add-on lets you selectively export data, like specific fields or time periods for example, from form submissions for a more targeted analysis
Form Maker Pushover lets you receive push messages in real time, whenever any new form submission is made on your site. This can be used to integrate with mobile devices too
The Calculator add-on helps you execute simple mathematical calculations dynamically. The final cost column has to be made
Read-Only so that users are not able to change the auto-generated value

Form Maker also supports Google Drive, Dropbox and Stripe integrations.

The Premium versions of the plugin begin with half-yearly licenses for single sites and yearly for multiple sites. The additional features here are support for add-ons, unlimited form fields, variable extensions for the file upload option, complete Google Maps API integration and PayPal with optional percentage tax addition on payments is possible.

Conclusion

Customer feedback is one of the best ways of getting a genuine review of how well your website is doing, in terms of service efficiency and customer satisfaction. This is useful is determining analytically what your site (and your company, by extension) is doing right and what it is not.

Form Maker helps you create spartan, minimalistic forms, detailed, elaborate forms and everything in between, effortlessly. With so many form building plugins out there, having practically the same features all around, cost becomes the deciding factor while choosing the plugin. This is where Form Maker trumps over Gravity Forms and Ninja Forms, though each of them have some additional functionality than the former.

In terms of ease-of-use, Form Maker has a much simpler user interface and way more features than Contact Form 7, though the latter is revered by many.

With plentiful features at an economical cost, Form Maker is one of the best form creation plugins on WordPress. What do you think?

Comment and let us know!

10 Awesome WordPress Bloggers Every Newbie MUST Follow

July 9, 2016 by Pranoti Panchwagh Leave a Comment

WordPress is a great platform for content creation and management, once you get used to it. Initially though, the wealth of plugins, themes, add-ons plus their documentation can be overwhelming.

If you are a newbie blogger similarly floundering in WordPressian waters, worry not. There are some really excellent bloggers on WordPress that will help you get to your feet in no time!

We’ve selected a list of 10 seasoned bloggers (not in any particular order), who each in their own way contribute to adding new and reliable information for WordPress users over the globe.

Chris Lema

Blog – ChrisLema.com

In the world of WordPress bloggers, Chris Lema is like the Godfather. Writing about practically everything WordPress under the sun, Lema makes even difficult topics straightforward and easy to understand. He has advised companies like WooThemes, Reaktiv Studios, WP101 and more and also assists entrepreneurs in strategically leveraging WordPress.

In addition to his blog, Chris Lema has written several e-books and included video tutorials that provide solutions to user queries. A unique feature of his blog is that you can either place a paid call to get some quick advice about your business or schedule a full-fledged consultation for developing your business.

Bob Dunn

Blog – BobWP

Bob Dunn’s BobWP is a wonderful example of a categorized and systematic WordPress resource. The blog covers articles over a wide spectrum including ecommerce, plugin reviews, widgets, themes and even digital content writing and marketing.

Also, Bob hosts a podcast every week for WooCommerce users with tips on increasing and maintaining Woo Stores.

Tom McFarlin

Blog – Tom McFarlin

Offering a perspective on professional WordPress development, Tom McFarlin’s blog is a slightly tougher nut to crack. Not that the blog posts are difficult, just that they are written for users who are familiar with the basic workings of WordPress. The articles are divided into specific categories like Projects, Resources, Articles, Tips, Software, etc. which make finding whatever you need super easy.

A goldmine for developers it is definitely worth a read, once you have brushed up your basics!

Pippin Williamson

Blog – Pippins Plugins

Featuring 142 free tutorials, 54 premium tutorials and over 76 blog posts, Pippin’s Plugins is a veritable font of information when it comes to WordPress. Pippin Williamson is the developer of plugins like AffiliateWP, Easy Digital Downloads and Restrict Content Pro, so the guy is well versed in all the stages of plugin development and his articles reflect that.

Informative, yet easy-to-parse, Pippin’s Plugins is a great resource for WordPress newbies.

Andrew Norcross

Blog – Blog All Things (from Norcross)

Strictly speaking, Andrew Norcross’ blog has fewer resources than his contemporaries, but is a great example of a well-written blog nonetheless. He is the creator of Reacktiv Studios, a company providing express WordPress solutions and has developed the very popular WordPress FAQ Manager and the Genesis Design Palette Pro, in addition to fifteen other plugins.

With subjects ranging from life hacks to plugin reviews to articles on coding, Andrew Norcross’ blog makes for a very interesting read.

Jean Galea

Blog – WP Mayor

Anybody who knows WordPress is acquainted with WP Mayor and anybody who knows WP Mayor knows Jean Galea. The creators of one of the most up-to-date and informative blog sites about WordPress, Mr. and Mrs. Galea both write extensive articles for beginners and pros alike.

A unique feature of the blog is that they offer exclusive coupons to subscribers and WP Mayor readers, for other plugin, theme or web-hosting purchases. Also, if you venture into the plugin development sector eventually, WP Mayor also helps you analyze your product and publish it on the blog. You can also checkout Jean Galea’s podcast and other resources on his homepage.

Daniel Espinoza

Blog – Daniel Espinoza

Writing about WordPress and life outside of WordPress, Daniel Espinoza juggles both spheres successfully. Be it book reviews or movies or codes, there is something for every reader here. Espinoza has been programming since 80’s so he has practically seen it all.

Besides, he also helped develop WooCommerce, the popular eCommerce plugin powering over a quarter of the businesses worldwide today. A WordPress and Magento wizard, his blog is an equally great resource for checking out that theme review or an inspiring life-story!

Lorelle VanFossen

Blog – Lorelle on WordPress

Lorelle VanFossen’s Lorelle on WordPress is a blog about blog writing, and of course WordPress. She has written over 12 series exclusively for writing better blogs, with blog exercises, blogging tools and other add-ons required to create an engaging and reader-friendly blog.

Apart from her blogging expertise, she also has a solid background in everything WordPress, as evinced by her WordPress School series.

Brad Williams

Blog – Brad Williams Blog

The co-founder and CEO of WebDevStudios, Brad Williams has been working with website development for over twenty years and co-hosts the WordPress podcast DradCast. An all-round expert, his blog is a regular and WordPress user’s delight. Witty, informative, with a humorous twist, the articles are a great starting point for any WordPress beginner.

Williams has also co-authored two books about WordPress, Professional WordPress and Professional WordPress Plugin Development.

Kevin Muldoon

Blog – Kevin Muldoon

Kevin Muldoon writes weekly about technology, blogging, social media and WordPress and his reviews are always unbiased and insightful. If you are thinking of purchasing a new theme or plugin but are in two minds about it, this is the place to go to for an honest review to bolster your decision.

