[ad_1] Within the world of social media marketing, there is perpetual talk of new platforms to conquer and find potential customers on. TikTok is the latest social media platform that has rocketed to stardom due (in part) to the global COVID-19 pandemic. As such, this has lead many site owners to learn how to display TikTok posts in WordPress. After all, WordPress can already embed a slew of other social media platforms. The good news TikTok is no different. In fact, there are a few ways to get the job done, both through native functionality and third-party plugins. In this post, we’ll show you a couple of ways to display TikTok posts in WordPress. Before this, let’s give you a quick overview of the platform. A Brief Introduction to TikTok TikTok itself is only five years old, although the platform has a longer history. It’s known as Douyin in China (TikTok’s ‘home’ country), and although both apps share the same functionality and features, they’re separate from one another. When Douyin’s owners sought to go global, they acquired the popular Musical.ly service. This gained popularity through short form lip-synced videos. Once the merger took place, TikTok was born and exploded onto the world stage. At first, TikTok followed in the footsteps of Musical.ly. Both then and now, lots of viral videos feature lip-syncing and choreographed dance moves. As such, it’s been a popular platform for younger demographics. Though, older users have made their way to the platform too, and there’s more of a short, ‘life-hack’ element to TikTok at current writing. This leads into our next section – all about the benefits of showcasing TikTok posts on your website. Why You’d Want to Display TikTok Posts On Your WordPress Website The reasons for you wanting to display TikTok posts are diverse, and dependent on your needs and goals. For example, if you run a WordPress blog, you may want to showcase your favorite ‘TikToks’ (or your own). Though, for businesses, there are a swathe of benefits to leverage: You’re able to market to a core younger demographic on a hot new platform. The user base is massive, and compares in a way to the Snapchat phenomenon a few years ago. There are more, but in a nutshell, visibility and opportunity are central positives. Also, TikToks are great for embedding in posts because of how short and interesting they are. The great news is it’s straightforward to display TikTok posts in WordPress, and we’ll show you this next. How to Display TikTok Posts on Your WordPress Website (In 2 Ways) While we’ll list two ways to display TikTok posts on your WordPress website here, there are a few more of methods to note. In short, we’ve suggested two possible approaches: Embed TikToks using WordPress’ native functionality. Install a plugin to display TikTok posts in WordPress. The plugin approach is simple, although as native methods go, WordPress has a variety of ways to embed social media of all types. We’ll cover this in more detail next. 1. Use WordPress’ Native Embedding Functionality First off, WordPress is adept at displaying a multitude of social media posts. In fact, it’s long been a Content Management System (CMS) that is good at displaying content from all the major social media networks, and the minor ones. Even better, it continues to do so regardless of whether you use the Classic Editor or Block Editor. We’ll offer you three different ways WordPress can provide native embeds for TikTok posts. Whichever you use is up to you depending on your needs. Pasting Into the Block Editor The simple way to embed any content in WordPress is to paste it as text into your desired editor. The CMS has been able to do this almost from the start, and it continues to be a great User Experience (UX) element for users who need it. To start though, you’ll need the link to your TikTok post. There are a couple of ways to do this – either take the URL direct from the browser bar, or open the Share icon for each post and click Copy Link: Once you have this, you can jump back to WordPress, and paste the link into your post or page like any other piece of text: From here, WordPress will convert the link to an Embed Block, then into a dedicated TikTok Block. In fact, you may want to go direct to the Block – we’ll show you this next. Adding the TikTok Block to Your Page In most cases, pasting the link to your TikTok video is perfect. WordPress will do the necessary to convert the link and add a Block to your post or page. Though, adding the Block yourself is a good idea if you’re building a layout and don’t yet know what TikToks you’re going to include. To add the dedicated TikTok Block, either click the Add Block icon on the editor screen, or pull up the sidebar from the top of the screen: You may need to search for the Block using the dedicated form here, but regardless of your approach, you should find the right Block. At this point, you can add the Block, then add the URL to the relevant field. Once you click the Embed button, WordPress will do its job to display your TikTok post. Adding a WordPress Widget to Your Page There’s one more way you can display TikTok posts in WordPress, and that’s through widgets. It’s more of a ‘hack’ than a dedicated method, but it works as well as the other solutions. To do this, head to the Appearance > Widgets screen in WordPress, and locate your chosen widget area: From here, scroll down the list of available widgets, and insert a Text widget into your desired area: Once you open the widget, you’ll see an ‘old-school’ Classic Editor panel: From here, the process is simple – paste the URL into the textarea, and it will embed as you’d expect: One thing
