Inherently CSS, Cascading Style Sheets, do not have to be busy or complex. Classic CSS 1 & 2 commands like color, margin, text-size, and others are easy to understand. However, CSS commands have 3 inherent layers of potential complexity. The first is the fact that every HTML element can have many CSS commands styling the …
Our MasterWP.guru blog recently posted WordPress Under Duress, a report underlining multiple signs of pressure impacting WordPress. The WP Tavern Posting acknowledged several signs of stress. The article cited intensive competition from other CMS systems such as SquaresSpace and Shopify, increased complexity throughout the rapidly changing WP Core and profound shortcomings in both the Gutenberg Editor …
Normally Toronto WordPress Meetup Group has a monthly meeting designed to help fix any WordPress problems that attendees want to pose to the Meetup Organizers, Robin MacRae and Drew Mathers. But yesterday’s November 15th meetup featured a discussion of how to improve mobile performance which lags the desktop speed for the same page.contents but different …
Toronto WordPress Group Mobile Performance Meetup Read More »
AMP-Accelerated Mobile Pages is mobile page speed up technology pioneered by Google. Web & WordPress users have had to come to grips with major mobile speed deficits in the light of changes in mobile usage: The Global use of the Web has shifted from desktops to mobile devices – desktop=44% vs mobile devices=56%. There are …
Performance tuning of WordPess sites is currently in the best of times and the worst times. Best of times because there is a consensus about 6 key performance tuning methods which should be applied as a set of triage steps while doing performance tuning. These six standard steps are featured in the upcoming WP Speed …
TuesdayNov 8th 2022 evening at 6PM is the date for a free and very informative Zoom meetup about the latest trends in WordPress Performance Tuning. Lets start with three basic points. First WordPress is used on 43% of the top 10 million Websites worldwide. Therefore WP technology is an important factor across all web development. …
First a Google Docs proposal for WordPress Plugins checker Next, a YouTube |Next a Powerpoint And now a PDF, but only by using a 3dFlip book because the EmbedPress shortcode has failed to work – it delivers empty space no PDF
Having already done a review of Elementor Under Duress just 2 months ago, it hardly seemed timely to do another More Elementor Duress. But having tried to create a container with attached Motion Effects and then an Elementor Popup – both using the new Elementor 3.72 with full Flexbox container implementation abruptly changed plans. There …
Elementor is such a pivotal player in WordPress Development starting with its 11 million actives users and the popularity of its namesake PageBuilder now become a ThemeBuilder UX. If one does development work in WordPress you are very likely either using Elementor directly or interacting with other Elementor based websites as W3Techs sees Elementor as …
WebPage Performance Tuning WordPress Performance Tuning is like WordPress SEO, an anointed discipline akin to Alchemy – complex practices subject to many sub-disciplines. As a result, three WordPress performance experts agree [ Adam Connel at BloggingWizrds, TomDupuis at Online Media, and Staff at WPBuffs ] that there are a number of factors that can impact …
Mobile WordPress Development often gets the short end of the analytics stick. Fortunately, Hootsuite publishes annual reports on the state of the Web World which clearly shows the pivotal role mobile devices play on the Web. Mobile in their many forms play everywhere in contemporary computing. For the past 5 years these reports have marked …
Elementor has reached the pinnacle of WordPress Frontend tools – a PageBuilder become ThemeBuilder that has 10million active user websites, has just released a Elementor Cloud Hosting Service [to mixed reviews and runtime performance concerns], and is undertaking a massive shift to Flexbox CSS Framework as the core of its UI Interface. It is the …
This afternoon’s free WordPress CSS Style Editors Meetup is so crammed with helpful info on WordPressDesign and Styling we will have to take the Trevor Noah Daily Show approach to Headline News by telling you just the most useful styling tricks and tips to help ease and expedite your WordPress layouts and designs. For example, …
In a review in December of last year, this website reviewed 4 plugins that helped control the Nuisance Nags that plague many WordPress admin pages. In the end Admin Notices Manager was recommended. Since then the Nuisance Nags have gotten even worse. On my websites I was seeing 3-5/page accumulate each week. So the Admin …
Elementor Cloud Website is Elementor’s dramatic entry into the WordPress Cloud Hosting Service business. Here is what you get: $90US/year = 1 cloud website “No hidden costs, no price hikes.What you see is what you get. Period.” Additional Elementor Cloud Websites require a subscription costing $99/year/website A subscription delivers 1 full Elementor Pro powered WordPress …
Like the World in general, change is taking place at an accelerated pace in the World of WordPress. And WordPress Developers can see it in the first downturn in WordPress market share in 10 years. And one of the biggest drivers of change in the WordPress World is the rapid growth of its CMS market …
Within the past year there have been many reviewers claiming Gutenbrg Editor delivers faster web pages than popular PageBuilders – see Metabox*, WordPress.com[ is blind to theWYSWYG gap in the Block Editor], Jack in the Net*, Jack Cao Tests*[fails to use normal caching and media optimizations]. In sum, there is a common factor of limited information …