Apart from work, Muldoon is also a martial arts fan and an avid traveler, so you can check those out here too.

Apart from these, there are many other bloggers and writers who are equally knowledgeable about WordPress. These people are however, known throughout the world for their expertise and sought out for lectures at WordCamps, opinions and advice frequently, for the same.

Though not a blogger, a complete website that deserves a mention here is WPBeginner. Created by Syed Balkhi, it is a complete repository of articles, video tutorials and discussion forums that actively help WordPress newbies.

What other authors would you recommend for WordPress newbies? Let us know in the comments section below!

wpDataTables: Turning the Tables on Data Representation

July 6, 2016 by Ketan Vyawahare Leave a Comment

Information displayed on websites isn’t usually limited to paragraph format. Sometimes, you want your data represented in clean tabular form especially if you’re looking to list or compare objects. This creates a need for an excel like structure that could be inserted into WordPress posts and pages.

Enter a comprehensive and detailed plugin developed for this very purpose- wpDataTables.

wpDataTables – A Data Representation and Management Plugin for WordPress

wpDataTables lets you create tables and charts on your WordPress website with content you can either manually fill with data or import from various data formats. All you need to do is feed the data to the plugin, the rest of the process will be carried out by the plugin itself.

Whether it is importing, filtering, sorting or highlighting data within tables, wpDataTables does it all.

You can create tables and insert them into any post or page of your website with just a few clicks without any coding knowledge.

An Example of Data Represented in a Table using wpDataTables

wpDataTables and its extensions use JavaScript libraries to add features like tabular data representation, pagination, filters, sorting, search etc. The plugin takes things a step ahead and lets you add customizations while applying the DataTable library features.

Here’s how you go about using the plugin:

Let’s say you wish to display employee information on your website.

You need to begin by creating a table, and configuring the number of columns. The plugin provides you a settings page for each column.
You can set attributes for each column like headers, values, type of filter, visibility on different platforms, etc.
Once the table is configured you can import the employee information you wish to tabulate or add it manually.
The plugin will automatically generate a shortcode which you can use to represent the table. This shortcode can be inserted in any page or post of your choice. You can also use the “wpDataTable” button in the editor panel to post the DataTable.

Here’s a Look at wpDataTable Features in Detail

1. Responsive Data Representation

wpDataTables creates responsive designs keeping in mind the responsiveness of WordPress sites.

All you need to do, to make your table responsive is to check ‘Responsive’ option on the table creation/edit page in WP dashboard, as shown in the image below:

You also have an option in the settings box for each column to show/hide the column in mobiles and tablets according to your discretion.

2. Advanced Filters and Search Options

The advanced filters and search options are tools which allow users to filter the data being represented on the frontend. Different parameters can be set to filter the content table where each filter has a different input type. Multiple filters can be applied at once to a single table.

The six filters available to be applied to tabular data are:

Text filter: Filters out the data using keywords or keyword fragments. The entire row with the keyword appears in the results.
Number filter: Filters out data using the numbers. Again the entire row the number cell is a part of, appears in the results.
Number Range filter: While the Number Filter sieves out exact numbers, the Range Filter lets you set a range so that rows falling within the particular number range can be displayed as the search result.
Date Range filter: If data you’ve entered is in the form of dates, you can filter data using the Date Range filter by entering the ‘From’ and ‘To’ dates.
Select Box Filter: Some of the filters are predefined by site creators to assist users. These filters appear as a drop-down menus in the front end. These filters are known as ‘values’ and can be defined by authors or are auto-filled by the values generated by the system.

3. Highlighting and Formatting of Data

Another exceptional feature of wpDataTables is conditional formatting to make a certain text more attentive and highlighting of relevant data. This is extremely useful in cases where there is much data to be mined through to find the one that’s relevant to you.

If similar data is grouped by color-coding or styled differently using custom CSS, it can make it easier for a user to distinguish huge amounts of data without any significant edits.

All you have to do is enable the conditional formatting section at the bottom of every column setting.

Conditional formatting involves defining ‘Rules’ for each column separately in the settings. Note: Each new rule has higher priority than the last one and will always override the last rule.

4. Data Representation as Charts

The wpDataTables also provides its users another great option to render data in the form of graphic charts using supported chart engines.

These Charts are created using data from the table itself. Just select the columns you wish to generate a chart of and enable the chart type in “Table Settings”. You can also open the Chart Wizard and pick a rendering engine, after which the plugin shows you a list of around 10+ chart types to pick from.

You need to define the ‘Row Range’ and the ‘Column Range’ for the chart.

A shortcode is generated after the settings are saved which can be added to the page or post of your choice.

5. Multiple Data Sources for Import

wpDataTables can be fed with the data from various data sources. The data sources included are as follows:

MySQL query: You can generate tables directly from MySQL, providing real-time data. This method is perfect for large databases.
Google Spreadsheet: This is an extremely popular data source as tables created here are on an online platform where they can be shared, edited, automatically saved on Google Drive, without the need to download any software prerequisites.
CSV file: A .CSV file- a simple and lightweight data source- can be created using any software like MS Excel, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Google Spreadsheet etc., and uploaded into the DataTable.
Excel file: Data can be extracted from a .XLS or .XLSX file created in Excel.
XML file: A structured .XML file with a single root node and same structured child nodes can be used to function as rows and their attributes as cells.
Serialized PHP array: Data returned by a PHP file can be used to generate a table.
JSON file: Data from a JSON file accessible through a URL, can be uploaded into your wpDataTable.

6. Winning Feature: Table Constructor

wpDataTables was developed to make data representation in table format quick and easy. For this purpose, developers have equipped the plugin with a setup wizard called Table Constructor to assist you set-by-step in setting up tables. You can either input data in a table manually, import existing data, or create a table based on your current site content or database.

The Table Constructor makes generating tables thoroughly customizable right from column number, data type, default value etc.

BONUS: Altering the Data of wpDataTable Dynamically!

Now, while data representation is seamlessly handled by the wpDataTables plugin, there may be a case when you might need to alter the content based on your needs.

Here’s how you can go about it!

The Master Filter

The wpDataTable has a master filter – wpdatatables_filter_initial_table_construct– which can be used to alter the data being represented.

This filter is applied to the table object after data is read from a source and columns are generated. It can be used for creating a new table type. This filter has a parameter which contains the entire data passed through the data source. The values can be fetched with the help of this object.

