When I’m putting a new site together, I start with a set of colors, the “brand colors.” Sometimes this is a color swatch and other times it is a list of color hex codes in notepad. Then, as I move through the sections of the theme Customizer, I copy and paste the color codes from …
Managing Brand Colors – Central Color Palette Plugin Read More
In this article I want to look at the Chrome developer tools and some of the ways they can be used for development and for troubleshooting. These tools have been expanded slowly over time and many people may not be familiar with them. The developer tools can be a big help when it comes to creating web …
In this article I want to look at WordPress staging and merging using BlogVault. Staging is important in the process of developing websites. It allows a developer to make changes without putting the production site in jeopardy and without interrupting service, but if you’re making changes on a staging site while the production site is …
Video Here is a video overview of the Kava Theme that comes bundled with the Crocoblock suite for Elementor. The theme is shown in more detail in the video, as there is a walk-through, while the article below summarizes the pros and cons, with screenshots. Introduction This post is part of a mini-series looking at …
Video Here is a video overview of the Crocoblock suite for Elementor and a walk-through using JetEngine and JetThemeCore for working with dynamic data. The process is shown in more detail in the video while in the article there are some screenshots taken at important points. Introduction This post is part of a mini-series looking …
Crocoblock Suite for Elementor: Dynamic Data – JetEngine & JetThemeCore Read More
Video Here is a video overview of the Crocoblock suite for Elementor and a walk-through of the different installation options. The screens are shown in more detail in the video while in the article there are just screenshots taken at important points in the process. There is some information in the article that is not …
Crocoblock Suite for Elementor – Overview & Installation Read More
A major feature of Elementor 2.1 is the ability to work with Custom Post Types (CPT) to make templates for displaying the data from CPT fields. To review the lay of the land, WordPress has long had support for custom fields and custom post types, but a WTF is that displaying this data was not …
Who Is This Article For? In this article I review Jetpack Premium, one of the paid Jetpack plans. The review is for people with a single site who have a small annual budget and who need to have support available. Now, if you have a high traffic site, an ecommerce store, or a membership component, …
Cost-Effective Security and Backup Option – Review of Jetpack Premium Read More
When we share our blog posts to social media we want them to look attractive. We spend some time on a nice featured image that lets people know what the post is about and then tweet our creation to share it. For a long time I did this by logging into Twitter, uploading an image …
I’ve been using Laragon for a while now for local WordPress development. Recently someone asked for help because they had forgotten their WordPress username or password. I made a short video walkthrough that shows how to change the password using the HeidiSQL program that comes with Laragon. Below the video are the written out instructions …
Changing Your WordPress Password – Laragon and HeidiSQL Read More
Code snippets are small bits of PHP code that you can use to customize your WordPress website. The Code Snippets plugin is a great convenience for adding snippets. The plugin is available for free from the WordPress plugin directory. It is regularly updated, is widely used, and has good reviews. I’ve been using it for a …
Last Updated November 24, 2018. There are a number of free online services useful for site builders. The four listed below are helpful for checking if DNS changes have been picked up, troubleshooting SSL errors, finding the cause of a site slowdown for speed optimization, and using search engine auto-suggest features to gain insight into …
Introduction If you need a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or a physical machine in a server facility then this article isn’t for you. For a high-level view of hosting considerations, see my previous article. In this article I look at two options for WordPress site hosting: SiteGround and Cloudways. These two options cover most small and medium …
As you may know, Astra is a relatively new WordPress theme created by Brainstorm Force. They are the company behind the Ultimate Addon for Beaver Builder as well as a number of other plugins. Upon acceptance, the Astra theme quickly shot up into the most popular theme category on WordPress.org and has become the go-to …
The WPBuilds Facebook group is a friendly and interesting bunch of site builders. Periodically there is a discussion about plugins for creating the “display template” for Custom Post Types. This is a decision, or hurdle, that everyone using Custom Post Types has to deal with. Fair warning, if you are reading this then I assume …
The Not So Skinny on Custom Templates: Toolset, and Beaver Builder Read More
A few weeks ago I was thinking to myself that WordPress comments were really a black hole. So I was surprised and intrigued when I received an email from Thrive Themes telling me about their new Thrive Comments plugin. I went over to their website to check it out. In this post I want to …