Are Gutenberg Editor’s Speed Results A Big Lie?? Read More »
Most of the attention in the WordPress community for the past five years has been about the effort to build a better WordPress frontend – a Visual Editor using React JavaScript that becomes an integral part of the WordPress core and runs increasing portions of the WordPress “No Coding Knowledge Required” system. But the Gutenberg …
Okay, Nuisance Notifications [aka Nags] are not exclusive to WordPress. You may also be plagued by unsolicited notices in the lower right-hand corner of your PC screen as Google and Facebook and Microsoft and just about every app you have bought now presume to have the right to popup unsolicited PR notes at random moments …
This banner headline at WP Tavern recently caught my attention. Surge: A New Page Caching Plugin for WordPress with No Configuration Required Having just done a WordPress Meetup featuring WordPress performance plugins, one that delivered performance tuning without having to do any tinkering with performance settings – this was of keen interest. So the logical step …
In honor of 3 years + 1 day after the Gutenberg editor was announced, The Toronto WordPress Meetup Group will have a free zoom Presentation at 4:PM Wednesday discussing the virtues and shortcomings of the Gutenberg Editor. Here are the preliminary notes: In addition, here is another view on Gutenberg Editor – the newly appointed …
It maybe late to be looking for a better Visual Editor given the rapid improvement in both Page Builders like Elementor, Beaver or Divi plus the Gutenberg Block editor. But this developer is still looking for an improvement for the Visual Editor. Kay features sought include drag and drop layout, user CSS styling blocks, insertable …
Controling your website’s image sizes has become a top priority among Web developers Here is the reason why: As of 2017 end , HTTPArchive.org reports that images comprised 54% of the total page download size. And since response time is inversely related to page load, developers wanting to achieve 2 seconds or better response time …
This tutorial is based on the fact that PDFs have become the leading document integrators on the Web. Note the distinction – PDF are multi-page containers for completed rich output like word documents, spreadsheet tables or Visio, UML Object diagrams. PDFs are not like web development containers like Docker, Kubernetes, and Envoy which encompass complete …
Measuring the Web The Web is the20th Century’s Cauldron of Change. The Web is spilling out change that is innovative, widespread and intimidating. Innovative because with DIY- Do-It-yourself Web Development tools it is possible for individuals and teams to create online presences and services that would have been improbable before the Internet. Widespread because in …
CMS systems for small and medium scale sites using WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and others mostly use shared hosting. That is where your website shares a CPU & Supporting Software, memory, diskspace and Internet bandwidth with 2-4 other websites on the same machine in which all of these assets are “time-shared”. This has been and currently …
Wix and Squarspace have to watch out, Shopify, a Canadian startup specializing in shopping sites, has taken over their runner-up position in the Content Management System sweepstakes Both Wix and and Squarespace are saddled with same dynamic – low usage websites and comparatively a small number of website than their competitors. Wix appeared to have …
At the Toronto WordPress Meetup Group we have been doing a series of presentations about the substantial widgets and features available in Elementor. But in the process of doing the research some Elementor add-on vendors offer freemium packages in which their free components and widgets are very attractive – such is the case with ElementKits …
At the Toronto WordPress Meetup Group we have been doing a series of presentations about the substantial widgets and features available in Elementor. But in the process of doing the research some Elementor add-on vendors offer freemium packages in which their free components and widgets are very attractive such is the case with Happy Add-ons. …
ClassicPress is a GPLv2[Free Software Foundation] clone of WordPress version 4.9.x – any theme, plugin or website that runs on WordPress 4.9 will run on ClassicPress. The ClassicPress FAQ page provides key insights into the reason for ClassicPress: ClassicPress is a community-led fork of the WordPress content management system that preserves the classic TinyMCE editor …
Why More of WordPress UI is written in JavaScript not PHP With the announcement of Calypso, a JavaScript based UI in November of 2015 and then the launch of the Gutenberg project in 2016 using React.js, WordPress Head Honcho Matt Mullenweg tripped off a lot of conjectures as to why the departures from WordPress’ primary …
WordPress Security flaws have been a growing risk to developers and owners alike over the past 3-4 years. As if on cue, a Halloween 2017 security surprise just added a new level of concern about WordPress hacking vulnerabilities. So being able to scan online WordPress websites for security safety has become more important for developers …
A review of SquareSpace vs WordPress in the WPMUDev blog raises the question of whether web development reviews are becoming as partisan as politics. Jenni McKinnon in writing 27 Reasons Why WordPress Crushes Squarespace Every Time has committed to print a yuge number of Trumpian fallacies which knocks the review way off balance. WordPress.com vs WordPress.org Distinction …