Getting data of rows in a table:

function wdm_get_rows($tbl)
{
    $allDataRows = $tbl->getDataRows();
    // perform operations here
}
add_filter('wpdatatables_filter_initial_table_construct', 'wdm_get_rows', 10, 1);

This code fetches all the data which in the rows of the table. In similar way you can fetch column content too.

Getting data of columns in table:

function wdm_get_columns($tbl)
{
    $allDataColumns = $tbl->getColumns();
    // perform operations here
}
add_filter('wpdatatables_filter_initial_table_construct', 'wdm_get_columns', 10, 1);

When we alter the data in our function, we have to set that data into the parameter again so that the parameters return the altered data for representation. Since several parameters are protected, there aren’t enough methods in the WPDataTable class to set these private values.

We can however write our own methods to set private variables as follows:

/**
* $target = the object in which the data is to be set
* $newVal = the modified value which is to be set
* $prop = the property of object for which the value is to be set
**/
function wdm_set_values($target, $newVal, $prop)
{
    $obj = new WPDataTable();
    $refObject = new ReflectionObject($obj);
    $refProperty = $refObject->getProperty($prop);
    $refProperty->setValue($target, $newVal);
    $refProperty->setAccessible(true);
    $refProperty->setValue($target, $newVal);
    return $target;
}

The above example sets the data rows of a table and can be called using the function below:

wdm_set_values($tbl, $modifiedDataRows, '_dataRows');

The Master Column filter

The master column filter – wpdatatables_filter_columns_metadata – can be used to alter column data dynamically. This filter has an array which functions as a parameter and which contains all the metadata of columns. This filter can be used to return the modified column array and can be used as follows:

function wdm_columns_meta($column_array)
{
    // logic to filter the column array
    return $column_array;
}
add_filter('wpdatatables_filter_columns_metadata', 'wdm_columns_meta', 10, 1);

Conclusion

In conclusion, wpDataTables functions as a complete solution for all your tabular needs. The plugin creates responsive tables, and charts and functions as a Data Manager for your content. You can use it to display price lists, catalogs, yellow pages like directories and for any and all complex analysis and comparisons.

Priced at $35 it comes with comprehensive documentation, predefined filters and action hooks and a 6-month support with added features on request. All this combined with handy functionality make this plugin worth every penny!

Let me know your thoughts and suggestions in the comment section below!

Plugin of the Week: Pirate Forms – The Easiest Contact Form Plugin

July 4, 2016 by Pranoti Panchwagh Leave a Comment

When it comes to contact forms, WordPress users have over 1500 different options to choose from. Many a company offers contact form plugins, with functionality ranging from the creation of a basic, ‘Name, E-mail, Message’ form, to a full-fledged, detailed one with over 10-15 fields.

Naturally, there are pros and cons, more or less, with each of these free, premium and freemium contact form plugins.

For quite a while now, contact forms have become synonymous with Contact Form 7, by far THE most downloaded contact form plugin for WordPress.

Is that really an ideal option though?

Contact Form 7 is a great alternative for those who have a basic knowledge of HTML and PHP.

For the rest? Not so much.

They look for simpler, more beginner-friendly options like WPForms, Gravity Forms or Ninja Forms. These are some really useful plugins having features galore for building forms of all kinds, including contact forms.

Can you spot the obvious problem here though?

What if somebody with a website doesn’t need any other forms besides a contact form? Wouldn’t it be better to get a plugin that specifically generates Contact Forms only, instead of investing steeply for the whole unnecessary bundle?

Hence, enter Pirate Forms.

Pirate Forms is simple contact form builder that inserts contact forms into your webpages in the space of 10 seconds.

Literally.

Built by ThemeIsle, the contact form builder plugin has three distinct ways which can be used to generate contact forms and some other features besides.

The Three Ways of Contact Form Generation

Pirate forms has a ‘the quicker, the better’ policy for building contact forms (remember the 10 second assertion?).

Also, there is absolutely no coding involved whatsoever, which makes it pretty straightforward to use by coders and non-coders alike.

So, coming to the point. The three different ways of generating Contact Forms are:

Shortcode: Writing the [pirate_forms] shortcode on the page or post, where the contact form is to be displayed.
Widget: Inserting the Pirate Forms widget into any of the sidebars.
Code: Adding the code <?php echo do_shortcode( ‘[pirate_forms]’ )?> in your theme files.

Of these, the sidebar widget option is the easiest. You can also vary the location of the sidebars from your customization menu and consequently, the position of your Contact Form.

The shortcode is useful in adding the form to additional pages or posts, apart from the sidebar display.

Editing the theme files is a bit tricky but a flexible option for developers, nonetheless.

The form fields, options, labels, messages to be displayed, etc. are completely customizable and can be edited from the respective tabs under the Pirate Forms window.

Some Plugin Features Included

reCaptcha Enabled

Pirate Forms has a reCaptcha option, which can be enabled to ensure that spam messages are not sent to your contact e-mail address.

SMTP Ready

Pirate Forms helps you receive all customer emails efficiently, using a dedicated SMTP server. You can edit the error display message for your customers, in case the mail is not sent properly.

Clean Codes

The plugin codes are developed and managed by Codeinwp, which is one of the best coding companies in the market. So the possibility of erratic behavior and non-responsive codes is minimized to a large extent. Regular updates are an additional benefit too.

Contact Databases

Contact databases are created automatically by Pirate Forms to store all your contacts as e-mail addresses.

The contact form builder plugin works well with a number of themes, free and paid.

For all its simplicity though, there a couple of obvious but glaring drawbacks of the Pirate Forms Contact Form Builder plugin i.e.,

Pirate Forms caters to only and only contact forms, so if ever the need for an additional form, like a registration or order form arises, you have to install a completely new plugin and begin from scratch.
The Form format is fixed, there is no alteration in the fields that can be added here. This can be a good or bad thing, depending upon the kind of information you want from your customers.

However, the creators have always been forthcoming about the plugins limitations, so there won’t be any hidden surprises on installing Pirate Forms. Besides, it does what it does efficiently.

The Final Take

Pirate Forms is a contact form builder that is simple, easy to use and fast. A clean interface at the front end and a clean code at the backend make the plugin function smoothly.

To be honest, it does not have as many features as some of the more advanced form building plugins today, but for anyone with the singular requirement of inserting contact forms into their pages and posts easily and quickly, Pirate Forms is a great option.

What other Contact Form builders would you recommend?

4 Best Membership Plugins for WordPress Compared

June 29, 2016 by Vinita Lobo 2 Comments

Looking to monetize your website and manage traffic, or build a solid customer base with a fixed income? Turning your website into a membership site may be the solution you’re looking for!

