August 20, 2016 — “3.14 things I didn’t know about CSS

This talk will showcase a series of obscure CSS fun facts, such
as CSS syntax gimmicks and quirks, weird tricks that involve CSS in one way or another, and security vulnerabilities that are enabled by (ab)using CSS in unexpected ways.”

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August 19, 2016 — The importance of integrating AMP with WordPress and how to set it up and test it.

August 19, 2016 — Learn how to lock down your WordPress website so that you become less of a target for hacking, defacement, or data theft. Using freely available tools, you’ll find out how to thwart cyber attacks and build trust with your visitors.

Take aways:

Becoming less of a target for hackers.
Hardening WordPress websites with security plugins.
Other tools and tips for website security.

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August 19, 2016 — *This is a 15-minute Lightning Talk*

So many developers avoid the command line and they are missing out on so much power. With the addition of the WP-CLI to our set of tools, they are missing out on even more. In this talk I will go through some of the amazing things you can do with the WP-CLI to help work more effectively, efficiently, and automate your life as a WordPress developer. I hope to inspire you to jump into the command line, begin learning the WP-CLI, and start improving your life, today!
Take Aways:
1) Grok the CLI

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August 19, 2016 — WordPress 4.4 was a milestone release, with the addition of both responsive images and a REST API. In this session, I’ll demonstrate API endpoints and JavaScript I’ve written for using the REST API and AJAX to load responsive background images into sites.

This technique has several advantages: first, using the background-image property is more semantic and powerful than traditional s. Second, you can have a dynamic background on an otherwise cached page. Third, you have more information available about how your user is viewing your site than just their viewport width.

The session will include three short demos: First, a basic demonstration of the technique. Second, using array_rand on the server to pull in a random background image. And as a finale, using the ambient light API in OSX Firefox to load in “day time” and “night time” images.

Take aways:

The addition of responsive images into the WordPress core was powerful, but it doesn’t solve every problem and isn’t always semantic.
Using AJAX to load images has many benefits because you can know more about the client.
The WordPress REST API can be used for more than you realize.

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August 19, 2016 — Rewrite rules are how WordPress creates clean/pretty URIs from URL query parameters. When your new page or blog post automatically gets a human-friendly URL, this is provided by a rewrite rule, which itself is using WordPress’s Rewrite API. In this presentation Jonathan Daggerhart will go over the basics of the Rewrite API, create a few new rewrite rules as examples, and make use of the data the Rewrite API provides the global WP_Query object when it matches a rule’s pattern. Hopefully by the end of the class, you’ll have a good understanding of what the Rewrite API is, how it works, and some use-cases where it could be beneficial.

August 19, 2016 — I’ve gone from trying to hack plugins to do what I want to actually developing my own from scratch over the past year. It’s challenging but very doable. This session will touch on the process I went through to become a much better WordPress engineer and a better coder. The presentation will discuss changing your thinking process when approaching WordPress development. We’ll touch on WordPress coding standards, how actions and filters work, and why they are so valuable. We’ll end by actually building a simple plugin step-by-step, in under 10 minutes.

Take aways:

Attendees will leave knowing they can improve their skills and how to start that process.
An understanding of why it’s important to develop in WordPress using the proper methods and not hacking it together.
A live demo of how simple developing a small plugin can be.

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August 19, 2016 — WordPress’ built-in search functionality leaves a lot to be desired. A LOT! Why is the default search so bad? What are the options for making search on your site better? In this talk I’ll cover a range of solutions for improving the search results of your site and integrating with WordPress.

Take aways:

How WordPress’ default search works under the hood.
What are some ways to make WordPress Search better.
What are key features when evaluating different search technologies.

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August 19, 2016 — Opening Remarks / Keynote

August 19, 2016 — I’m going to be speaking about some of the more popular JS frameworks, Angular, Backbone, and React, and show some real-world examples of how easily they can interact with the API.

I’ll be showing (and possibly live-coding) basic examples with each library and fetching the 10 latest posts from the WP-API.

Take aways:

The WP-API isn’t that scary, it’s so easy to get/send stuff if you’ve got JSON skills (which aren’t that hard).
JavaScript frameworks all have different ways to do things, but similar stuff going on in the background.
At the end of the day, React rocks (it’s the best), but it might not be the best solution for your project …

Presentation Slides »