Category: WordPress

Automating plugin releases to WordPress.org using GitLab CI

I got started in WordPress development as many do, by writing a plugin. It, along with nearly a dozen others that I’ve released in intervening years, don’t require much attention, so I’ve generally neglected even the most-basic of maintenance: confirming each is compatible with the latest WordPress release and updating the readme accordingly. I’ve felt guilty about this for some time now, but it wasn’t until this weekend that that guilt compelled me to action.

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Sorry VaultPress

PHP’s open_basedir is one way I isolate the various PHP applications running on my VPS. Within the directory that holds this WordPress install, there exists a symlink from when I relocated my presentation slides from https://ethitter.com/slides/ to https://slides.ethitter.com/. VaultPress doesn’t particularly appreciate this:

PHP Warning: file_exists(): open_basedir restriction in effect. File(/.../network/public_html/slides) is not within the allowed path(s).

Letting VaultPress access the directory that the symlink points to would defeat the purpose of using open_basedir, so instead, my VPS continually frustrates VaultPress.

What I Wish I’d Known When I Started–WordCamp Orange County 2016

This morning, I delivered an extended version of this talk, which I first presented at WordCamp Winnipeg 2015. This session explored WordPress functionality that new developers often overlook, as well as some “gotchas” about Core behavior. As a 90-minute workshop, extensive discussion was encouraged, and successful–so much so that I only made it about halfway through the slides. But, as I said at the outset, the slides were more a suggestion to guide the discussion.

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Why I use an editorial calendar

Someone asked recently why I use an editorial calendar for this site, with its low volume and single author. The reason is simple, and slightly amusing: to avoid publishing too frequently.

I’ve tried blogging challenges, and I’ve worked to post daily and maintain a streak as awarded through WordPress.com notifications.

I also found that the streak induced substantial stress to post daily, even when I had nothing worthwhile to share. Thanks to Edit Flow‘s calendar, I ensure that I post on no more than two consecutive days, as a defense against needing to publish daily.

Laugh if you want to, but this strategy’s enabled me to publish regularly since December 2015. Previously, one post per quarter was my about average.

Redirecting to your latest WordPress post

I had some time recently, and the idea struck me, so I put together a basic plugin that redirects /latest/ to my site’s latest post. Try it out:

Called ETH Redirect to Latest Post, the plugin is on WordPress.org now, as well as GitHub and my GitLab instance.

The plugin is ready for latest to be translated, but more importantly, it adds a field to your site’s Permalinks screen where you can set the slug.

Strangely, I couldn’t find a Core ticket for such a feature, and nothing turned up in the plugins repository, either.