WordPress News, Tutorials, Opionions and How-Tos

WordPress 4.4, Responsive Images and scrset

WordPress 4.4 shipped this week with a really interesting approach to responsive images.

Joe McGill, who led the project, has an overview of the changes:

WordPress automatically creates several sizes of each image uploaded to the media library. By including the available sizes of an image into a srcset attribute, browsers can now choose to download the most appropriate size and ignore the others—potentially saving bandwidth and speeding up page load times in the process.

That was the goal. Here's an example of the actual code for an image in WordPress 4.4:

Watch ManageWP Talk About Their WordPress Tools and New Orion Project

Webinar with ManageWP: Control Many WordPress Sites

Here at OSTraining, we're enthusiastic users of ManageWP. We have an in-depth video class on using ManageWP and use the service to maintain our own WordPress sites.

We're delighted to have hosted a webinar with Nemanja Aleksic from ManageWP.

We recorded and edited the webinar, and have published it below.

This video has something for everyone, from ordinary WordPress users to experienced developers. Nemanaja talked about ManageWP tools and also about the challenges of a project that involves overhauling such a popular system. If you're really interested in project management in the open source area, check out UpStream, a WordPress project management plugin.

Currently ManageWP is in the process of launching Orion, a completely redesigned and rebuilt version of their platform.

Turn Off Comments in WordPress with Disable Comments Plugin

One of our users asked for a quick way to disable comments globally in WordPress. By using the Disable Comments plugin, it's easy to solve this request.

In this short tutorial, I'm going to show you how to disable comments with a few clicks.

A Video Introduction to BuddyPress Groups

BuddyPress is the social networking plugin for WordPress.

You can create public, private or hidden (invite-only) groups.

A BuddyPress group is very similar to a Facebook group and allows your members to organize themselves based on their interests.

Custom Permalinks for WordPress Category and Tag Pages

Set a Custom Base for Category and Tag Urls in WordPress

By default, WordPress includes the words category and tag as the basis for the URLs of important pages. For example:

mysite.com/category/something - for a category page.
mysite.com/tag/something - for a tag page.

In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to replace the words "category" and "tag" in your URLs.

Add reCaptcha to Contact Form 7 in WordPress

Google has an improved, user-friendly Captcha system.

Contact Form 7 is the most popular contact form plugin for WordPress.

By combining the two, you can easily create WordPress contact forms with antispam protection.

In this tutorial, I'm going show you how to integrate reCaptcha to Contact Form 7 in your WordPress site.

Parties and Events at WordCamp US in Philadelphia

WordCamp US is coming up soon in Philadelphia and it's going to be a special event.

WordCamp US is the first time that the WordPress community has really tried to hold a large conference along the lines of DrupalCon and PyCon. They're expecting 2,000 attendees in Philly.

It certainly helps to increase attendance when tickets are an absurdly low $40 for 2 days. Conferences like this normally cost from $300 to $2000. There are still tickets on sale today. If you can't make it in person, you can buy a livestream ticket for only $10.

Webinar with ManageWP: Control Many WordPress Sites

Here at OSTraining, we're enthusiastic users of ManageWP. We have an in-depth video class on using ManageWP and use the service to maintain our own WordPress sites.

We're delighted to be hosting a webinar on December 10th, with Nemanja Aleksic from ManageWP.

This webinar will have something for everyone from ordinary WordPress users to experienced developers. Nemanaja is going to talk about ManageWP and also about the challenges of overhauling such as popular system. They're in the process of launching Orion, a completely redesigned and rebuilt version of their platform.

How to Embed Tweets in WordPress

WordPress makes super easy to embed a tweet in your website thanks to the oEmbed protocol.

In this post, we'll show you how to embed a tweet in a post. You don't need to use any plugins to make this work.

Make Your WordPress Site Look Like Our Breeze Demo

The OSTraining Breeze theme for WordPress is our training theme. We use it for many of our sample classes. We also wrote on the GoDaddy blog about our experiences getting Breeze published on WordPress.org.

Breeze is super easy to use and it allows you to customize key features such as the logo, colors and widgets.

In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to recreate the homepage from our original demo.

The Free WordPress Training Weekend: December 5 and 6

We're pleased to announce that on December 5th and 6th, we'll make ALL our amazing WordPress classes viewable for FREE for those two days.

This is the weekend of WordCamp US in Philadelphia, so even if you can't attend the largest WordPress event ever, you'll still be able to improve your WordPress skills.

How to Create Footnotes in WordPress

Sometimes you might want to add a clarification to a text. But, as soon as you add it, you realize it's too much text. Footnotes to the rescue!

In this tutorial, we'll show you an easy way to create footnotes in WordPress.

Create WordPress Columns using Bootstrap in the Breeze Theme

How to Create Columns in Breeze WordPress Theme

One of our users needed to display content in two columns in a page while using our Breeze WordPress theme. Since the theme is based on Bootstrap 2, it already includes support for columns.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to add columns to posts and pages with a few examples.

How to Add Microdata to Posts in WordPress

Microdata makes it possible for search engines to understand important details about your site's content.

Microdata provides Google and Bing with extra information about your content such as names, descriptions, dates and ratings. And, because search engines can understand your data more clearly, they often reward you with a higher ranking.

Some themes provide microdata support, but many do not. In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to add microdata to your WordPress theme.

WordPress Security: How to Force Strong Passwords

One of the most important aspects of maintaining a secure site is using a strong password.

In this video, Topher shows you how to force users on your WordPress site to have strong passwords.

