A journey lugging aspirations and experiences, tools and ideals.
A new PACS year has kicked off. Well, to be honest, it actually kicked off last month, but I had a scheduling conflict and wasn’t able to participate IN OUR FIRST IN-PERSON EVENT IN ALMOST 3 YEARS. My apologies for the senior moment. We’re back on track now. This PACS season we are going to [… ]
Pattern Page Hero image from wordpress.org
Topics from the Trenches segment.
What’s new in WordPress since we last met.
Discussion and live demo on building a page using Patterns.
Topics from the Trenches
Oops. Nope – just stretching. Maybe next time.
The Month In WordPress – May 2023 – WordPRess is 20!
Automattic’s AI is here in the form of JetPack AI Assistant that allows quick generation of content like headlines, entire posts, and translations.
AI related plugins at wordpress.org -> Search Results for “ai” | WordPress.org
Meetup group I recently found: Learn WordPress Online Workshops (San Francisco, CA) | Meetup
Upcoming Session: Create a four page WordPress website: Explore Plugins + Contact Forms https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/294215062/?%2F= Meetup is free to join and this meetup is free to attend online. The times vary since it is for a worldwide audience. They make recordings available afterwards on the meetup page.
WordCamp Montclair Jun 24, 2023 in New Jersey. About 1.5 hours NNE from Giant in Willow Grove via I95 and the Garden State Pkwy.
One more note -> Google Domains was acquired by Squarespace. Google Domains is shutting down, and its assets are going to Squarespace – The Verge
An introductory video by Wes Theron on Learn.Wordpress.org gives us an excellent starting point for our discussion. It is high level enough that we can see how patterns fit into the larger website, but offering enough details to permit us to try it on our own.
Using Block Patterns | Learn WordPress
I launched into the live demo portion of our session using a local development site built on LocalWP. The site uses the TwentyTwentyThree theme with a few images I pre-installed from Unsplash.
Add home page pattern to change layout.
Use patterns available from the theme. They are available using the inserter and selecting ‘patterns’. Alternatively, we visited the Pattern library on wordpress.org and found a pattern to try.
Copy pattern from page to page using the ‘Copy Styles’ link under the 3 dot menu.
Change the layout on the second page and note that the two pages are distinct. The patterns are individual elements that you control separately.
Using Block Patterns | Learn WordPress
Building a page with only patterns | Learn WordPress
How to Create Low-Code Block Patterns | Learn WordPress
500+ Flower Images [HQ] | Download Free Flower Pictures on Unsplash
Block Pattern Directory | WordPress.org
Local – Local WordPress development made simple (localwp.com)
WordPress Playground -> build sites in the browser
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.
Topics from the Trenches
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/
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.
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/
Plugins
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.
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/
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.
Topics from the Trenches
What is markdown?
– John Davey
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.
Creating WordPress content Add New Page ‹ wpsigworking — WordPress
Generic HTML writing
General notes – Obsidian
The Month in WordPress – November 2022 – Detailed blog post on The State of the Word.
No new code releases
The standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between networked computers.
Encrypts and secures sensitive information so that only the intended reader can read it.
Ensures secure passage of information across the net
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
Ask your host
Let’s Encrypt (letsencrypt.org) is free
Some charge, eg GoDaddy $79/year
Cloudflare, free tier
Really Simple SSL – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org
Install Certificate
Redirect HTTP -> HTTPS
Log into WordPress Dashboard
Settings | General
WordPress Address (URL)
Site Address (URL)
Update URLs to include https instead of http
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^(.+)$
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} ^coolexample.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} ^www.coolexample.com$
RewriteRule .* https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
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/
WPSIG October 2022 Website Security 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. Topics from the Trenches Anyone, anyone? Yes, in the back! Nothing this month. This ad hoc section of our […]
The post WordPress Website Security appeared first on PACS WordPress SIG.
Hi WordPress wizards. Thanks for tuning in today. This is the start of our 2022 – 23 PACS season. I had hoped to record the session, but alas, Teams and my Microsoft account are not playing well today and I had no option available to me to record the meeting. To be fixed next month. […]
The post Making a child theme for a block theme appeared first on PACS WordPress SIG.