Memberships are a brilliant but underutilized method for sites to provide a more personalized and dedicated service to their members and ensure repeat visitors.

Memberships can be used by different websites for different functions:

Content-based sites can restrict non-members from accessing blog posts or pages, or prevent them from downloading the content without paying for it.
Commercial websites, could create exclusive purchasing clubs and offer membership discounts, coupon codes, first dibs on sales and newly released products.
If you’re hosting a fan site, club or a team website, you have to restrict access to only members.

In my opinion, what a membership structure mainly does is function as specialized CMS (no, not a content management system :-p )- Customer Management System.

WordPress has a number of membership extensions you can download and integrate seamlessly into your website.

Now, this post may or may not succeed in answering your question about which membership plugin is best for you, as there is no one size fits all solution. But what it aims to do, is explain to you the pros and cons on different options you have.

The plugin you choose will depend on what kind of website you own, what are your requirements and expectations. Even then you may have to customize with add-ons and tailor the features to get what you’re looking for exactly.

I’ve picked the extensions mentioned below as I believe they have something for everyone i.e. each one of them have unique features of their own. You can go through them and settle for the one that is perfectly suited to your website. So here are four of my favorite WordPress Membership Plugins that should be great for any website, from setup to support.

#1 Paid Memberships Pro

This is a neat lightweight extension that is (despite the misleading label) actually FREE!!

Easy to setup, this membership plugin is great if you’re a newbie WordPress user or a non-developer. Simply activate the plugin to restrict content and turn your website into a simple member-only site.

You can create unlimited membership levels, specify pricing and billing cycles for each level.

The plugin creates membership levels outside of the WordPress user roles, giving you the ability to upgrade user roles without affecting their membership rights.

PMPro integrates flawlessly with popular payment gateways like Stripe, Braintree, PayPal, Authorize.Net and 2Checkout.

This extension does not bloat its code by forcing useless features on its users but rather lets users pick customized features of their choice in the form of add-ons. Hence, the core code remains light-weight, providing only basic membership abilities to users and giving them a choice over which additional features they wish to incorporate.

There’s a lot to like about PMPro. For example, if you wish to give non-members a taste of your post, Paid Memberships Pro lets you create ‘excerpts’. Excerpts are also used by search engines to categorize and index your post.

For those of you looking for support and documentation, Paid Memberships Pro has two premium packages- Paid Memberships Core($97) and Paid Membership Pro Plus ($197). The Plus version gives you access to add-ons with features like Content Dripping (life-saver to sites with downloadable content), MailChimp Integration, custom themes and much more.

For the undecided, here’s a detailed review of the plugin.

All in all, Paid Memberships Pro is a great option for newbie users, layered enough to keep up with the demands of their growing business and something that appeals to both coders as well as non-coders!!

Pros:

Free lightweight and easy to use
Customizable with add-ons
Easily restrict posts and pages
Export and Import CSV members List
Great for newbie users

Cons:

Support and forums are only available to premium members

#2 Restrict Content Pro

Another innovative and lightweight plugin that does much more than its name suggests is Restrict Content Pro.

The developers have kept the design and features of this extension relatively simple. You can define the membership levels, payments, and pricing for each member individually or as a group.

Even schedule an expiry date, like if you’re looking to give a non-member a free 10-day trial, or set a definite period after which the subscription will expire. You can even set a fixed expiry date for subscriptions of all the members of a level.

The member management attributes are detailed and give power over accounts to the owner as well as the member. A complete member dashboard is included to let members edit their profile, change membership status and cancel their account.

Discount codes, that are a smart way to incentivise people to buy your products, can be applied to predefined membership levels. Payment integrations include Stripe, BrainTree and all of the PayPal versions.

Some minor features this plugin lacks is multi-level access option, content dripping, and activity based discounts. Again, a person subscribed to one level can upgrade/downgrade himself to another but cannot hold subscriptions to multiple groups. This lack of flexibility is a drawback for course content based sites.

Despite all of this, the best feature of the plugin is that it lives up to its name i.e. restricting content, which can either be easily done using the [restrict] [/restrict] shortcode or by clicking on the ‘Paid Only’ button for a page or post.

This plugin also has a help page that gives you pointers on how to modify the plugin to incorporate more features that you may need. It also documents everything from account registrations to transactions and generates reports on demand.

Restrict Content Pro comes in 4 subscription packages ranging from $49 to $449, and you can choose one depending on how much support, add-ons and sites you wish to incorporate it into.

Restrict Content Pro is really simple to use and does well-restricting content on posts and pages. This along with the options on the purchasable version make it a viable option.

Pros:

Simple and clean and easy to use
Great for content based websites
Help page, shortcodes and tutorials available to customise plugin

Cons:

No content dripping
Member cannot access multiple levels
Free version is severely limited
Lacks out of the box integration

#3 WP-Members

Introduced in 2006, WP-Members was the first membership plugin created for WordPress. WP-Members is considered to be more of a ‘Membership Framework’ than an actual all-in-one solution.

Developers have built the extension to be tweaked and modified by people who are using it. You could either install add-ons or utilise the filter and action hooks to load required features into your membership site.

Unlike other registration plugins, it puts the registration process inline with your content and replaces the native WP login page with your own login page.

WP-Members is created mainly for content based sites because it has precise content restriction features. It is designed to cater to standalone websites and not multisite networks.

On installation, it immediately restricts access to posts. It also includes a feature that blocks page access from non-members and shows them ‘excerpts’ of posts instead. It cannot hide the content fully. If you have set posts to be blocked by default, then setting up content to be blocked is nothing more than adding the ‘Read More’ tag to the post content.

This extension also enables you to manage and edit fields on the member registration page and customize text for automated dialogues and error messages. You can also configure automated emails sent by the plugin. The themes too are easily customizable and detailed instructions are available to customize the CSS file without disrupting the core CSS.

WP-Members is a free plugin but you can subscribe to the main plugin site for private members forum, premium code snippets and tutorials, member exclusive extensions, as well as a priority support contact form.

The plugin is comprehensively documented on the support page with tips & tricks for those you wish to modify the look and feel and are looking for a scalable extension that grows with the website.

For more information about this plugin, here’s a comprehensive review of all its features.

Pros:

Scalable and customizable
Restricts content to show excerpts
Comprehensively documented
Can be modified using add-ons

Cons:

Does not work on multisite networks
Does not support popular payment gateways
Does not have many useful features of its own

#4 WooCommerce Memberships

A recent player in the Memberships market, WooCommerce Memberships is carefully and systematically developed to be a ‘one-stop solution for all membership needs’. It caters to a broad audience and gives members control over their own membership accounts.

