Blog

This Month’s WordPress SIG Topics

What’s new in WordPress since we last met.

Our featured area is a live demo How To Add an RSS Feed Reader to your WordPress website.

But first, our Topics from the Trenches segment.

Anyone, anyone? Yes, in the back!

Ron asked about a surprise captcha that was showing up when he visited the calendar page on his website, but only from his mobile device. Google does limit the number of hits to its calendar API under it free plan. If you add a credit card to your plan the limits are removed. The free tier is fairly high. A reboot of the phone cleared the issue. It may be that having the calendar opened in the browser on his phone, even while the page was not displayed could call out to the service and generate hits.

What’s new with WordPress?

The Month in WordPress – January 2023 – Detailed blog post on what’s going on. Lots of details about the upcoming WordPress 6.2 beta and Gutenberg 15.

Featured Topic: How To Add an RSS Feed Reader to your WordPress Website

What is RSS?

RSS is a type of web feed that allows users and applications to receive regular updates from a website or blog of their choice. The acronym RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. It is sometimes referred to as the feed or RSS feed.

In the early days of internet, if you wanted to keep track of updates on your favorite website, then you had to bookmark it and then manually visit to see if there were any updates.

RSS feed solved that problem by allowing users to keep track of their favorite websites without having to manually visit the website each time.

RSS allows bloggers and publishers to automatically syndicate their content, so that people can read it in their email, feed reader and other devices.

How Does RSS Feed Work?

RSS feeds work by publishing your latest content in a structured XML document. This feed contains your full articles or the summary, and metadata for each item like date, author, category, etc.

This XML document can then be fetched and read with a RSS feed reader. There are many RSS feed reader software available for all operating systems, desktops, and mobile devices.

All WordPress sites come with built-in support for RSS feeds. By default, each page of your WordPress site contains a meta tag that points to your website’s RSS feed location.

Finding Your Feed URL

There are times when you want to tell someone your site’s feed address or URL, or you need it to submit it to search engines and directories, many of which now accept feed URL submissions. There are four possible URLs for each of your feeds. Any of these will work.

http://example.com/?feed=rss
http://example.com/?feed=rss2
http://example.com/?feed=rdf
http://example.com/?feed=atom

If you are using custom permalinks, you should be able to reach them through this usage:

http://example.com/feed/
http://example.com/feed/rss/
http://example.com/feed/rss2/
http://example.com/feed/rdf/
http://example.com/feed/atom/

Why use an RSS feed?

Being able to display content from these RSS feeds opens up a whole new world for your WordPress site. You could build a news aggregator, create a content hub, aggregate job listings, plus a lot more.

How to use an RSS feed?

Here are a few examples of feed reader pages & services.

Eg.
https://stjameschurch.ws/news/forward-day-day/
https://mattryan.co/
https://dailybolt.com/

Example feeds in the wild:
https://wptavern.com/feed/
https://blog.archive.org/feed/
https://capwebsolutions.com/feed/
https://www.wissahickondems.com/feed/

Resources

Plugins

RSS Aggregator by Feedzy

WP RSS Aggregator

Zoom recording of the session

The easiest way to create a simple WordPress payment form is by using WP Simple Pay.

WP Simple Pay is a Stripe payment plugin for WordPress that lets you accept credit card payments, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more without having to install any special eCommerce plugins.

This free plugin is perfect for non-profits, small businesses, volunteers, and anyone who wants to collect payments without having to invest in advanced eCommerce plugins.

For this guide, we will be using the free version of WP Simple Pay since it has everything you need to start accepting payments online. There’s also a pro version that lets you accept payments using ACH direct debit, set up a recurring payment plan, add a buy now pay later plan to WordPress, and much more.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the WP Simple Pay plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will automatically launch the setup wizard.

In the next step, you’ll need to connect a Stripe account to WP Simple Pay. Stripe is a beginner-friendly payment processor for website owners.

To get started, click on the ‘Connect with Stripe’ button.

After that, you can either log into an existing Stripe account or create a new one.

If you’ve already registered with Stripe, then simply type in the email address and password for that account.

WP Simple Pay will now show you how to connect your Stripe account to WordPress.

If you’re not already registered with Stripe, then type in your email address and then follow the onscreen instructions to create your free Stripe account.

Once you’re logged into a Stripe account, go ahead and click on ‘Create a Payment Form.’

If you’ve clicked away from this screen by accident, then don’t worry. You can reach the same screen by going to WP Simple Pay » Add New in the WordPress dashboard.

The free WP Simple Pay plugin has a few different payment templates that can help you create different kinds of payment forms within minutes. You can unlock extra templates by upgrading to WP Simple Pay Pro, including a template that adds a Stripe donate button in WordPress.

Since we want to create a simple WordPress payment form, hover over the ‘Payment Button’ template and then click on ‘Create Payment Button’ when it appears.

