November 14, 2024 — When site owners go to the plugins section of WP-Admin, they are met with a cryptic list. What are all these things supposed to be doing, and how did they get there?
Do you really need “Mario’s Magic Slideshow”? Will your site break if you deactivate it or delete it? Or worse, is it malware?
In this talk, I’ll show you how you can make informed decisions about your plugins. I’ll also present alternatives to commonly used plugins, and ways to trim your plugin count down, resulting in a leaner, cleaner site.
Presented byBen Dunkle

October 4, 2023 — I could do either of these, depending on which sounds more engaging and/or where you want to add more specific content:

That age-old question: Should designers know how to code? While the answer is still a subject of hot debate, pursuing a “no-code” development approach has been my main focus since I’ve been working with WordPress’ default block editor, AKA Gutenberg.

In this talk, I’ll share my experiences and provide insights that will help others who are new to Gutenberg, or considering it as their primary tool for building sites. The audience will be better prepared to make workflow decisions crucial to their productivity.

May 22, 2023 — Child themes have always been an important part of the WordPress theme developer’s workflow. With the dawning of FSE (Full Site Editing) and block-based themes, developers are finding that old approaches don’t work anymore, and asking important questions: Where should customization take place? What is this theme.json thing? And, do we even need child themes anymore?
In this talk, I’ll address these questions and propose best practices for how to handle child themes and site customization.

July 26, 2019 — WordPress is a great place for visual artists to share their work, but getting things set up can be challenging. In this talk, I’ll cover everything from preparing imagery of artwork for the web, useful built-in WordPress functions, recommended plugins, and improving the user’s viewing experience. I will also demonstrate my free WordPress theme, optimized for artists.

May 6, 2019 — WordPress is a great place for visual artists to share their work, but getting things set up can be challenging. In this talk, I’ll cover everything from preparing imagery of artwork for the web, useful built-in WordPress functions, recommended plugins, and improving the user’s viewing experience. I will also demonstrate my free WordPress theme, optimized for artists.

November 29, 2017 — WordPress is a great place for artists to share their work, but getting things set up can be challenging. In this talk, I’ll cover everything from preparing imagery of artwork for the web, using the built in WordPress Gallery functionality, and adding lightbox functionality to improve the viewing experience.
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September 30, 2016 — We’re going to step into the process of starting your own WordPress theme by taking a basic html and css site. The main goal is to show folks that making your own isn’t difficult with a little knowledge of HTML & CSS, and diving in is the scariest part, and shouldn’t be. If you’ve ever developed a website from wireframes or mockups to html, turning it into a WordPress theme is just a few extra steps. Watch how Andy and Ben do it, and take your web skills to the next level with your own custom theme. Even if building custom themes isn’t a future goal, getting in and doing this can help when editing other themes and understanding the inner workings of WordPress.

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July 31, 2015 — He’ll discuss the different scenarios that we encounter when teaching WordPress to our clients, friends, and students. He’ll offer strategies for optimal sharing of our knowledge to others.

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November 2, 2014 — Dashicons, the icon font custom made for the WordPress admin, could use some new icons. Vote for the next one here: https://bendunkle.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/vote-for-the-next-dashicon/ . In 5 minutes, I’ll crank out a design of the winner, an demonstrate my process and stylistic approach.