wpMail.me wpMail.me issue#131 - The weekly WordPress newsletter. No spam, no nonsense. - November 21, 2013
News & Articles
WordPress 3.8 Beta 1 (wordpress.org) The first beta of the 3.8 is now available, and the next dates to watch out for are code freeze on December 5th and a final release on December 12th.
Create & Publish Your Own Android or iOS WordPress App (wpmu.org) We’ve been customizing the WordPress iOS and Android apps for Edublogs for a while now… and we figured it was about time we took the inevitable next step and provided WPMU DEV members with the code, tools and support they need to do that too!
WCK Custom Fields API (www.cozmoslabs.com) You can forget about error handling, no extra verifications being necessary when using the API functions.
This article is just a quick glimpse of what can be achieved using the new WCK Custom Fields API.
The $64,000 Question: WordPress.com or WordPress.org? (dailypost.wordpress.com) If you’ve been using WordPress.com for very long, you’ve likely run into some variation of the grand “com v. org” debate. And it’s possible that any explanation you received raised more questions than it answered. So, what’s the deal with the two WordPresses?
Should You Test That? (yoast.com) This review will give you practical guidance in the changes you should make to improve the conversion of your website. Furthermore, the review will give you tips to set up your own A/B-tests to fine-tune and optimize the conversion even further.
Evaluating Plugin Weight and Performance (torquemag.io) Keep in mind, many plugins will have a healthy mix of front-end and back-end functionality. Make sure to check a plugin all the way through to ensure that it is doing the responsible thing.
BuddyPress 1.9 Beta 1 Released and Ready For Testing (www.wptavern.com) BuddyPress 1.9 Beta 1 was released over the weekend. You know what that means: some very exciting improvements to BuddyPress are right around the corner after a short period of testing. BuddyPress users are encouraged to fire up their development environments to start testing the beta.
Gravity Forms Simple Drip - Autoresponder Addon (codecanyon.net) Gravity Forms Simple Drip Autoresponders Addon for WordPress is the easiest way to create a simple autoresponder campaign – a.k.a. email drip campaigns – using a plugin you probably already have!
An Introduction to WordPress Theme Anatomy for Beginners (managewp.com) Seasoned WordPress users are pretty familiar with the concept of themes. They allow you to customize your site and swap out functions and features as you see fit. There are tons of themes to choose from, both free and premium, that give you robust options.
How To Clean Up wp_head() Without A Plugin (www.wprecipes.com) WordPress adds a lot of stuff through wp_head() hook included in most WordPress themes. Some of this stuff is useful, but some other isn’t. Here’s a quick recipe to clean up the wp_head() easily without using a plugin.
Redirect Users to Custom Pages by Role (wp.tutsplus.com) WordPress is being used more and more as a web application framework. With that use case comes a bunch of extra circumstances that WordPress doesn’t cover. Do you really want your application users to see the WordPress admin?
Using A Real WordPress Cron Job For Increased Reliability (stevengliebe.com) Sometimes it’s useful to setup a real cron job to ensure that scheduled WordPress core and plugin maintenance gets done. There are things that happen automatically behind the scenes that keep your site running as expected (publishing scheduled posts, for example). In some cases these tasks may not be running reliably. Here’s how to solve that.