WooCommerce Memberships includes the usual membership functions you use to protect posts and pages, create unlimited membership levels and integrate with all the popular payment gateways that WooCommerce supports. All this with relative ease.

User memberships can be unlimited, or you can set an expiration length in terms of days, weeks, months, or years. Useful when providing complimentary and discounted memberships to non-members.

Apart from the standard paid membership, the extension includes useful features to restrict products to a membership plan, combine membership and product purchase, and also provide discount membership packages to customers who purchase products from the store.

WooCommerce Memberships was created to work in tandem with many of the WooCommerce plugins, especially WooCommerce Subscriptions. Integration between Memberships and Subscriptions means you can sell membership plans with recurring billing plans. You can also determine the length of memberships and generate a bill at the end of each cycle and let members upgrade/downgrade their own membership levels.

Discounts are provided based on member levels in many of the plugins but WooCommerce Memberships also gives discounts for any reward-based activity users may have participated in.

WooCommerce Memberships is one of the best membership plugins available in the market and seamlessly integrable into WooCommerce stores and comes with a Support Documentation. The plugin is priced from $149 per site.

For any further doubts and queries you may have, here’s an excellent review of this plugin that’ll walk you through all of its features.

Pros:

Supports recurring subscriptions
Supports time period for membership plans
Lets users control their own membership accounts (upgrade, downgrade, deletion)

Cons:

Is an extension to WooCommerce
Works better with Subscriptions and other needs other add-ons to optimise it completely.

Endnote

The above plugins may have some unique features to offer in some areas and be lacking in others, therefore choosing the perfect membership plugin completely depends your discretion. Apart from these, there are several other WordPress membership plugins you can learn about before picking one for your site. Hope this article clarified a few things for you, you could also check out our 5-Point Guide to Choose the Best Membership Plugin on WordPress to help you make an informed decision.

Got any comments or feedback for us? Any other membership plugin you’d like us to mention ?? Let us know!!

Plugin Of The Week: Newsletter- E-Mail Marketing Plugin for WordPress!

June 27, 2016 by Pranoti Panchwagh Leave a Comment

One of the most important commandments of marketing, as every WordPress user is aware of, is keeping your readers updated about your news, posts and publications. Sure they will check your site on their own sometimes, but a little nudge never hurt anybody, right?

So what do you do?

One option is to go to your mailbox and send each subscriber a notification about every post you upload. This might work if you have about 50 subscribers (and I’m being generous here!).

But what if this number increases to a 100? 1000? or 5000? You get the idea.

Sending an update manually about every post you write, to all these people is nigh impossible. Not only would it be difficult for you to keep track of all the bucket-load of e-mails, but it could irritate your readers too if they have an e-mail from you every time they turn around to check their inbox!

An obvious solution to sidestepping this problem is: e-newsletters.

Fortunately, several enterprising plugin developers for WordPress have created newsletter plugins that help you send selective updates periodically, informing users about the latest happenings on your website.

One of these is Newsletter, an out-of-the-box newsletter plugin for WordPress.

**Why Newsletter?**

One of the very first newsletter plugins, Newsletter is a great tool for creating user lists and preparing, sending and tracking e-mails to your subscribers. With over 200,000 downloads, it is by far one of the most popular newsletter plugins for WordPress.

What are the Advantages of Using Newsletter?

The advantages of the Newsletter plugin lie in the features. So, let’s explore the plugin features in detail.

Subscriber options

Newsletter is a free plugin supporting unlimited subscribers and unlimited emails. It lets you create and maintain user lists and categorize them so that you can send newsletters in a more systematic manner.

It also comprehensively analyses user statistics including who were the last visitors to your site, what are your subscribers’ preferences, which of them opened the e-mail and areas wherein is your site performing better, all to help you create targeted promotional campaigns.

Newsletter allows you to configure the number of emails sent out to subscribers in a given amount of time. To avoid clogging your server, and maintain optimum sending speed, the plugin sends emails in batches, at regular time intervals of five minutes.

Privacy and Security

Newsletter is diligent about security. You have an optional double opt-in functionality for secure user log-in. Additionally, it lets you lock website content, blocking it from unsubscribed users and making it available only after your users have logged-in. This works for individual posts as well as complete categories.

Compatibility and Customization

A responsive plugin, Newsletter is highly flexible in terms of customization. Incorporating a drag-and-drop newsletter builder, it lets you create a unique flyer every time. Or alternatively, you can set up the plugin to intuitively select the latest posts by default and automatically create and send the newsletter.

Practically everything is customizable; the contact forms, the themes, the message templates and the subscription forms.

Newsletter is compatible with WP Mail SMTP, WP Mail Bank, Easy SMTP Mail, Easy WP SMTP and Postman. It also integrates well with WordPress User Registration to add a subscription checkbox directly to the main page of your WordPress website.

Documentation

Documentation is one of the aces of the Newsletter plugin. The plugin support site has extensive information regarding any of the queries you might have while setting up and using the plugin. And if not there, the support forums almost always come up with an answer.

Premium Extensions

Apart from the free plugin, Newsletter has a host of premium extensions that add extra functionality to your site. These include extensions for generating follow-up emails and autoresponders, Facebook, external SMTP providers like Mandrill, SendGrid and MailJet, WooCommerce and Amazon SES integrations, Reports, Feed by Mail and Contact Form 7 add-ons.

Here’s digging deeper into the functionality of some of these:

WooCommerce Extension

Integrating with one of the largest e-commerce platforms, – WooCommerce – Newsletter helps you turn customers to subscribers easily and quickly. You can enable automatic addition of customers to your subscriber list when then log-in to your store on WooCommerce. Additionally, the Newsletter-WooCommerce integration lets you assign customers to user groups according to their purchases so that newsletters can be sent according to customer preference. This can be of enormous help in marketing your store!

Amazon SES

The Amazon SES extension for the Newsletter plugin lets you control your newsletter sending capabilities successfully. This extension includes the Amazon Simple Notification System which tracks your bounce reports and helps you manage them directly in the control panel.

Feed by Mail

Feed by Mail is a handy little extension that helps you generate automatic newsletters at periodic intervals. All you have to do is select the number of posts to be included in the newsletter and the time interval after which they’re to be sent; Feed by Mail for Newsletter instinctively selects the latest posts, decides the layout and mails it off to your subscribers!

