Advanced: WordPress tools roundup
Presenter: Clark Wimberly
July 2 · 7:00 PM Capital Factory (in the Austin Centre)
Developers rejoice as we host an advanced tools roundup.
Topics *might* include:
-IDE/development (which editors, clients, apps do we use)
-Plugins/services (which services can’t we live without)
-Social/learning (the best way/places to interact with other coders)
This will be in a roundtable format with a few developers taking your questions and talking about the stuff they think is cool and useful. As Clark put it, “lots of hollerin’ encouraged.”
Note: this is an **advanced** topic. Everyone is welcome, but it’s designed for our WordPress folks who love code (or want to learn to love it!)
Note: Clark uses a MAC and is thus Mac-centric, using Sublime Text 2
SEE http://clarklab.com/tag/wordpress/ where he talks extensively about the Sublime Text 2 text editor tool and why.
– flexible
– own plug in system – thousands of them; and has snippets
-can find a pkg that can do what you want
e.g sublime sf ftp
also has tons of videos
Much is from Clark’s Outline with additional notes in-between:
IDEs & Editors
Fonts
Services
Plugins
Social & Community
Folks in Austin you should know
and all you should know natively
IDEs & Editors
Sublime Text
My main text editor. Can’t live without its packages, snippets, customization, and portability.
sublimetext.com
some use vbtext (only mac)
Sublime SFTP
Favorite ST package. Makes working remotely almost invisible.
wbond.net
ForkLift
My favorite Mac FTP client, featuring a killer dual-pane interface and a bunch of other goodies.
binarynights.com
FTP -for pc -filezilla , transmit, cyberduck
sftp – forklift better, transmit faster for ftp
WordPress Textmate Bundle
The entire codex in one package (snippets and completes for virtually every WP function).
github.com
Emmet
A plugin for many popular text editors which improves HTML & CSS workflow (with snippets, completes, etc)
emmet.io
autom complete libraries
Q: what debug pkgs?
A: php lint function, php storm – willl tell you more what you did wrong – runtimes error,syntax works, but will look at assign statements
apptana (per NB) – started playing it with, scriptable, syntax checking, java, and shows browser dependencies; also lets you manage projects
built on flip ide – runs on linus, mac, windows – cross platform
ide= integrated develoment environment (?)
Sass sass-lang.com
Sass makes CSS fun again. Sass is an extension of CSS3, adding nested rules, variables, mixins, selector inheritance, and more.
does things that css can’t do it on its own
Mixins – variables on steroids
Compass compiles sass (per NB) uses less, wearekidd.vom/simpleless
preprocessors – then all crunched in to css
clark using live reload
LiveReload livereload.com
LiveReload monitors changes in the file system. As soon as you save a file, it is preprocessed as needed, and the browser is refreshed.
CE using codekid – allows him to add projects, and brings into his javascript
some using haml (?)
monitors your stuff, minutes sees a change, will change it live
bracket built into adobe for profit use – not as robust
clark recenlty did cloud ide review – that’s why likes sublime, saw some bugginess otherwise
bourbon – library for mixins, font variables – forget about vendors prefixes
Bourbon bourbon.io
A simple and lightweight mixin library for Sass.
SizeUp irradiatedsoftware.com
Makes managing multiple windows a breeze (on any size screen)
Fonts
Typekit typekit.com
Font subscription service featuring high-quality typefaces. From $24.99/yr
uses it on almost every project
Google Fonts google.com
A font library containing free and open-source fonts.
fonts just aren’t as good, reason they’re open source and ree…
cloud.typography cloud.typography.com
A subscription service featuring the highest-quality fonts. From $99/yr.
highest quality
Font Squirrel fontsquirrel.com
A font library containing free and medium-quality fonts. Also a handy converter you probably shouldn’t be using.
free and medium, same as googlefonts, finds better if pay
Symbolset symbolset.com
An icon font with a twist. Ligatures are used (letters combing into a single glyph) to transform words like “home” or “user” into visual icons. From $1.
IcoMoon icomoon.io
A tool for mashing together different icon sets into a single font, combining and minimizing the assets in the process. Free, and up.
Services
Dropbox dropbox.com
My favorite source-control-but-not-really. Used for so many projects in the early stages, across all machines.