In the ‘Title’ field, type in a name for your payment form. This title is just for your reference so you can use anything you want. Notice that you will see an SSL warning message. You will need to add an SSL certificate to your website in order to use Stripe to process payments.

You can also use the ‘Description’ field to add some information about your payment form. Again, WordPress won’t show this to your site’s visitors but it can be useful for your own reference or for anyone else who shares your WordPress dashboard.

After that, click on the ‘Payment’ tab.

By default, WP Simple Pay will create your payment form in test mode, meaning you can’t accept payments from visitors.

We recommend leaving the ‘Global Settings (Test Mode)’ radio button selected, so you can test how the form works before you start accepting payments from visitors.

Next, you can decide how much you’ll charge visitors by typing a number into the ‘One-Time Amount’ field.

Note: By default, WP Simple Pay uses the dollar currency. If you want to accept payments in any other currency, then simply head over to WP Simple Pay » Settings. You can then select the ‘Currency’ tab and choose a new currency.

After you’ve done that, select the ‘Form Fields’ tab.

By default, your button will have the label ‘Pay Now’, but you can change this to anything you want by typing into the ‘Button Text’ field. We are using “Send Us a Tip” since this is an optional payment.

You can also change the ‘Button Processing Text,’ which is the message that WP Simple Pay will show to shoppers while it’s processing their payment.

Again, since this is an optional payment form you might use something that reflects this, such as ‘We’re processing your donation.’

By default, WP Simple Pay will use the same button style as your WordPress theme. It also has a ‘Stripe blue’ style that you can use, as you can see in the following image.

If you want to use this button style, then simply select the ‘Stripe blue’ radio button in the ‘Payment Button’ section.

After that, select the Stripe Checkout tab and choose the information that WP Simple Pay will collect from visitors at checkout.

For example, if you’re selling a physical product then you’ll want to check the ‘Collect Shipping Address’ box.

As you’re working on the payment form, you can preview how it looks at any point simply by clicking on the ‘Preview’ button.

This opens the payment form in a new tab, in exactly the same way you preview posts and pages in the standard WordPress editor.

When you’re happy with how the payment form looks, go ahead and make it live by clicking on the ‘Publish’ button.

You can now add the payment form to any page, post, or widget-ready area using the value in ‘Form Shortcode.’

If you published the form in test mode, then the Stripe dashboard doesn’t show any payments you get during this time, which makes it difficult to test your optional payment form.

To see your transactions, you’ll need to activate test mode in Stripe by logging in to your Stripe dashboard and then selecting the ‘Payments’ tab.

Here, simply hover your mouse over the optional payment form, and click on the ‘Edit’ link.

You can now go ahead and select the ‘Payment’ tab, and then click on the radio button next to ‘Live Mode.’

Finally, click on ‘Update.’ Your payment form is now live, and you’re ready to start accepting money from your audience.

Resources:

This session was taken largely from a blog post originally appearing on WP Beginner. The link is shown below.

How to Create a WordPress Form with Payment Options (Easy Way) (wpbeginner.com)https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-create-wordpress-forms-with-a-payment-option/

This Month’s WordPress SIG Topics

What’s new in WordPress since we last met.

Our featured area is a discussion on WordPress website security.

But first, our Topics from the Trenches segment.

Anyone, anyone? Yes, in the back!

Topics From The Trenches

What is markdown?
– John Davey

What is Markdown?

Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers.
Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid HTML.

– John Gruber – founder

Uses of Markdown

Creating WordPress content Add New Page ‹ wpsigworking — WordPress

Generic HTML writing

General notes – Obsidian

What’s new with WordPress?

State of the Word – 2022

The Month in WordPress – November 2022 – Detailed blog post on The State of the Word.

No new code releases

Featured Topic: SSL Certificates
Why & How

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)

The standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between networked computers.

Benefits to your WordPress Website

Encrypts and secures sensitive information so that only the intended reader can read it.

Ensures secure passage of information across the net

SEO & Perceived Value Impact

SSL certificate impacts your website SEO

Sites w/o SSL installed deemed lower-trust websites

Penalized on search rankings

Give visitors confidence

Secure with SSL

How to Get One?

Ask your host

Let’s Encrypt (letsencrypt.org) is free

Some charge, eg GoDaddy $79/year

Cloudflare, free tier

Really Simple SSL – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org

Then What

Install Certificate

Redirect HTTP -> HTTPS

How to Redirect

Log into WordPress Dashboard

Settings | General

WordPress Address (URL)

Site Address (URL)

Update URLs to include https instead of http

Server Redirect

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^(.+)$
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} ^coolexample.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} ^www.coolexample.com$
RewriteRule .* https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

Mixed Content Messages

Database Search and Replace

http://coolexample.com -> https://coolexample.com
http://www.coolexample.com -> https://collexample.com

Plugin: [Better Search Replace – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org](https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-search-replace/

Cloudflare Options

Overview · Cloudflare SSL/TLS docs