Reports

Reports for Newsletter is an extremely useful extension for tracking the newsletter activity in your subscribers’ inbox and drawing statistical conclusions based on the same. This extension lets you check who has received, opened or clicked your newsletter and even the IP address from where it has been accessed. You can classify user preferences according to gender, location and geography so that targeted marketing campaigns can be organized.

That said, Newsletter does have some disadvantages when compared to professional services like MailChimp or AWeber Email Marketing.

The Drawbacks?

Often, sending too many emails from your site on shared hosting may seem like an abuse of the web host, which could be problematic. As opposed to this, email marketing services like MailChimp, do not impose any such restrictions and let you send mails indiscriminately.

Also, e-mail service providers automatically update your marketing systems as per the new compliance acts and laws being enforced, so that your newsletters don’t land in spam. Using your own newsletter plugin makes it imperative for you to check and update yourself about these so that uninterrupted newsletter flow to your subscribers can continue.

These are minor drawbacks though, and can be easily overcome if you spend some dedicated time developing and improving your site regularly.

Summing Up

Newsletter is one of the best free alternatives to the other expensive e-mail marketing services available for WordPress. It triumphs in terms of ease-of-use and user list management and is great for websites and businesses with limited requirements.

Besides, Newsletter has enough and more premium extensions which can be used for any extra functionality.

On the whole, Newsletter is a great newsletter creation and marketing plugin. What do you say?

Photo Gallery: The Plugin that Makes your WordPress Site Picture Perfect!

June 15, 2016 by Pranoti Panchwagh Leave a Comment

Pictures speak louder than words.

For all its features though, WordPress has a lamentably simplistic layout for the photos and albums you might want to upload and display.

This is where a photo gallery plugin comes in.

A large number of gallery plugins are available; some opting for a minimalistic approach, some others having advanced features, some with high upload speeds, yet others with high definition displays.

Amongst this milieu, how do you select a plugin that suits your site’s requirements and yet does not bog it down and make it slow?

We list out some features here that can be used as a yardstick for measuring a GOOD photo gallery plugin.

Ease of Use

An easy to understand user interface makes arranging galleries very simple. Additionally, a bloated plugin is often difficult to navigate, loaded as it is with unnecessary features. Clean interfaces make selecting layouts, columns, animations and lightboxes straightforward, thereby making the plugin beginner friendly.

Speed

WordPress sites that are heavily photo-based, like portfolios or wildlife photography sites experience a significant increase in site load time on account of large files. A good photo gallery plugin is coded well and optimized for speed so that page load time is reduced to the maximum extent possible and viewer interest is maintained.

Display

Apart from the standard displays, multiple view options make the website more attractive and interesting. Also, photo plugins are expected to be 100% responsive. A good display improves user experience and peripherals like descriptions and tags give a boost to the SEO ranking too.

Features Available

A photo gallery plugin ought to have advanced features like pagination, social media linking, image protection, variable view modes, slideshow options, quick navigation tools, lightboxes and more. All of these work in combination to create a beautiful gallery and thereby improve site performance.

Satisfying all these requirements and having other unique functionalities is the Photo Gallery plugin for WordPress!

Photo Gallery- Responsive and Advanced Gallery Plugin for WordPress

Photo Gallery is a completely responsive plugin with over 200,000 installs and has tons of options for customization and display.

Developed by Web Dorado, Photo Gallery lets you create unlimited galleries and albums, adding descriptions and tags galore.

The plugin can be used for a wide set of applications, from adding pictures to a simple blog post to creating high-end, professional displays for mega-stores.

Let us check out the features of Photo Gallery in detail.

Multiple Gallery Views

Photo Gallery has 7 in-built view types that allow for variable display of your photos and albums. This includes a regular thumbnail view, a mosaic gallery view, single image browser view, blog style gallery view and masonry view.

These views can be customized with the help of shortcodes, as can the other, additional views available in the Premium version.

The plugin supports all image files and an unlimited number of photos can be added and galleries created here.
The slideshow view allows for shuffling and auto play options; besides the layout can be customized to have a specific number of photos in any given row.

Editing and Customization

Once the photo has been uploaded successfully, Photo Gallery lets you edit and customize each picture individually. Modify the thumbnail, resize the image, provide detailed descriptions or add tags; the image display capabilities can also be varied here.

Another functionality is that tags can be added to all images simultaneously. This lets you add bulk tags instead of having to navigate to every image for one common tag.

Audio-Video Support

Photo Gallery supports YouTube and Vimeo videos inside galleries. Images can be uploaded either directly here, or from the Media Library. The plugin also incorporates the audio playback feature during a slideshow of your images. The Premium version lets you add both image and video files to the same gallery.

Image Protection

To protect your images from being downloaded or pirated, Photo Gallery can disable the right-click feature. You can also control who can change or edit the images, galleries and albums.

The pictures themselves can be edited to have watermarks to ensure security.

Photo Gallery has numerous social links and can import images securely from Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter. Also, comments can be restricted by using the CAPTCHA protection.

Widgets and Add-Ons

Apart from the main plugin, Photo Gallery has widgets like Tag Cloud and Dynamic Photo Gallery Tags Cloud which allow the administrator to leverage image tags and text tags. The Photo Gallery Slideshow widget is used to display galleries and albums as widgets and embed them into posts and pages.

Although Photo Gallery is built for WordPress, it can be used for other applications by installing the add-ons available for the Premium version. Some of the available add-ons are:

Facebook Integration
Ecommerce Add-on
Import/Export Add-on

The ecommerce add-on can be used to sell images to your customers on your WooCommerce store via payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal.

Final Take

WordPress Photo Gallery is a completely responsive plugin that provides myriad options to add, edit, display and protect images on your WordPress site.

A simple user interface makes creating galleries as easy as creating posts and pages and Compact and Detailed views present them beautifully. The plugin itself is available free of cost, but the add-ons and other extensions are paid.

Available in over 50 languages, the plugin is localization and translation ready. With customizable views and themes and multi-file support, Photo Gallery has all that you could wish for in a photo management plugin for WordPress.

WP-Members- the Versatile Membership Management Plugin for WordPress

June 6, 2016 by Pranoti Panchwagh Leave a Comment

Protecting website content is always a smart idea from the security and the marketing point of view. All WordPress posts and pages can be viewed by everyone however, by default. To manage and protect your content and make it available for only selected people (read members) a membership plugin can be handy.

WordPress does have a simpler option of making posts private or public protected, to secure your content but this option is unfeasible in many ways.