Continue readingTag Archives: wordpress
How to Preview WordPress Sites on Mobile Devices
[ad_1] Whether you’re designing sites for clients or managing your own WordPress website, it’s important to know how it looks and works on a mobile device before you make any changes public. You probably have a mobile phone you can check your site with. But if you’re working on your laptop or desktop, it’s inconvenient to have to keep going back to your phone. And even if your website looks ok on your phone, there are a lot of phones and tablets out there. Just because it looks ok to you, doesn’t necessarily mean it will work perfectly on every different screen size, browser, and operating system. So how exactly do you preview WordPress sites on mobile devices? In this guide, we’ll cover a few easy methods of testing your site for mobile without leaving your computer. Why is it So Important to Test the Mobile Version of Your Site? Mobile devices overtook desktop computers as the primary method of browsing the web a few years back. Mobile devices accounted for 54.8% of global web traffic in the first quarter of 2021, and mobile phones and tablets took 57.37% of the market share worldwide over the last year. In some global regions, mobile use overshadows desktop use by a much bigger margin. For example, in India, mobile has over 77% market share. In response to growing mobile internet use, Google has started to penalize sites that don’t provide a good user experience on mobile. There have been a number of algorithm updates over the last few years designed to make the search experience better for mobile users. The 2015 “Mobilegeddon” update was the most drastic, as Google shifted to a mobile-first model. As a WordPress user, choosing a mobile responsive theme is the first step to making sure your site looks good and works well on mobile. But with the block editor, users have more control over the formatting of individual pages than previously. So it’s important to check how your site looks on a mobile device every time you add new content, even if you’re not developing themes or plugins. This is especially important if you’re using a visual drag and drop page builder like Divi or Elementor to create new page layouts or add content to your site. Method 1: Using the Built-in WordPress Mobile Preview You’ve always been able to preview your WordPress posts and pages before you publish them. But did you notice that you can also preview how your site looks on mobile? There are two places you can access a mobile preview in WordPress: From the post and page editor (not always accurate) From the WordPress customizer WordPress Post/Page Editor Preview Let’s first take a look at how the mobile preview in the Post and Page editor works. Click the “Preview” button that’s next to the “Publish” or “Update” button. In the drop-down menu that pops up, select “Tablet” or “Mobile” before clicking. This will immediately adjust the size of the page editor. However, this is a very rough and ready estimation of how your content will look and may not be very accurate, particularly if you’re using custom blocks or externally loaded CSS. You can see in this example that the editor has simply resized the blocks to fit into a smaller screen and wrapped the text. However, if you look at the live site at a smaller screen size, you’ll realize that it doesn’t look like this at all. Instead, the responsive design settings have kicked in to rearrange the blocks and resize the text. Here’s how it actually looks on a smaller browser screen: Lesson: don’t trust the mobile preview in the Post and Page editor. To be fair, this is a pretty new feature and has only been around since WordPress 5.5, which was released in mid-2020. Hopefully, the mobile page preview will be improved in the future. WordPress Customizer Preview So is the preview in the WordPress Customizer any better? Let’s take a look. To access the WordPress mobile preview, go to Appearance > Customize in your WordPress dashboard. This will display a preview of how your site looks and allow you to see how changes you make to the style change its appearance in real-time. You can navigate to any page on your site and scroll up and down just as if it’s the live version of the site. To see how your site will look on a different screen size, use the icons at the bottom of the customization menu to switch between device views. The default is desktop, with tablet in the middle and smart phone on the right. This is the easiest