Here's a problem that I've seen a few times of late, especially since the introduction of PHP version 8 and higher. WordPress sites using outdated themes are often showing errors in and around the site especially in the Dashboard, the specific error being: PHP [...]
Is your WordPress website only showing the homepage and all other pages redirecting to a 404 page or error page? The issue can often happen after a WordPress update, or even a plugin update such as a security or redirection plugin. Fortunately, the fix [...]
Sometimes you may have a URL that has parameters or variables included in it that you wish to display on a page or post within WordPress. In cases like this all that's needed is a simple function to get the information from the URL onto [...]
If your WooCommerce variations aren't user friendly for the user because it's always asking them to choose from a huge selection, or showing "Choose an option" or "Please select" text even if there's only one variation, a simple fix will help make your WordPress [...]
Recently a client reached out concerning a critical error in WordPress using Avada when trying to access the wp-admin area of the website. It appears that the problem is due to an issue with Revolution Slider, specifically a metabox function that's including in the admin [...]
Since WordPress 5.0.2, many WooCommerce installations have had an issue where all the shop's products have seemingly disappeared. Don't worry, they're still there, but if your WooCommerce installation is showing "No orders found" in the Orders sections of your Dashboard, here's what you'll need to [...]
I received a request recently from a client that wanted an easy way to hide content for logged in users via CSS, but they needed it to be done programmatically, and wanted some CSS added to the WordPress header. What they had was a CSS [...]
Recently, a client needed to be able to filter their custom post type posts list by a given taxonomy, making it easier to find what they were looking for. Fortunately with WordPress this isn't difficult. For the example below, the client was a restaurant who [...]
Recently a client needed a function or two for Gravity Forms to process UK telephone numbers, and asked that they are between 7 and 15 characters in length. The following Gravity forms filters do exactly what's needed. Paste them in to your theme's function.php [...]
WordPress: Activating a Plugin Manually A client came to me recently with a broken site problem they simply couldn't fix. They had de-activated a plugin that was so heavily ingrained into the site that all site functionality had ceased to work, meaning they could not [...]
After the recent WooCommerce updates, a number of clients have contacted me to ask about the admin message that appears in the WordPress Dashboard: Connect your store to WooCommerce.com to receive extensions updates and support. This message certainly isn't anything to be concerned about, and [...]
From time to time when migrating a WordPress website, you may come across collation issues when migrating the database. Specifically, a common error message when importing via PHPMyAdmin is the #1273 – Unknown collation: ‘utf8mb4_unicode_520_ci’ error. When Wordpress updated to version 4.2 they introduced support [...]
Gravity Forms is quite possibly the best forms plugin available for WordPress, but even with the vast array of functionality it offers right out of the box it still has its limitations. One such limitation is the date picker field, offers practically no chance of [...]
The WordPress default search has never been the most powerful tool in the WordPress arsenal, and hasn't changed much over the years. Developer and focus group discussions have promised much, but it's still the same old basic search functionality that existed way back when. However, [...]
It's often the small things that tend to annoy us, and in the case of one client it was the "Howdy" message on the right of the WordPress admin bar. A small thing perhaps, but how can you change it, programmatically? Fortunately help is at [...]
Recently for a project it was necessary to restrict WordPress registration to a select few specific domains, for example: domains with an email address from a certain company, i.e. email addresses ending with @warrenchandler.com. Rather than using a plugin to do limit domain access when registering, [...]
UPDATE: On later versions of WooCommerce in 2020 you may also try the following fix for the 30 limit threshold. https://www.warrenchandler.com/2020/06/27/woocommerce-variations-break-after-30-or-more-bug-fix/ Recently, a client was reporting that they were seeing an out of stock message on their product page, which wasn't correct. All of the [...]
If like me you use the WordPress plugin Resize at Upload, or Resize at Upload Plus, it's quite likely that you'll be getting a mysql error when changing the settings. Something like: Access denied for user ''@'localhost' (using password: NO) in /home/accountname/public_html/wp-content/plugins/resize-at-upload/resize-upload.php on line 63 [...]
Today's WordPress themes are becoming more and more flexible where web design is concerned, but I'm still asked from time to time to create custom widget areas for clients. Fortunately, the process is a fairly simple one and you can create a simple widget [...]
From time to time clients come to me requesting login redirects in WordPress. The following handy snippet below allows you to specify where the user lands once they've logged in, based on user roles. In the example, users with Administrator and Editor roles are redirected [...]
I recently built a site for a client using the fantastic Avada theme, and they asked me how it was possible to have images showing up in a lightbox rather than a standalone file or an attachment page. They wanted to add the prettyPhoto plugin, [...]
WordPress isn't exactly Google when it comes to searching. The system is long overdue an overhaul, but while we wait for the never-arriving necessity you can still get much more out of your WordPress searches. Today a programmer client asked me something that I thought [...]
From time to time, as a web programmer you come across things that deviate from the norm. This is certainly one of them - adding an excerpt box to WordPress Pages. As you probably already know if you stumbled across this article, this feature already [...]
As a web programmer, I'm often asked to fix the problems that others have, but when I see problems appearing on sites I've had a hand in, I'm infinitely more concerned. This is exactly what happened recently, when I custom post type I had provided [...]
I've recently come across a slight problem with one of my clients whereby they wanted the RSS feed widget to open all incoming links in a new window. And why wouldn't they? Especially if they're external RSS feeds that are being parsed. We could have [...]
Most WordPress developers are familiar with Gravity Forms. It's a contact form plugin that allows you to easily build and publish your forms in just minutes, with the minimum of hassle. No mess, just quick and easy form-building. Select your fields, configure your options and [...]
How To Block Timthumb Hack Attempts Like many developers I manage a large number of WordPress sites, and in days gone by I'd use TimThumb to handle my images. Sadly, a few years back this became a huge problem since a TimThumb hack surfaced which [...]
Today was essentially my first experience of Gravity Forms, the WordPress forms plugin and it would be fair to say it came with its fair share of use niggles, but nothing that I couldn't overcome. Here's the three things I found that may help users [...]
A few people have asked me this question, so I thought I would share it with you all (yes, both of you). It's a tiny snippet that's not rocket science and you can find it if you look hard enough, but it's oh, so useful. [...]
Note: This method no longer works as intended due to changes in WordPress and Google maps. However, if you paste the iframe information from the Google maps page, WordPress automatically converts the frame to its own shortcode for you. At least, it's supposed to work [...]