Firstly, you would have to set different passwords for every post you create and maintain a database for the same and secondly, give your selected users all these passwords and expect them to keep them straight all the time! You can see the impracticality of this option if you have a large number of posts and subscribers.

Sidestepping this hassle is possible with the help of a membership plugin.

WP-Members is one of the oldest membership management plugins for WordPress and one of the most popular ones, as its 70,000+ downloads attest to.

WP-Members might seem spartan in the features it offers; but it fulfills beautifully, all the basic requirements of a membership plugin.

Let us discuss these features in greater detail.

Plugin Features

Completely Scalable

WP-Members integrates completely with every possible theme without necessitating any changes in it. It can be scaled as required so that content can be displayed completely or partially. There are several stylesheets available that can be used to change the look and feel of the Registration forms for the given theme. Customs stylesheets can be added too.

The plugin lets you block and unblock several posts simultaneously. A clean user interface lets you find settings quickly and easily. Moreover, WP-Members generates automatic suggestions that let you know if your content is being exposed through any other channels.

Variable Registration Fields

WP-Members has inbuilt registration fields like name, e-mail, telephone number, etc. Additionally, it also allows for customization and integration of new fields into your registration form. The forms have a drag and drop interface and the field order can be changed easily.

This helps you make the site uniquely yours and prevents visitors from having to move from page to page for completing the registration process.

Selective Page Creation

The plugin does not inherently create Login, User Profile and Registration pages; instead it asks you if these are to be embedded within existing ones.

You can create a dedicated page for logging in of course, but adding these to your Blog page or Home Page provides a quicklink for converting readers to members. Several other shortcodes for creating different pages are also available.

Plentiful Integrations

WP-Members has over a 100 hooks and filters for adding every function you need. The core plugin is very light and works on add-ons and modules to leverage advanced functionalities. Some of the integrations available include:

The MailChimp integration plugin for generating newsletters to be sent to your subscribers
Invite Codes plugin for add a Invitation-Only criteria for exclusive content
The PayPal Subscription add-on for integrating payment gateways with your site
The Logged In Menus creation plugin for creating various, dynamic menus which are configured to display differently for members and visitors.

Besides these, WP-Members supports several other plugins and premium add-ons which can be downloaded from their support site. These let you add only the necessary functionalities instead of overburdening your site with advanced features that you might never even require.

Sidebar Login Widget

The sidebar login widget is a testament to how user-friendly WP-Members is. In addition to your separate, dedicated login page, the plugin allows you to add a sidebar login or registration widget to all your pages. It intuitively displays the login field inline with your content and is also localization ready.

Great Documentation

To say the plugin is well-documented would be an understatement. WP-Members has extensive documentation for everything, from setting up and installation to using filters and hooks efficiently. This includes a Quick Start Guide, a Complete Users’ Guide and FAQ’s. Additionally, it also has help topics added in a sidebar on the WordPress interface so that documentation can be accessed from the site itself.

Everything said and done, WP-Members does what it does, perfectly.

However, it does have some shortcomings when compared to the features offered by newer plugins:

WP-Members cannot be used to hide content absolutely. It always displays an excerpt from your post, to which complete access is granted after registration.
It does not support multiple subscriptions, tiered membership plans or concurrent memberships.
Content cannot be dripped out to users or displayed for trial periods.
WP-Members has limited payment gateway integrations and ecommerce support.

Conclusion

WP-Members is an excellent option for premium content websites, clubs, newsletters and organizations with minimal requirements. It is an easy-to-install, lightweight plugin that has all the basic functionalities one could ask for in a membership plugin, plus a great support system.

If a standard, scalable, content protection plugin is what you are looking for, WP-Members is the right choice for you.

Comment to let us know your thoughts about WP-Members, or about any other membership plugins you would like to recommend!

Perfecting the Art of WordPress Plugin Development

June 2, 2016 by Namrata Leave a Comment

WordPress is the most popular Content Management System.

We love it not only because it’s easy to use, but because it’s easy to build upon as well.

We’ve built over 25 plugins on WordPress, which we own, and several others for our clients.

Our approach to plugin development has matured over the years.

For those starting out with plugin development, the Plugin Handbook should be your coding bible. It teaches you the ‘how’ of building a plugin on WordPress. It contains everything you need to know when coding a plugin.

But of course beyond coding, there’s more.

To make your WordPress plugin user-friendly, bug free, maintainable, extendable, there are a few processes you need to follow!

These include employing suitable design, following coding conventions, optimizing the code, testing it and so on.

Some of you might already be aware of these.

But for those of you who aren’t and are looking to improve your current plugin development process, this article can be a great start. 😀

Few of the basics mentioned here, are present in the plugin developer handbook; the others- we’ve accumulated from our coding experience over the years.

So, without further ado, sit back, turn zen mode on, and read away!

#1 Coding Standards Do Not End at Naming Conventions

I can’t stress enough on the importance of coding standards during plugin development, or development of any code for that matter. The reason for following guidelines is simple, they prevent silly errors from being made and makes code easy to maintain.

Whether you adhere to predefined standards, or have company specific guidelines here are a few conventions you need to follow:

Naming Conventions

Naming conventions are aimed to make the code readable, maintainable and secure. They are needed to prevent clashes with other plugins. You need to add a prefix for all functions, classes, file names and namespaces to ensure that compatibility issues don’t creep up.

Folder Structure

Separating out JS, CSS, admin files, media, should be part of your design process. When working on a project remember to separate out these files even if it is a one page solution.

Formatting Code

Formatting your code should be a matter of habit.

If not, there are editors which help.

Formatting your code makes it readable. In attempt to minify JS, CSS and HTML files, we tend to remove the white spaces and code comments. While, this might be needed for large files, try to keep it to a minimum.

Data Validation

Always validate data that’s being received or sent. Begin by checking the format or casting it to the right data type. Sanitize the values based on the type of data being output or input. Based on your scenario, you could also check data being input against trusted values.

If you can’t decide on a coding standard to adopt or are working on code that’s going to be added to the core, stick to WordPress Coding Standards.

At WisdmLabs, we follow PSR-2 coding standards.

Remember, following coding conventions should be the way you code and not an additional step.

#2 Make Code Modular

Modular programming is the process of subdividing a computer program into separate sub-programs.

– Techopedia

To facilitate the development of large-scale applications, object oriented programming is preferred. It makes the software modular by decomposing it into smaller pieces.

It makes the code maintainable, since testing changes and fixes can be limited to a module and do not need to affect the entire system.

#2.1 Use Design Patterns (if Needed)

Image Source: Pinterest

Design patterns are cool!

They truly are.