and quickest way to see the mobile version of your site as it’s within the WordPress dashboard and accessible in a couple of clicks However, this essentially just gives you the same view as you would get by resizing your browser window. It doesn’t replicate exactly how your website will display and behave on every mobile device. It also only allows you to view your site at three different screen widths. Mobile devices come with many different screen sizes and resolutions. As the original proposal for the feature by the WordPress core development team states, “Only three options are available by default, and they’re intentionally ambiguous. Rather than looking like specific devices, the intent is to understand what a site may look like on a roughly tablet-sized, portrait-orientation device or a roughly phone-sized device.” Additionally, the WordPress customizer is only available for themes that support it. This means if you’re using a theme that doesn’t work with the customizer, you won’t be able to use this method to preview your site on mobile. Viewing Mobile Preview in WordPress Page Builders If you’re using a visual page builder like Divi, Elementor, Visual Composer, etc. most of them come with their own tools for previewing the mobile version of your site and seeing how the responsive design looks at different screen sizes. Refer to
Continue readingWP Engine Launches Faust.js, a New Headless WordPress Framework – WP Tavern
[ad_1] WP Engine has launched Faust.js, a new headless framework that is open source and designed to work in any Node hosting environment. The framework is built on Next.js, which can handle both static site generation and server side rendering. It uses GraphQL for data fetching and is the only framework that allows developers to query the WPGraphQL API without having to know GraphQL queries ahead of time. Faust.js was in its earlier stages when WP Engine hired WPGraphQL creator and maintainer Jason Bahl. The company has been heavily investing in headless infrastructure development, hiring more engineers for projects aimed at reducing the friction of using WordPress as a headless CMS. This is the main thrust of the new framework – to allow developers to build scalable, better performing sites with modern frontend tools while preserving WordPress’ rich publishing experience. Faust.js includes content previews, support for custom post types, and built-in authentication to support paywalls, e-commerce, membership sites, and other functionality that has traditionally been difficult for headless sites. How does Faust.js differ from existing headless solutions like the React-based Frontity framework? Developers building headless sites are curious after Automattic acquired Frontity and the framework’s maintainers exited to work full-time on Gutenberg. Using a community-supported headless framework can be a risky bet for enterprise clients when its creators and maintainers are no longer able to contribute. “Frontity and Faust are similar, the main difference is that Frontity focuses on providing a framework on-top of React where Faust is primarily built with Next.js support in-mind,” Faust.js creator William Johnston said. “This small distinction is meaningful and means when you are using Faust you can take advantage of all the amazing benefits of Next. It also lets Faust focus specifically on how to make Headless WordPress a better experience, without having to come up with a comprehensive solution for front-end, node-base, static/server-side applications.“ When asked how Faust stacks up to Frontity in a comment on Reddit, WP Engine developer relations engineer Kellen Mace highlighted a few other major differences between the frameworks. Frontity only works with the WP REST API and Faust uses WPGraphQL “for more efficient queries.” “Technically, Faust is built in ‘layers,’ so even if you choose to build your frontend app using SvelteKit, Nuxt, etc. you can still leverage several of the tools Faust provides,” Mace said. “We’ll have more documentation coming out on using it with other JS frameworks in the near future. Using it with Next.js gives you the most ‘bang for your buck,’ however.” Johnston confirmed that certain elements of Faust (the core/React pieces), are already working with the React-based GatsbyJS framework. Faust is less opinionated about the frontend and is more centered around making the WordPress publishing experience better. A demo of Faust in action is available at developers.wpengine.com. The framework, which includes NPM packages and a WordPress plugin, can be found on GitHub, but its maintainers caution that there will be breaking changes in the future. Developers who are interested in learning more about Faust.js can check out the documentation or listen to the most recent episode of the DE{CODE} podcast where Johnston discusses headless WordPress and introduces the framework. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingWordPress and Me: Am I Going Against All Odds? – WordPress dan Saya: Apakah saya dapat melewati semua rintangan yang menghadang?
