Thanks to everyone who attended last night’s hands on problem solving clinic;
- to those who were brave enough to air their problems
- and those who attempted to help solve them
We had a range of problems to solve. Some of them a lot harder than others.
Here’s a summary of the problems that I know were discussed. I understand that a few were at least partially resolved.
| Problem | Resolution? |
|---|---|
| I just want to learn to use it properly | Scott created a new temporary site. He got a bit waylaid with an issue with Wordfence ignoring the home URL and site URL defined in the WordPress configuration file. |
| How to stop spammers | Try Antispam Bee. See also Top 20 Spam plugins |
| How to speed up the website? | Maybe we need another lightning talk or two? |
| Can’t edit header | Was this addressed? I believe it was something to do with styling the Google Maps map displayed by Elementor. An unwanted 156px top margin. |
| Not recognised by Google | Many external links ( e.g. Google business and Facebook ) were to the original domain name. |
| How do I change my sites? | 1. You need to have the correct level of access. 2. You need to have the ability to backup and restore. 3. The site has to respond to your requests. 3. You need to understand how to use the plugins and themes that the site has been built with. 4. And there are many other hidden challenges due to overall complexity of the installation. |
| Make my Archive and Categories more user friendly | Use the Collapsing Archives plugin. See also Top 20 Collapsing archives PS. Don’t be too upset if wordpress.org shows a warning saying “This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress.” |
| How do I improve the styling of the telephone number in my header? | The telephone image displayed in the body of the page is probably an icon created by the CSS associated with the HTML tags. This may come from a font library such as font awesome. Use custom CSS and/or shortcodes to add it to your header telephone number. |
| Why does the projector keep restarting? | Don’t know. Could be the VGA lead. Let’s hope it’s better when we’re in the other room. |
The future of WordPress
The marketing team has published the WordPress Major Release Schedule for the next 2 years – to 2021 and WordPress 6.0. BTW: You’ll notice this post was written by our co-organiser Abha Thakor.
The main goal for 2020 is full site editing via Gutenberg. The current work in the Gutenberg plugin is experimental. Next month Robert Windisch may talk a little about the future of WordPress. If he doesn’t mention it in his main talk then someone might want to ask in the Q&A.
Upcoming WordPress Portsmouth Meetup sessions
These are to be published… before Herb goes to NZ/Oz for a holiday.
| Date | Agenda | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 19 Feb 2020 | Build, maintain and sell a WordPress Plugin – Lessons learned with Robert Windisch @nullbyte | Remote talk |
| 18 Mar 2020 | WordPress introduction. Install and build a website in an hour. | Run by organisers |
| 15 Apr 2020 | Lightning Talks: from Paul Tansom, James Williams and others | tbc |