They make the development process simple, and make your code. Based on the problem at hand, you need to design a pattern that fits. For example abstract factory, observer, template method, MVC, are popularly employed.

Now, I agree not all plugins might need you to implement a design pattern. But plugins with large amounts of code need a proper design in place.

#3 Design Scalable Code

Your plugin’s going to grow.

The functionality is going to improve, the user base will increase.

When architecting a plugin you have to plan the code for now, and for the features you will be implementing in the future.

Optimize Your Database Queries

Database queries are expensive.

When performing an operation that retrieves data from the database, try to get as much information as possible using minimum number of queries.

The more optimized the queries and database tables, the more scalable is your application, because it can handle a lot of data. You can have your own file structure to maintain your plugin’s files. But the communication with the database should always be smooth and optimized… Depending on how scalable your application can be, you should decide whether to go with a standalone plugin or with an add-on architecture.

– Sumit Pore, on architecting a plugin. (Read the entire interview here)

Build a Scalable Database Architecture

Say your plugin needs to save values in the database. In such a scenario, there’s always the question of whether to use WordPress tables or to create your own.

In case a few options have to be saved, or meta information needs to be saved, you could consider using WordPress tables.

But, if multiple interlinked values need to be saved, then you should consider building your own table (or tables).

Limit the Use of Expensive Operations

Similar to database queries several other operations are expensive and can affect the performance of your plugin, and in effect the website it will be added to.

For example, when you need to connect to remote servers, store large data, load large files. In this case, optimize the use of these operations to improve the system’s overall performance.

#4 There is no such thing as ‘Too Secure’ Code

We all know this. Security is a serious concern.

When building your WordPress plugin make sure you take care of security measures. Some of these are:

Check for user capabilities when displaying/saving settings
Using nonce verification for form submissions
Sanitizing inputs before executing database queries
Properly escaping outputs to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks
Preventing direct file access to plugin files by checking the existence of ABSPATH constant
Preventing direct listing of files in your plugin’s directory, by adding a blank ‘index.php’ file in the main plugin file (and under every sub-directory)

Always consider security factors when writing database queries. For example, you have to ensure that your SQL queries are injection free… Use nonce for form submissions to avoid cross site scripting… All inputs should be sanitized and the output should be secured by escaping user data.

– Praveen Chauhan, when asked about coding practices (here’s Praveen’s complete interview)

#5 No Code is 100% Bug Free

Image Source: Google

Testing the code is as important as building it.

Honestly, there’s no point toiling for hundreds of hours, to build a plugin that’s buggy. It’s just going to hurt your users and affect your brand.

For simple functionality, manual or user testing can suffice.

A complex plugin demands more. You could add unit-testing, stress testing, integration testing, acceptance testing and so on, to your process.

Simple checks include:

Checking for warnings and errors, in debug mode (you could use a plugin like Debug Bar to log information)
Use plugins such as Query Monitor and P3 to test slow queries/HTTP requests and plugin performance

#5.1 Code Reviews Help

See the thing about code reviews is that you get to see your code through the mind of a fellow developer. Apart from identifying bugs, new ideas, optimization techniques might spring up.

Do add code reviews to your development process, if you have the liberty to do so.

#6 Make the Code Contribution Friendly

Now, most of us build code keeping the end user in mind.

But developers are going to work with your plugin too, and there is a possibility they might want to build upon it.

Encourage contribution by making your code extensible- add custom actions and filters in your plugin’s code.

Having the needed hooks in place makes it easy for fellow developers to extend your code, and makes it simple for you to customize the functionality for certain users or build add-ons.

All of this without touching the core!

Think about the times when you’ve worked with other plugins and found it easier to customize when there was an appropriate hook in place.

Custom hooks = Extensible code = Good development 🙂

#6.1 Make the Plugin Multisite & Localization Ready

To grow your user base, make sure you follow simple coding techniques to make your plugin’s code multisite compatible (well, at least error free when installed on multisite), and localization ready.

#7 Maintainability trumps Optimization

Plugin maintenance is not just about bug fixes, it’s about providing updates, and optimizing your code.

Optimization is good. It is. I support it.

But sometimes developers tend to go overboard with code optimization.

Remember, the mantra is, optimize the code, don’t complicate it.

If I were in a situation where I had to choose between writing code that’s maintainable or optimizing it, I’d choose the prior.

This is because, we work in a team. When you’re part of a team, more than one person might be working on the plugin. You don’t want to sit and explain the code to different people all the time.

You might not remember code you had written a few months ago.

Comment all the things – well commented code is happy code.

– Hugh Lashbrooke, on must-follow coding practices

#7.1 Handling Major Updates

Recently, we completely re-wrote the entire Edwiser Bridge plugin and its extensions.

When we wanted to roll-out the update, we realized we needed to add an ‘update warning notification’ to existing users, just to be on the safer side.

But then again, this could only be possible if we had provided support to display a warning notification in the current version of the plugin.

We hadn’t! 😮

Lesson learnt- Add support for Update Notices! (## Upgrade Notice ## in readme files)

The next task was about safely strip out legacy code.

Marking options/code depreciated is one way of ensuring that users/developers move to new settings/hooks. But there isn’t a thumb rule on when to completely get rid of code that’s no longer being supported.

You need to make sure that the least number of users are affected when code is re-factored.

#8 Documentation. Documentation. Documentation.

The main thing is to document your code, both for your benefit and the benefit of other developers who look at your code. A year from now you won’t remember what a bit of code you wrote was supposed to do, but if it’s nicely documented, your future self will thank you!

– Carrie Dils, on coding practices.

Your plugin’s not ready until you’ve documented it.

And trust me, no amount of documentation is enough. So go all out; create a user guide, add FAQs, create videos, help your users every way you can.

But at the least, create a readme.txt file.

#9 Using Intelligence to Improve Options

Well, you can always take things a step further, and improve your plugin with data you receive from users.

Learn how users interact with the settings, which options are not used; send out feedback forms to gain intelligence on features users are looking forward too and more 🙂

The Secret Ingredients for a Great Plugin

A user interface that fits in naturally with the WordPress dashboard
An experience that is intuitive and takes little to learn
Proper sanitization, validation, and security of data that it manages
Properly sets itself up and cleans up after itself upon installation and uninstallation
Solves a problem that the end-user is experiencing with their WordPress-based site.

– Tom McFarlin, on ingredients for a great plugin.

Remember, this article is not a be all and end all guide for the plugin development process. It’s aimed towards helping you refine your development process.

So the benefit of readers, you are invited to join me and contribute to this list 🙂