Google Drive drive.google.com
Like Dropbox, but from Google.
Pingdom pingdom.com
Know when your website goes down (if you care).
GitHub github.com
Build software better, together. Source control and bug tracking and wikis and oh my.
tortoise kit for pc, though git now has one
wordpress core using svn
BrowserStack browserstack.com
Cross Browser Testing Tool. 200+ Browsers, Mobile, Real IE.
helps visually id stuff
gtmetrex.com for performance testing
e.g optimizing images, hand javascript for overall score
yahoo smooshit – strips out meta data, can 1/2 oaf a file size (gtmetrics also do that)
for windows – earthen user
ifanview
gimp – if you don’t want to pay for photoshop
adobe fireworks – is now free
Plugins
ACF – Advanced Custom Fields advancedcustomfields.com
The best custom fields library ever. So flexible and robust it’s ridiculous.
updates every 3 months, in 4th version
Jetpack for WordPress jetpack.me
Bring a bunch of goodies from wordpress.com to your self-hosted installs.
goes on every site he builds –
Manual Control for Jetpack
Put the kibosh on new Jetpack modules.
wordpress.org
gets overzealous, this module will restrict what jetpack does
also slim jetpack
Debug Bar
Submitted by @tnorthcutt
wordpress.org
Debug Bar Extender
Submitted by @tnorthcutt
wordpress.org
Regenerate Thumbnails
Runs through your library and makes images in all defined sizes. Bonus: Bill Erickson to the rescue http://www.billerickson.net/code/dynamic-image-resizing
wordpress.org
imsanity – auto limits filesize
add from server (per NB) – gargantuan won’t let you upload, go from server because of file limit
WP Migrate DB Pro deliciousbrains.com
Submitted by @tnorthcutt and @pat_ramsey
wpb retina 2x
wp gallery – thickbox, jetpack has own pop up now
wp gallery
wp backup – CW sends clients to dropbox – check with host company to make sure this is okay
wp engine back up to Amazon for free – just data
automattics is a paid service
watch db size – it doens’t tell you if php doesn’t complete
Developer
Submitted by @tnorthcutt
wordpress.org
Social & Community
Dribbble dribbble.com
Think work twitter for designers. Share small shots of whatever you’re working on.
Forrst forrst.com
A community for developers and designers looking to sharpen their skills.
CodePen codepen.io
A kickass HTML/CSS/JS playground, filled with all sorts of front-end examples.
WordPress Answers wordpress.stackexchange.com
WordPress-flavored Stack Exchange. If you can’t find an answer here, I’d start to worry.
Austin WordPress Meetup wpaustin.com
The finest WordPress community this city has ever known.
Meetup meetup.com
Find a bunch of like-minded people and spend some time with them.
Folks in Austin you should know
Bill Erickson billerickson.net
Dude can code and drink.
Paravel paravelinc.com
Three dudes on point.
Happy Cog happycog.com
Transplants that do web design, web development, mobile & content strategy on a whole ‘nother level.
Handsome handsome.is
BBQ and cocktails aint the only thing to experience on the east side.
WP Engine wpengine.com
You’re sitting in their offices. Everybody waaaave.
per NB – remember apple widgets
sql pro – navicat – export code and see what it does,
json tree standard – to make in clickable handable tree
wp is also working on a json rest.api – have an app to make db completely simple
to standardize how calls are made
wpcli – for command line
wp stack – lost of heavy stuff
wodfence- security – to block out people who try to log in as admin – can block up to 6 days,
– don’t use admin anymore is way around it
better wpsecurity plug in per CW 404nscans; but on flip side, lot of 404 errors with a bad theme, can lock out some good
infitnite wp is better to track plugins – what’s needed (per CW)
?authority will tell you what author is and get the admin, but better wpsecurity
any on plugins are for a massive hit and run
25 had known exploits of sql injections
50% through host
hostgator and godaddy are worst
keypass is good for passwords – keep it on dropbox – standalone; generates on the fly, free
onepassword (per CW) – standalone
lastpass is fully hosted
revisions – google easter egg compare revisions
As always, scribing is not a science, so there may be some user error in taking notes.
BTW – We can always use help scribing meeting minutes!