August 31, 2023 — WordPress has been upping its HTML game, and the new HTML API is enabling new ways of reliably working with and modifying HTML.

Maybe you know this vicious cycle: ever-expanding regular expression patterns, HTML edge cases, and growing complexity of matching code ends up obscuring what you set out to do in the first place, and still isn’t reliable. Let’s talk about how this game is changing, what we can do today, and what is coming in the near future.

We’ll start with some quick demos of using the new HTML API interfaces, then briefly discuss some of the limits of the new systems, and finish with a time for questions and discussion, so bring your curiosity.

Topics to be covered

– What can the HTML API do today?

– What will the HTML API be able to do with the 6.4 release?

– When is the HTML API not appropriate?

– How fast and efficient is the HTML API?

– How reliable is the HTML API?

July 26, 2023 — Styling blocks: empowering users with CSS custom properties

It’s important not to be too prescriptive when developing blocks, and to allow users to have as much control as possible over the look and feel of the blocks on their websites.

In this edition of WordPress Developer Hours we talk about CSS custom properties (also known as CSS variables) and look at how you can leverage them in blocks to give users more control over the styling and presentation of their sites.

First up, Michael Burridge presents a solution to a common problem, i.e. how to allow users to have control over the styling of inner elements in blocks which have complex markup. While it’s relatively simple to allow users to style a block at the root level, this presentation looks at how you can assign the values stored in block attributes to CSS custom properties and use them to apply user-defined styling to child-elements in both static and dynamic blocks.

Then, for the second presentation of the session, Justin Tadlock shows you how to integrate CSS custom properties into your block stylesheets that play nicely with themes. The technique used integrates block plugins and theme.json while still giving preference to user choice.

Whether you’re just starting out with block development or have built dozens of blocks already, this WordPress Developer Hours session is for you, and you’re sure to learn a ton.

April 18, 2023 — This Developer Hours session features a live product demo of the Interactivity API presented by Michal Czaplinski. Michal is one of the developers on the team that brought the Interactivity API to fruition. Following the demo Michal, answered questions posed by the attendees.

April 17, 2023 — This Developer Hours session features a live product demo of the Interactivity API presented by Mario Santos. Mario is one of the developers on the team that brought the Interactivity API to fruition. Following the demo Mario and Luis Herranz, another member of the development team, answer questions posed by the attendees.

January 21, 2020 — Why Progressive Web App for WordPress? – Imran Sayed

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December 30, 2019 — Being a lead developer not only means being responsible for clean and optimized code, it also means mentoring and teaching junior developers. This is applicable for all technology fields. Having been a karate sensei for over 9 years, come learn how I took cues from my time at the dojo, and applied it to helping junior team members. From learning styles to patience, and to self-confidence, much can be learned from the martial arts.

June 19, 2019 — It used to be that WordPress required a very different toolset than other types of modern PHP apps. Now, however, PHP developers can use many of the same tools to work with WordPress that they would use with Laravel or any other PHP framework.

In this talk, we’ll look at how to modernize development of WordPress sites by using Bedrock to give us a modern stack, WP-CLI to interface with WordPress through the command line or even create scripts to run operations, how to use composer and plugins specifically designed for developers, and ways to deploy WordPress that are easier and more stable than FTP. In addition, we’ll talk about new considerations that Javascript is bringing to the WordPress ecosystem.

Come take a look at how the WordPress ecosystem is maturing in 2019 and beyond!

June 2, 2019 — WordPress is probably the easiest CMS you can develop for. Its simplest plugins consist of a single function and some header data, and anyone with determination and a grasp of programming basics can create their own.

But there’s a gap between mastering technical essentials and acquiring a degree of wisdom about what makes for a successful plugin or theme. This talk offers advice to developers about pitfalls to avoid and ways they can create better plugins or themes.

May 15, 2019 — It’s not strange to know the fact that many people suffer from stage fright and mass fear or anxiety when it comes to public speaking. This implies with IT personnel, developers or designers as well. Public speaking skills can be a booster to your IT career and it may take you a long way

April 12, 2019 — As the world becomes more interconnected, there are multple opportunities for freelance developers. You may be thinking that striking out on your own is easy. The truth is that there are a number of factors to be aware of, and the modern freelance developer needs to be prepared in order to succeed.

Starting 2016 I left the world of employment to become a full time freelancer. I was fortunate in I had another source of income, but as a husband and father of two, with all the usual bills to pay, I was not prepared for the effect working for myself would have on my mental state, my health or my family.

Towards the end of 2016 I joined Codeable, a freelancing platform for WordPress. Where Codeable was different from all other platforms was that it held quality and customer service/communication as the most important factors of freelance development. Since joining Codeable I was able to turn my work situation around such that I now earn 3x as much as I did when I left employment and I am in the favourable position of being able to turn work away.

While Codeable had a big part in bringing me leads to quality work, it was the lessons I’ve learned since joining Codeable about being a successfull freelancer that are the focus of this topic. Being a part of the Codeable community means I have learned so much from other experienced freelancers about things like work/life balance, how to communicate with clients pre hire, how to prevent scope creep and how to manage time and projects on my own.

My talk will be split into two parts, The first will be around the 1st year of my time as a freelancer, scrounging for whatever work came my way because I wasnt in a position to say no, essentially all the things I was doing wrong. The second will be around my second year, when I learned from Codeable, and other Codeable developers, and how these lessons lead me to where I am today.

Presentation Slides »