Document Embeds in WordPress The most reliable embeds of PowerPoints into WordPress Posts and Pages found so far is using Google Docs viewer WordPress plugin by F.Davis. Here is some PowerPoint comments from 5 years ago on Website building [gview file=”http://theopensourcery.ca/2ndfree.ppt” width=’700′ height=’520′] Here is an Excel file on stats about Small Business websites: [gview file=”http://thephotofinishes.com/0csiweb.xlsx” …
For the past year I have been recommending Cyclone Slider 2 as the best free WordPress Slider. But that has changed with the free version of Smart Slider 3 contending for the top spot of free WordPress sliders. As we shall see the two sliders are evenly matched so slight differences in features, ease of use, and …
What? New Google Fonts! Yes, there are now 804 free and well chosen Google Fonts available to web developers [up from 708] and a new, improved interface. Ye editor finally relented at the end of May to do a review of the Google Fonts online app; but just waiting a couple of weeks later would reveal a …
The previous post describes the many advantages of using Google Fonts on your website. This post will look at some of the ways of using Google Fonts in WordPress. First, free access to Google fonts is straight forward. Just visit the Google Fonts website, choose one or more fonts and then get the code to access those fonts …
Google Fonts: Top Designer Typography for Free And unlike other Google software like Gmail and Adsense, there is no need for a Missing Manual. [animate_animate animation=”twisterInDown” duration=”3″ activation=”click” delay=””]Yippee for Google Fonts! Click me to see my excitement![/animate_animate] So let us take a look at what Google Fonts provides to web designers and developers …
At the start of this year, theOpensourcery did a review of twoWordPress CSS Editor plugins that help WP developers make CSS corrections more effectively. Since then there have been notable improvements to the two plugins -especially CSSHero 2.0.. Since both plugins will be a key part of our upcoming May 7 free presentation on WordPress with CSS …
This post is about two fast and furious Web developments. First is the emergence of W3Schools.com as a vital tool for Web Development and the second is the proliferation of so many Javascript Frameworks for SPA-Single Page Applications. Now many of my Web Development colleagues regard W3School as the Mickey Mouse Club of Web Development. …
jQuery AutoComplete is already useful for Bootstrap, Foundation and Ink JavaScript frameworks. But I have found a Search Autocomplete WordPress plugin when combined with the Relevanssi Search WordPress plugin and Help pages which makes for a very good FAQ system for your websites. So lets review an outline of how this FAQ system works. First, install Search …
Over the past 5 years the aids to using HTML5 and other key Web tools have accumulated rapidly. And the need for advice when and how to use features in Web tools has not abated. First there is the continuing rapid release of new features as mobiles and the IoT-Internet of Things bring new demands on …
WordPress has good news and bad on WP Migration. WordPress has always had a good set of migration tools; particularly when importing or creating a brand newsite from scratch. This is the good news. But even in the case of imports users have to be cautious: WordPress Importer has 67 low 1-rating reviews and with reason. …
And how JavaScript is becoming main language for WordPress Development Pagelines in 2012 was part of that Wave of WordPress Page Building software that has taken over the WordPress theme market. Theme providers now have a single all-purpose Builder+Theme Designer like The 7, Divi, or X-Theme. Or like Headway and Ithemes, the vendors support their themes/templates with very …
A Plugin for Managing Pages and Menus Easily How many times have you had a project in which you have to build dozens of pages and then change those pages throughout the year on a regular Spring , Summer, Fall, Winter cycle. In effect you have almost 4 times the number of pages to manage. …
Agile Methods using the Scrum Process seem built for WordPress Development Agile methods have a manifesto and development methodology which is gaining traction not just in software development but broader project planning. Agile methods are geared to handling the rapid change required in modern project planning but also to accomodate fast changing tools and methods …
WordPress Editor has a number of annoyances. This is strange given that that a key strength of WordPress has been its Editor for ease of use and dual modes. Users for a long time have had a choice of working with the WYSIWYG Visual Editor or the HTML-based Text Editor. Many used both. But over the …
Greg Priday and his band of mighty WordPress coders has done it again. From their perch in CapeTown South Africa, Site Origins has made big waves in the world of WordPress plugins and themes. But now Greg and company has launched a Background Pattern Generator app that does this novel task in the SiteOrigin style, …
WordPress has left a tremendous gap in support of images and galleries. First, the Media Library is still woefully poor for creating and managing galleries and their various tagged and labelled assets. Nextgen Gallery is a much better and free alternative for managing your media iwhen you have dozens of galleries and albums with hundreds …
