WordPress Quick Tips

Remove title attribute from WordPress images

Vincent — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:05:06 +0000

I use default WordPress functions to insert images very often. Functions like the_post_thumbnail or wp_get_attachment_image are used in almost every project I do.

By default WordPress adds a title to all of the images printed by these functions, and the title usually is nothing more than the filename.

The result is a lot of title attributes which are pretty much useless and just distracting (while hovering an image for instance).

But thankfully WordPress filters saves us as they often do.

Filter wp_get_attachment_image_attributes and unset the title attribute.

function mytheme_wp_get_attachment_image_attributes( $attr ) {

unset($attr['title']);

 return $attr;
}
add_filter( 'wp_get_attachment_image_attributes', 'mytheme_wp_get_attachment_image_attributes' );

After that you should be set!

Filed under: Intermediate Tagged: filter, filters, the_post_thumbnail, title attribute, wp_get_attachment_image, wp_get_attachment_image_attributes

Different headers and footers using the $name argument

Vincent — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:57:27 +0000

Both the_header and the_footer functions except a $name argument which allows you to specify other headers than the default header.php and footer.php.

Example:

WordPress would then look for header-special.php in your theme directory. If you want to specify a different footer file it works the same way.

I rarely see it used but it can be quite useful, perhaps if you want a “clean” header with just the and .

Read more in the WordPress Codex:
get_header
get_footer

Filed under: Beginner Tagged: get_footer, get_header, templates

Modifying the billing and shipping fields in Jigoshop

Vincent — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 15:50:32 +0000

I recently discovered Jigoshop. A very nice, lightweight and well coded e-Commerce plugin for WordPress.

After some experimenting I found that the checkout and it’s fields for billing and shipping information where defined in the code and could not be modified in the settings.

It was a problem since they had set State as a required field, which most countries outside of US don’t have. In their forums there were many threads regarding this subject, and the answer the support staff gave was to modify the plugin files (!!) which you never should do.

So here’s an update safe to do it.

Create a plugin or add this to your theme’s functions.php


function jigo_mod_wp() {
 if ( class_exists( 'jigoshop_checkout' ) ) {
 $billing_fields = array(
 array( 'name'=>'billing-first_name', 'label' => __('First Name', 'jigoshop'), 'placeholder' => __('First Name', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true, 'class' => array('form-row-first') ),
 array( 'name'=>'billing-last_name', 'label' => __('Last Name', 'jigoshop'), 'placeholder' => __('Last Name', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true, 'class' => array('form-row-last') ),
 array( 'name'=>'billing-address', 'label' => __('Address', 'jigoshop'), 'placeholder' => __('Address', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true ),
 array( 'name'=>'billing-city', 'label' => __('City', 'jigoshop'), 'placeholder' => __('City', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true ),
 array( 'validate' => 'postcode', 'format' => 'postcode', 'name'=>'billing-postcode', 'label' => __('Postcode', 'jigoshop'), 'placeholder' => __('Postcode', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true, 'class' => array('form-row-first') ),
 array( 'type'=> 'country', 'name'=>'billing-country', 'label' => __('Country', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true, 'class' => array('form-row-last') ),
 array( 'name'=>'billing-email', 'validate' => 'email', 'label' => __('Email Address', 'jigoshop'), 'placeholder' => __('***@yourdomain.com', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true )
 );
 jigoshop_checkout::instance()->billing_fields = $billing_fields;

 $shipping_fields = array(
 array( 'name'=>'shipping-first_name', 'label' => __('First Name', 'jigoshop'), 'placeholder' => __('First Name', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true, 'class' => array('form-row-first') ),
 array( 'name'=>'shipping-last_name', 'label' => __('Last Name', 'jigoshop'), 'placeholder' => __('Last Name', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true, 'class' => array('form-row-last') ),
 array( 'name'=>'shipping-address', 'label' => __('Address', 'jigoshop'), 'placeholder' => __('Address', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true ),
 array( 'name'=>'shipping-city', 'label' => __('City', 'jigoshop'), 'placeholder' => __('City', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true ),
 array( 'validate' => 'postcode', 'format' => 'postcode', 'name'=>'billing-postcode', 'label' => __('Postcode', 'jigoshop'), 'placeholder' => __('Postcode', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true, 'class' => array('form-row-first') ),
 array( 'type'=> 'country', 'name'=>'shipping-country', 'label' => __('Country', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true, 'class' => array('form-row-last') ),
 array( 'name'=>'shipping-email', 'validate' => 'email', 'label' => __('Email Address', 'jigoshop'), 'placeholder' => __('***@yourdomain.com', 'jigoshop'), 'required' => true )
 );
 jigoshop_checkout::instance()->shipping_fields = $shipping_fields;
 }
} add_action ( 'wp', 'jigo_mod_wp' );

Modify the array and add/remove the fields you want. Some of the items have an array item called required which controls whether a field is required or not.

Always fun to see great plugins that also are pluggable which is a MUST for it to be useful for developers.

Filed under: Advanced Tagged: checkout, jigoshop

WordPress Coding Standards

Vincent — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:14:30 +0000

In a collaborative programming environment it is always good to have a set of coding standards that you follow.