[ad_1] Esai ini juga tersedia dalam bahasa Indonesia. It is not that hard to fall for WordPress if you have a chance to experience WordPress. For me, it took a WordCamp. To make it fancy, in 2016, I was volunteering impromptu at WordCamp Denpasar in Bali, the island of Gods. To note, Bali is a tiny island in a country called Indonesia. Yes, it’s where I’m from. So, if you read this, you know how powerful WordCamp is. It may bring people who will give back to the community, even if they don’t get anything from WordCamp. (Well, perhaps a t-shirt, a lanyard and free hotel meals) My journey with WordPress started from one WordCamp to the next. It gets fancier. The next one was WordCamp Ubud, still in Bali. This time, I was organizing. Ubud is one of the hottest hotspots for digital nomads in Asia. A beautiful place, especially if you are also into nature, yoga and some enlightenment. I’m not kidding. If WordPress does not enlighten you enough, go to Ubud. You will feel some kind of strong energy to connect to everything. Bali is magical, so is everything in it. It is a perfect environment to meet with new people who share the same interests, especially at a WordPress event such as WordCamp or Meetup. Volunteering at WordCamp Denpasar 2016 with Kharis Sulistiyono (volunteer) and Niels Lange (organizer). Photo Credit: Rocio Valdivia Then, I started attending WordPress Meetups in Ubud and Jakarta. I also organized more WordCamps. WordCamp Jakarta in 2017 and 2019. But only later, I made a new commitment as a Meetup organizer in Jakarta and Ubud. Before Covid happened, I was travelling back and forth between Jakarta and Ubud. Whenever I went to Ubud, organizing Meetup was the first thing on my list. I was also taking part in organizing WordCamp Asia 2020. Hopefully, it will eventually take place after everything in the world with Covid gets safer for us to travel and meet in person. At WordCamps and Meetups, you heard stories about how WordPress powers the web. How it changes the lives of so many people. How it helps dreams come true. I was thinking. If WordPress was that powerful, why are there not many people in Indonesia using websites, and why don’t they use WordPress. Why are there not many people who use WordPress in Indonesia contributing to WordPress? Why are there not many talented Indonesian WordPress users, developers, designers, business owners taking part in WordPress.org projects. Why? My guess is one of the many reasons, a language issue. I believe, the more content translated into Indonesian, the more Indonesian WordPress users see WordPress as more than just a blogging platform or a CMS. Instead, it’s a huge open source community that work together to make the web a better place. The more plugins and themes translated the easier the work of the developer and designer will be with WordPress. The more people see how WordPress can benefit their life, the better the business ecosystem for business owners becomes. Organizing at WordCamp Ubud 2017 with Pramana Adi Putra dan Wahyu Taufiq. Photo Credit: Hubud After several asking around and discussions about translating WordPress, suddenly I made a commitment to revive the polyglot project in Indonesia. I was lucky, there was a community member who came forward to help. Then, with a lot of promotion, the team got bigger. It’s good to know I am not alone. There are WordPress users interested in translating. I didn’t stop there. I noticed that there are not many women involved in the WordPress community in Indonesia. I did meet a few women at WordCamps or Meetups, but the number is too small. And most of the time, I was the only woman. Perhaps I overlooked the fact that Indonesia is still highly patriarchal despite the economic boom. The WordPress community in Indonesia feels almost like a male-dominated community. Organizing at WordCamp Jakarta 2019 Then after some discussions with a couple of community members, I initiated Perempuan WordPress. There are two words for women in Indonesian, ‘wanita’ and ‘perempuan’. I chose ‘perempuan’ as I like to think that it is not merely referring to women sexually but more importantly about the role that the female human can have. It feels more empowering to me. Don’t ask me about the formal translation of ‘perempuan’ in Indonesian though. It’s pretty sad. A community member also came forward to help. She wanted to organize an online meetup on Telegram. It is open for everyone to join but we prioritize women to speak, although our first speaker was a man. It was quite challenging to look for female speakers, even