posted on 2014-04-16

categories wordpress

Manchester WordPress User Group April

This month we're having an open question and answer session, here we go.

Part 1

WordPress News

3.82 was released that included a security release.

Then 3.83 was released to fix a quick draft bug introduced in 3.82! Worth noting that if you had saved a draft in a modern browser and applied the update within 7 days, you may well still find your draft.

Akismet Update

https://blog.akismet.com/2014/04/15/akismet-3-0-0/

Easier activation, which is nice, this can often confuse new users setting up a WordPress, wordpress.com, jetpack and akisment login.

BuddyPress Update

https://buddypress.org/2014/04/buddypress-2-0-juliana/

Apparently huge performance enhancements, always good to hear :smile:.

WordPress 3.9

Now in release candidate 2 and releasing very soon

Audio and video playlist, gallery previews. New TinyMCE, lighter, faster and more features.

Improved theme installer.

Heartbleed - WordPress.com have been effected by this, so it's recommended to go and change your password.

Drag and drop images into the editor, yay, it works this month.
New Gallery Post, instead of gallery icon, you now get a visual representation.

Manchester WordPress Gallery

Audio Playlist - can also look at tags and embedded images.

Manchester WordPress Audio Playlist

Widget management in preview mode - Appearance > Customize now has sidebars you can test to see if you like the changes first, then save and publish

CoSchedule

A WordPress plugin has received funding.

https://coschedule.com/blog/coschedule-series-a-funding/

WordCamp Manchester

Woohoo! WordCamp Manchester is now official, taking place on Saturday 28th June 2014.

https://2014.manchester.wordcamp.org/

It's a one day event and Mike has put up a survey to help tailor the event. Please take a minute to fill it in:

https://mwug.info/manchester-wordcamp-2014/

Questions and Answers

Q: How do you set WordPress to auto update?

A: From 3.8 WordPress will auto update by default. If permissions aren't right or if you're using a development version this won't happen though. This has also been monitored and there's been very little issues.

Q: If updating to 3.9, where add new options in plugins has vanished.

A: Hmm, possibly a permissions issue.

Q: What Easter Eggs are there in WordPress?

A: There was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AScYnzdovbQ but this is no longer in, also some would consider 'Hello Dolly' as an Easter Egg.

Q: Is there a UK https://pressable.com/?

A: Not yet, but possibly https://websynthesis.com/

Q: Who would you recommend for mailing lists?

A: https://mailchimp.com/

Q: Permalinks issue, using a custom post type. Previously a child became and parent and ended up with a redirect loop.

A: Could possibly be a bug, when changing the permalink, wp remembers the old one, so it will look for the old one, if you swap a child parent relationship this may then cause it get confused. Also the 'Redirection' plugin will automatically create slugs for 404s if this is being used, this may be causing the issue. It's also possible to look for the post meta table, meta_key and look for any _wp_old_slug.

Q: How can you add a default image and comment for Facebook?

A: http://ogp.me/

Q: I've been using WordPress for 3 years and I don't understand anything! Am I the only one?

A: LOL! Well there's training courses, you should go on one, hint hint :wink:.

Woohoo, WordPress 3.9 'Smith' just dropped: https://wordpress.org/news/2014/04/smith/

Part Two

Multi Sites have had improvements. https://make.wordpress.org/core/2014/04/16/multisite-changes-in-3-9/

If availble on your hosting, the newer version of mysql, mysqli will now work if available.

http://codular.com/php-mysqli

Updates for JavaScript frameworks, such as Backbone and Angular.

oEmbed Support Added For Meetup and Imgur: https://wptavern.com/wordpress-3-9-smith-released

More Questions and Answers

Q: What's the editor your using?

A: Epsilon I've been using it for over 20 years! https://www.lugaru.com/

Q: Before you mentioned about the Wp old slug is it possible to use this to potentially fix broken links?

A: If you save a new post / page, then change the permalink, for example to update a typo, WordPress will still remember the old link and redirect automatically.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/quick-pagepost-redirect-plugin/

Mike also mentioned about speed performance difference between using nginx being quicker that apache.

~~/wikivs.com/wiki/apache_vs_nginx~~ (no longer online)

Apache level, will be quicker than the php level though.

Q: I have a friend who has a Joomla site… audience member "time to get new friends then". But asks if there's a way to map Joomla links to WordPress.

A: No simple answer as it can depend on how the links have been set up on Joomla, but Jenny mentions this is possible using regex.

Q: What's the best set up these days working developemt

A: Previously used Xampp, but now these days using Vagrant.

https://github.com/Varying-Vagrant-Vagrants/VVV

Me and Mike Little

Photo Credit: Michelle

Q: I mentioned about an error I'm having with Vagrant:

vagrant up --provision
Bringing machine 'default' up with 'virtualbox' provider...
==> default: Clearing any previously set forwarded ports...
==> default: Clearing any previously set network interfaces...
There was an error while executing `VBoxManage`, a CLI used by Vagrant
for controlling VirtualBox. The command and stderr is shown below.

Command: ["hostonlyif", "create"]

Stderr: 0%...
Progress state: NS_ERROR_FAILURE
VBoxManage: error: Failed to create the host-only adapter
VBoxManage: error: VBoxNetAdpCtl: Error while adding new interface: failed to open /dev/vboxnetctl: No such file or directory

VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component HostNetworkInterface, interface IHostNetworkInterface
VBoxManage: error: Context: "int handleCreate(HandlerArg*, int, int*)" at line 68 of file VBoxManageHostonly.cpp

A: Looks like it hasn't been able to start up, possibly it doesn't have enough disk space, or it could be as you already have a few VBs already there maybe a default of VBs allowed and a setting may need increasing somewhere.

Q: What's the best way to learn how to write a WordPress plugin?

A: I don't believe there are any great resources, I keep meaning to get around to writing one. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Professional-WordPress-Plugin-Development-Williams/dp/0470916222 is good but not going to teach you everything from scratch.

There's also https://www.packtpub.com/wordpress-plug-in-development/book.

And a tutorial on Treehouse: https://teamtreehouse.com/library/how-to-build-a-wordpress-plugin

Mike is looking to do a 3 day plugin development class. There's one to watch out for! ;)

And that's a wrap! See you at the next one.