WP Builds

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 26th September 2022.

What happens when your client suddenly has new staff members that you need to interact with? It might be a really smooth transition with nothing to worry about, but it might not. Old relationships may need to be rebuilt, and common understandings and goals about the website might need to be reworked. It's even possible that your communications were not written down and you suddenly need to think about the entire project once more with new staff. What if you just don't get along? What can you do then to ensure that you don't lose the client? What can you do to keep things working for you both? We have some ideas for you on the podcast today. Go listen...

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 is on the podcast today to talk through his thoughts on the WordPress notifications systems and how it might be improved so stop its true purpose being misused.

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...