Thankfully, WordPress have coding standards which all developers should try to follow.

If you peek at the WordPress source you will notice that (almost) all code follow this standard, which makes it very easy for other developers to read the code.

Take a look at the section discussing shorthand PHP tags, an issue I have written about previously. Space usage is also a very common mistake among developers. The correct space usage can really improve your code’s readability.

Further reading:
Codex: WordPress Coding Standards

Filed under: Best Practices, Intermediate Tagged: codex, coding standards, php

Custom Post Type Best Practices

Vincent — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 16:15:33 +0000

I have used Custom Post Types in almost every WordPress project I have worked on since the feature was introduced in WordPress 3.0.

When collaborating with other developers you also come across some common mistakes, mistakes that I’ve also made in the past. So I would like to share some things to keep in mind when using Custom Post Types.

The $post_type should always be singular

The codex does not explicitly say it anywhere, but all the Codex examples use singular names for $post_type. This is probably the most common mistake I see developers make. If you want the new post type’s URL to have a plural word in it, you can specify it in the slug argument.

Use a namespace for your post types

This is something that even I haven’t done. But the codex makes a good point in their own best practices section. A conflict can occur between theme and plugin post types if you use a common word as the post type name and it is not prefixed with a namespace. So for instance if your post type is a product, do not simply name is product but rather yournamespace_product.

Remember the template hierarchy when creating specific post type templates

WordPress template hierarchy is great, so please use it! I have seen cases where developers have created a new page with an associated template where they query for the posts instead of simply using the default template file to create an archive page for example.

From the codex:

In the same way that posts are shown on their own page with single.php, custom post types will use single-{posttype}.php if it’s available.

Same thing applies to archive-{posttype}.php. This visual overview of the template hierarchy is something I keep referring to.

Adding custom columns to the admin can be easy!

Joost De Valk provides these code snippets that can come in handy when working with custom post types. Often you also have custom taxonomies or other meta data linked to your post types which you might want to present in the admin. Great post!

Filed under: Best Practices Tagged: codex, coding standards, php, post types

WordCamp San Francisco

Vincent — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:42:48 +0000

This will surely be the event of the year (as far as WordCamp events go).

More information here

Oakwood Creative is hiring a front end developer!

Vincent — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:15:29 +0000

The company I work for is currently hiring a front end developer. So if you’re located in Stockholm, Sweden or willing to relocate you should definitely check it out!

We have put together a small site for you turn into HTML as a work sample, which could be fun as a night activity!

More info here:
http://oakwood.se/jobb (English version)

Tagged: CSS, html, javascript, job

Great Open Graph plugin for WordPress

Vincent — Wed, 18 May 2011 15:59:51 +0000

I recently had to add Open Graph meta tags to a site and hoped a plugin could do the work for me. Open Graph is used on several sites, but most prominently on Facebook.

I found this great and light plugin to do just what I need and not much more.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/opengraph/

I highly recommend it since it is very easy to use and very flexible. The description tag for example, defaults to the site’s description, but I wanted it to display the post excerpt if it was a single post. So I simply filtered the value

function mytheme_opengraph_description($desc){
	global $post;
	if ( is_single() )
		$desc = $post->post_excerpt;

	return $desc;
}
add_filter('opengraph_description', 'mytheme_opengraph_description' );

Very simple!

Filed under: Beginner Tagged: facebook, meta data, meta tags, open graph

Remove all “missing” files from a SVN working copy

Vincent — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 09:18:11 +0000

After upgrading a local installation of WordPress subversion started complaining about missing files, that were deleted during the upgrade.

Since there were a lot of files I searched for an easy way to delete all the missing files at once, and found such a way here.

svn rm $( svn status | sed -e '/^!/!d' -e 's/^!//' )

One of the comments mentions that it doesn’t work with filenames that contains white space, which I haven’t tested.

Filed under: Misc Tagged: missing files, subversion, svn

Add your own CSS classes to tinyMCE

Vincent — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 07:00:02 +0000

The Rich Text Editor (RTE) in WordPress use a JavaScript-library called tinyMCE. It is a widely used library and can be configured in a lot of ways.

WordPress let developers filter the settings to tinyMCE so that it fits your needs.

function mytheme_tiny_mce_before_init($arr){
 $arr['theme_advanced_blockformats'] = 'h2,p,blockquote';
 $arr['theme_advanced_styles'] = 'Leading=leading';

 return $arr;
}
add_filter( 'tiny_mce_before_init', 'mytheme_tiny_mce_before_init' );

function mytheme_mce_buttons($arr){
 return array('bold', 'italic', '|', 'bullist', 'numlist', '|', 'formatselect', 'styleselect', '|', 'link', 'unlink' );
}
add_filter( 'mce_buttons', 'mytheme_mce_buttons' );

These few lines of code changes the buttons in the editor, and also adds a format select and a style select.

From the format select you now can select “Heading 2″, “Blockquote” and “Paragraph”. In the style select you can select “Leading” and your element will get the CSS class leading.

Filed under: Intermediate Tagged: CSS, editor, javascript, tinymce