Tag: Avoid

Things To Avoid As A WordPress Developer

On July 1, 2013

As a WordPress developer, one get hundreds of thousands of freedoms, but since everything comes with some cost. The same meant for WordPress development also. You as a WordPress developer can use as much as resources as the way you want, but also its very much important to avoid some of the things which not only take your development process down but also the time you invested in it also loose. In this article, I am highlighting five of major things that as a WordPress developer have to avoid (or at least try to that extent wherever possible).

Using “Admin” As A Username

Majority of WordPress blog admin having their username as “admin,” the five letter word sounds simple and easy but using “admin” as a username opens a lot of doors by which hacker can easily enter into your WordPress website. Moreover, if not hackers, then there are bots keep on looking for installations that let them allow exploiting them in a single go. Better always give you site a unique and strong admin username and password.

Suggested Reading: How To Secure Your WordPress Blog In 6 Ways

Relying A “Lot” On Shared Hosting

If you are using shared hosting, then its better don’t rely much on it as shared hosting is not the one which helps you much plus for longer term. As the traffic on your shared server increase to an extent, your site starts showing signs of slowness and with talking and emails to hosting provider, you will get nothing but waste of time. It is highly recommended that you better have your site running on either virtual private server or dedicated server. In case, if you think you can’t afford from either of VPS or dedicated server from the starting, then you can start with shared hosting but make sure with time better move your site to either of those options.

Avoid Using Excess Plugins Functionality To Your Theme’s Functions Core

Just think like this you are driving in a wrong way or you are driving in a lane which at the end creates a mess for you. Using not one, not two but many of different plugins functionality to your theme’s functions.php template will nothing but end in creating a huge problem for you. As it will turn out a nightmare for you (and even more if other developers also working with you) to troubleshoot conflicts and problems as soon as you upgrades. Better always create a “functionality plugin” whenever you wish to paste any of different function to your theme’s functions.php template.

Plugins, Plugins And Lots More Plugins

A simple day, plan for an outing and when reached at your outing destination, you found out that there 10x already out there. Make sure you don’t create the same condition for your site. Reason, incorporating a lot of third party will not only create hurdles for whole of your site’s functionality but also make an issue over your site’s loading speed. Always have limited things on board which you think would be highly required. For example, you are running a members site, then it does not means that you end up using multiple plugins for the same. Choose one, but it have to be the best one and worth you installing to your site.

Suggested Reading: 9 Premium WordPress Membership Plugins

Installing Your Own jQuery Version

Avoid! Avoid! Avoid! Doing this means you are in the process of ruining everything you start-up with – the whole of your site. Making such mistake is common with Nvoice plugin and theme developers. Just simply avoid this and simply use what you have been offered by WordPress.

Photo Credit: jeckman, osipovva, jeferonix, withassociates, jepoirrier via photopin cc

WordPress Theme Development – Common Mistakes And How To Fix Them

By The Editorial Team

On June 21, 2013

In Tutorials

With the way WordPress increasing its foothold, there is a large number of coding being generated by users, developers, marketplaces and agencies from around the world. Thanks for being the most popular CMS out there today, it gives anyone, including people with having no technical knowledge, the power to make their own space in the internet.

Working with WordPress now from quite a longer time, it amazes me to see how many developers are making the similar mistake again and again. It’s not only the starter developer but even an expert also falls under the same category. There are number of common mistakes that people make when they are working on to develop a WordPress theme. Here in this article, I am sharing the most common theme development mistakes along with the solutions on how one can fix them up:

Understanding Licensing – Opt For GPL Compatible Licensing

Since WordPress is a GPL open-source solution, which will make it a “free” entity to use, change and edit that does not mean on a whole that each and every available WordPress tool, theme you can edit the way you like. If you are building your theme on a framework or just starting with or even if you are consider on building a child theme, make sure that the parent theme must be GPL or GPL compatible. Also make sure that the licenses for bundled resources – images, scripts, fonts or icon sets falls under GPL compatible category and even when in doubt, it’s always better to contact the author to inquire about the license.

Useful Resources: WordPress and GPL, Theme Licensing, GPL-Compatible Font Licenses, GPL-Compatible Icon Sets

Code Quality

It would not be an easy task to review all of your code, especially when it’s not your code. Poor code quality i.e. inconsistent styles and lack of spacing makes your theme code hard to debug as well as maintain and results only in a big mess. This is one of the major issue that a lot of WordPress theme developers worry about. Make sure all the WordPress Coding Standards being taken proper care of which will make it easier for you and other to understand and maintaining your theme.

Useful Resources: WordPress Coding Standards for PHP, CSS, and Javascript

Theme Unit Test

Theme Unit Test defines a set of data which correlates to a WordPress export (WXR) file which you can import into a WordPress installation to test your theme allowing used to test for visual bugs and inconsistencies. Make sure before making it unveiled in front of whole world, test it first with the sample content provided as there are high chances on that you may face a lot of the common issues at later stages.

Useful Resources: Theme Unit Test

Data Validation

It is always an important thing to take care of that you make your theme as secure as possible. If say you give authority to the users to change settings, then you indirectly opening up many of entry points which may result in bringing in harming your data. Further, a big mistake you probably be doing is that you are not validating your data which will be going to database, resulting in leaving your theme open to malicious codes.

Useful Resources: Security and Privacy requirements, Data Validation

Photo Credit: @cdharrison via photopin cc