Wp Builds

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 19th September 2022.

So if you've kept up with the latest developments in WordPress then you'll have heard the words / phrases 'Gutenberg', 'FSE', 'Block Themes', 'Blocks' and a lot more. You'll also likely have heard of our guest on the podcast today, Rich Tabor. He's been in the WordPress space for many years working in the theme space, but now he's shifted over to all the 'new things', and is making waves. He's got some monumental projects on the go (see the links on the WP Builds post for this episode), and is on the podcast today to talk about where WordPress is at right now and what he's hoping for in the future. It's a lovely interview with a very thoughtful guest, and if you're trying out the 'new WordPress things', or are just looking for a reason why you should, then this episode is for you!

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 12th September 2022.

Welcome to another in the Business Bootcamp series where we relearn everything we know about building WordPress sites, and running a web design business from start to finish. We are on Season 4 which is a short season looking at training clients. Today we are talking about website documentation and support. When we hand over a website, are we obliged to support it into the future, or can we just hand it over and be done with it? If we are going to support it, is there some standard of documentation we need to provide? Paper based, videos, in-person. I suspect that we've all got different ways of handling this, so check out the podcast to see what we do. BONUS, it's a short episode and you'll be done with it in no time!

If you've used WordPress for any length of time and use plugins, it's highly likely that you've seen notifications in the backend which you did not expect. Perhaps they were ads, or upsells for things which are already installed. WordPress notifications serve a purpose. They are there for a very good reason, to notify you of things that you ought to be aware of. You just published a post. Something needs updating. That kind of thing. But not all the notifications that we see are the kind that you might call 'essential' or 'useful'. This goes back to the fact that the WordPress notifications system was not really designed to be used in the variety of ways that ingenious developers have been able to use them. It's a bit like cookies. They we created to maintain state on a website, and then developers figured out a whole raft of other uses for them, some of them somewhat undesirable. The system was created and then it was warped and reused in alternative ways. So it is with WordPress notifications. Brian Coords

Welcome to another in the Business Bootcamp series where we relearn everything we know about building WordPress sites, and running a web design business from start to finish. We are taking contrasting approaches to getting our new businesses running and our first client’s site built. Today we're talking about what you, or don't do when handing over the site in terms of training. Do you prepare reams and reams of documents which carefully outline the ways to achieve all-the-things, and hand it to them in a big binder? Do you make videos for the client so that they can see what they need to do? Perhaps you react after the fact and wait until the client comes to you with specific queries, which you answer one at a time? Or maybe, just maybe, you don't do much at all and hope that the client figures it all out for themselves and leaves you alone to get on with the next website? Whatever it is, we'd love for you to listen to the podcast and then leave us a comment about how your process differs or aligns with ours

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 15th August 2022.

On the podcast today we have WPCodeBox plugin developer Ovidiu Maghetiu, and he's here to explain how it works and what it can do, and it can do... a lot! WPCodeBox is turning out to be one of those plugins that you know that you're going to use for years to come. What I really like about this plugin is that it's a conduit for your imagination. Many plugins offer you a pathway for achieving a particular task. You use it to achieve one or two things. WPCodeBox is designed to be an empty container which you fill up with your (or other peoples) ideas. It's all about snippets at its heart. You can add snippets for PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, SaaS to your website and in many cases reduce the plugin footprint as a result. Check out the podcast to find out more...

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 8th August 2022.

So the moment has arrived. You've busted a jut and got the website finished. It's 100% ready to roll. Now what? Well, you've got to launch it and let the world see the great work that you've done! So what's involved in that? What do you typically need to do to make that happen? This is the subject that we explore on the podcast today and it's one where David and Nathan have different approaches. David is going agile and is likely to ship it as soon as the first page is ready, whereas Nathan is waiting until the entire site is completed. What steps do you need to follow on our launch checklist, and what things can go wrong?

On the podcast today we have Raitis Sevelis from Visual Composer, and he's here today to talk about the how you should use your WordPress page builder with pride and explain to your clients the many benefits that it brings to your workflow. There was a time when page builders first came around that they were somewhat spurned in the community. Not by all, and not for long. They were doing things in a new way, and sometimes new hurts. Gone were many of the technical barriers to creating sites. No more need to be wrangling template files and inserting shortcodes here there and everywhere. Page builders allowed a whole new audience to come to WordPress and build site for themselves as well as for their clients. Raitis thinks that sometimes we hide our page builder skills a little; assume that clients will think that less of us for using them. He has the opinion that we ought to be talking about how we use them more with our clients, and explaining how their use us making websites faster, cheaper and more easy for

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 25th July 2022.

Welcome to another in the Business Bootcamp series where we relearn everything we know about building WordPress sites and running a web design business from start to finish. And today we are discussing 'Legal stuff'. So this is about what we know (which is coming from our perspective, not that of a lawyer) about what responsibilities we have as the builders of WordPress websites for clients. Some of the decisions made when building a site potentially have legal consequences. GDPR, accessibility and those connected to rights and copyright. Lots of advice can be found in the WordPress Community, but like elsewhere, much could be profit motivated. So, having a sensible conversation about expectations and responsibilities seems the obvious thing to do?

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 18th July 2022.

So on the podcast today we have Amber Hinds and she's here to use her expertise to explain how and why WordPress websites need to be accessible. It's a really important topic at the moment. There seems to be a groundswell of understanding that the web really does need to be made available to all, and that means thinking about all the people who might be visiting your site. So that's people who are using screen readers, people consuming videos who are hard of hearing, and so much more. We talk about what accessibility is and what comes under its purview. Is it something that you need to do under law or is it something that you can leave until later? There's a lot more to this than meets to eye, and it's well worth a listen if you're new to all this, or if you've already started your accessibility journey.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 11th July 2022.

There's a WordPress plugin solution for almost every possible scenario. Booking - done. Commerce - done. Learning management - done. Done, done and done. In fact in many cases, there's many different plugins available with slightly differing features! We're spoilt for choice frankly. By are there times when it's better for you or your client to think outside of WordPress plugins and consider a SaaS solution? That's the topic of the conversation to and we dig into situations where we're preferred non-WordPress options because it's just a better fit for the specific project / client. We chat about what we're using and when we think it's best to just confess that WordPress is not always what we want to use and that there are many superb solutions out there. We hope that you enjoy the podcast.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 4th July 2022.

This episode is like no other we've ever put out, because it's not really about WordPress, more about a lifestyle that working with WordPress might allow you to have. Alex is on the podcast today to talk about the decisions that he's made to be a digital nomad. Now, when I think about the phrase digital nomad, it conjures up images of people who are constantly on the move. Moving from place to place, never settling anywhere. This is not quite how Alex has things set up. Alex, his wife, his two kids, his two cats and his dog all life in a camper. In the UK we call them camper vans, and I've heard them called RVs as well I think. Anyway, think of a small house on wheels. When Alex and I started talking about what we might talk about on the podcast, this topic was suggested and I jumped on it. So there's not really any plugins or themes mentioned, it's just about the way that Alex and his family live, and I love this kind of thing.

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 27th July 2022.