Also, be sure to check out our Re-name Your Login Area tutorial. If you're looking for more advanced security tips, enroll in our WordPress Security class.

15 Great Themes for Your WooCommerce Store

If you want to create a fully-functional online store, then you should consider WooCommerce, the most popular way to build an online store.

In order to build a good looking WooCommerce store, you will need to find a theme that specifically provides WooCommerce support.

I'm going to help you find a suitable WooCommerce theme with this list of 15 beautiful and feature-rich designs.

If you are really serious about your WooCommerce store, check out this guide to creating consistent, high-quality WooCommerce products.

Free Class on GiveWP, the WordPress Donations Plugin

One of our team's principles is that we give back to the communities we're a part of.

Today, we're happy to announce that we're giving away our class on the GiveWP plugin for free.

How to Install a WordPress Plugin - Video Tutorial

WordPress makes site creation easy, including plugin installation. So sometimes we skim over the basics and assume that the simple tasks are self-evident.

But, for brand new users, knowing the best practices for WordPress site creation is a must.

This video tutorial will cover the basics of installing a new plugin in WordPress.

How to Add Custom Fonts to WordPress

An OSTraining member asked us how to add two extra fonts to their WordPress site:

A custom font
A safe font, such as Times New Roman

In this tutorial, I'm going show you how to use CSS to add fonts to WordPress.

All About WooCommerce's New Onboarding Process

WooCommerce 2.4 was released in August, and had a really cool codename, "the Helpful Hedgehog."

Why did the WooCommerce team choose that name? Because they focused on making WooCommerce much easier to use.

In particular, the WooCommerce team worked on a brand new onboarding feature. When you install WooCommerce 2.4, you'll now several screens that walk you setting up your store.

This onboarding process really is easy to use and it's one that many plugin developers could emulate.

How to Use the Events Calendar Plugin for WordPress

The Events Calendar Plugin for WordPress is simple to use.

The free version comes with the basic features to manage events in WordPress, including a calendar view to display events to your visitors.

I'm going to show you how to install and start using Events Calendar Plugin.

The Simmer Plugin for WordPress Food Sites

Food blogs are enormously popular at the moment.

The Simmer plugin is a great option for building a food site in WordPress. Simmer enables you to quickly and easily publish your recipes. You can add ingredients, step-by-step instructions, sub-headings, structured cook times, and a lot more all within a user-friendly drag and drop interface.

The 2 videos below will introduce you to using Simmer. These videos are part of our complete video class, "Build a WordPress Recipe Directory".

Redirect a WordPress site from non-WWW to WWW

How to Redirect non-WWW to WWW in WordPress

The following tutorial will show you how to redirect your WordPress site's domain from non-www to www or vice versa. Redirecting one to the other is useful for SEO.

If you go to https://www.wordpress.org, you'll see the URL changes a bit once you click enter. It goes to the non-www version. In order words, it goes to https://wordpress.org. It's a subtle change and it's usually not noticed by users.

So why have they done this? It's because, technically, the two are different domains but they have the same content. Without the redirect, they end up with duplicate content. With the redirect, they only have one site, so only one set of content.

How to Use Embeds in WordPress

One of the things I love most about WordPress is that it's easy to use. WordPress has made embeds easy too.

Embeds allow you to add a URL to a post and then watch as WordPress magically pulls in content for you. This works for YouTube videos, Twitter messages, Instagram photos, Slideshare presentations and many other types of content.

Here's a short video tutorial on using embeds in WordPress, plus some pro tips.

Win Monstroid, the New WordPress Theme from Template Monster

Monstroid is a brand new, multipurpose WordPress theme from Template Monster.

It was released with a splash in July this year, and has already managed to gain a lot of attention.

Monstroid costs $79, but today 3 of you have a chance to get Monstroid absolutely free! If you want to be amongst the winners, read on ...

Customize the Read More Links in WordPress

WordPress makes posssible to override many things, but it's not always easy to override language strings.

Sometimes language strings are in the WordPress core and you can override them using plugins.

However, sometimes language strings are included in the theme, and one common example is the "Read More" link for posts.

In this short tutorial, I'm going to show you how to customize the "Read More" link with a few lines of code.

How to Uninstall a WordPress Plugin

Sometimes you're done with a plugin and it's no longer needed. If that's the case, it should be uninstalled. Unused plugins can add maintenance and security headaches to your site.

This tutorial will show you how to uninstall a WordPress plugin. Let's get started ...

How to Change Usernames in WordPress

So you'd like to change a username on your site? Unfortunately, a default installation of WordPress doesn't allow username changes.

We can show you how to fix that problem by using a plugin called Username Changer.

How to Find a Slow WordPress Plugin

Your site's getting popular, but with the increased traffic, it seems slower. You picked a fast host, enabled caching, but for some reason, it's still loading slowly. What's causing the performance issue?

The answer is that it's likely an unoptimized WordPress plugin. One slow plugin can slow down the entire site.

This tutorial will introduce you to P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler). With it, you'll be able to see each plugin's performance on the site.

Our Pods Framework Class is Now Free

We love the Pods Framework. It's one of the very best ways to create custom fields and content types in WordPress.

So today we're happy to annnounce that we've partnered with the Pods team to make our 11-part video class on Pods available for free.

This series is a great introduction, for those who are new to Pods, and are looking to use Pods without writing any PHP code. These videos cover creating custom post types in Pods, adding fields to the Pods, using Pods Templates and shortcodes to display fields in the content.

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