In June 2021, the WordPress Portmouth Meetp conducted a Midsummer Clinic. We attempted to answer questions and problems raised by members of the community. Some were answered there and then. Others took a little longer. BTW: I’ve anonymised the questions and answers.
The slides for the clinic had already been published on the Meetup notice.
But here they are again.
Tips on moving a website from one host to another
- Use Duplicator Pro
- It should be possible to select folders to exclude.
- Remember to check the scheme matches between source and target site: eg
https:// - Consider using Better Search Replace or Velvet Blues Update URLs if you need to change URLs.
- Alternatives: UpdraftPlus, All-In-One WP Migration.
Duplicator copies everything, including core files.
See WP Engine: The Best Way to Migrate a WordPress Website and Pantheon: Quickstart guide to migrating a WordPress site.
It’s unlikely that the tool would know about other folders, particularly those which are not part of the WordPress installation. But try it. You need to tell Duplicator Pro the directory.
It’s done on the import by Duplicator Pro. But probably only changes the database content, not URLs in source files.
How much will it cost to implement local SEO for my website?
Who wants to talk about SEO in a future meetup? Or what about using Facebook or Google Ads?
How do you go about developing a plugin?
Aside: Oh that’s a shame… I used the Yoast FAQ block for the additional Q and A’s for the first question. But the block is only allowed once per page. So I’ll have to revert to the original method for the rest of this post. I’ve added a comment to an existing issue https://github.com/Yoast/wordpress-seo/issues/11801
Question: Do you have a wordpress.org profile?
Answer: If not, create one https://login.wordpress.org/register then join the UK WordPress Slack Community
See videos by the WordPress Marketing team on YouTube for how get your wordpress.org account setup, how to join Slack.
There are plugins channels, handbooks. There are also some useful books.
- https://webdevstudios.com/books/professional-wordpress-design-development-3rd-ed/
- https://webdevstudios.com/books/professional-wordpress-plugin-development/
and presentations from Meetups eg Seattle WordPress February Meetup re. Plugin dev — https://wpseattle.org/developer-meetup/february-2021-developer-meetup/
The block UI in WordPress, aka Gutenberg, is written around JavaScript, uses the React framework written by Facebook, and follows the flux architecture. It can be challenging. I think it’s easier to understand if you have a good grasp of functional programming and one of the best ‘books’ I’ve read on functional programming is this –> https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide
Question: Do you know what plugin you want to develop?
Answer: The end goal is a membership theme similar to Paid Membership Pro or MemberPress. I want to diversify and productize, rather than service deliver.
WordPress Portsmouth Meetup members have a range of skills with regards to WordPress plugin and theme development.
Question: How does WordPress core build the JavaScript code from Gutenberg?
Answer: See the README.md file in https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop
What does the dot next to the Update/Publish button indicate?
The short answer is that this might be removed in the future. There are some known issues with regards to Reusable blocks that are being looked at right now.
In this image I’ve reproduced the dot. But I also discovered another couple of bugs. I now need to reproduce these other bugs with Gutenberg / WordPress 5.8 and a default theme.
The other bug here is that the Image block appears to be part of the Reusable block that I am moving upwards. The Reusable block’s toolbar is above the image, the paragraph in the reusable block is below the image.
On further investigation I realised this was a User Error; the image was Aligned Left. See bobbingwide/bobbingwide#27 for my analysis.
Other bugs I discovered, and which need reproducing.
- I couldn’t use the inserter to insert a reusable block in the Site Editor
- The block crashed after performing an action…this one’s been fixed.
I have a problem dragging blocks. What should I do?
The example involved dragging an image block from one column to another.
- It wasn’t reproducable at the time.
- There were some suggestions that the problem could be related to a browser extension.
- We’ll have to try to reproduce the problem and make a video to demonstrate it.
There’s a lot of black when editing using an iPad
It’s been reported that a number of users have experienced problems attempting to create content using tablets and smart phones.
I created this post using an old iPad. There was a lot of black. After saving, when I re-edited the post, the Yoast SEO metabox initially covered the whole of the editor area.