using Perempuan WordPress as a platform. I could not even convince my co-organizer to speak! WCAsia 2020 Organizers in WCEU 2019. Photo Credit: WCEU 2019 I once had a chat with someone who spoke at WordCamp Jakarta and was a successful business owner. I asked why she was not active in a WordPress forum on Facebook, perhaps answering a question, as she is listed as a member. Facebook and Telegram are the two platforms where most Indonesian WordPress users go to ask for support. She said that it was too scary to receive condescending replies from the male members. She was afraid the comments would bring her down. To date, I am still looking for Indonesian WordPress users who share the same interest in building Perempuan WordPress. But, what did I actually do with WordPress before I started contributing? If you mean whether I code? No, I don’t. I suck in math. I’m super slow in getting my head around code. Well, in 2014, I signed up for a free account on WordPress.com. I was commuting for work and when I was on public transport my mind wandered. I thought of keeping a note about whatever I see and let the public read it. I was not aware it was called blogging. I did subscribe but the blog
Continue readingWordPress Opens Applications for In-Person WordCamps – WP Tavern
[ad_1] photo credit: Huasonic – cc WordPress is restarting its in-person WordCamp program after more than six weeks of discussion on a proposal for how the WordPress community can return to hosting events. Applications are now open for in-person WordCamps, provided they meet the Community Team’s updated guidelines for organizing WordCamps during the pandemic. Local communities that have hosted meetups prior to the pandemic are eligible to apply to host a WordCamp if public health authorities permit in-person gatherings in their region and the area passes the in-person safety checklist. If the checklist requirements cannot be met, organizers may still host a WordCamp, provided that vaccines or COVID tests are readily available in the community. In the event the location doesn’t pass the in-person checklist and also has limited access to vaccines and testing, organizers would need to opt for an online WordCamp. The new guidelines have been simplified into a flowchart: The Community Team expects that attendees will be fully vaccinated, recently tested negative, or recovered from COVID within the last three months. Attendance will be based on the honor system, as organizers will not be asking for proof as a condition of participation. WordCamps are sorely missed by WordPress enthusiasts and professionals, and many are eager to return. This restart of the WordCamp program will need to attract more than just attendees – WordCamp organizers will need to get on board to be the first to test the waters. Yep, the camps are where the community spirit is both sparked and inspired, and often times repaired. We need in real life Wordcamps — Paul Lacey (@wp_paullacey) September 13, 2021 The fact that vaccinated individuals can still transmit the virus throws a wrench into things in areas where vaccine hesitancy runs high, making the entire population more susceptible to breakthrough infections. This combined with the prevalence of the more highly contagious Delta variant makes for a scenario where attendees at approved in-person WordCamps could unwittingly participate in spreading the virus to others. When asked about requiring masks or other precautions, Community Team representative Angela Jin said organizers have a better opportunity to require more precautions beyond local guidelines if they work with a venue that has its own requirements. “The Community team is asking organizers and attendees to follow local guidelines,” Jin said. “If organizers would like to have more precautions, the deputies would advocate for booking at a venue that takes those precautions, for example, a venue that requires masks while indoors. In this way, the ask of ensuring additional safety measures is not just on organizers (event organizers already have enough to keep an eye on!), but on venue staff as well.” “I’ve been asked if I think there will be an in-person WordCamp Miami in 2022 once it’s allowed,” longtime WordCamp organizer David Bisset said. “No idea. But I doubt I’ll be involved unless the state of Florida changes dramatically. Plus, other reasons. As of now I’m not planning on attending any in-person WCs for quite some time. I have a ‘wait and see’ attitude.’” One important consideration is that the Global Sponsorship Program does not currently include funding for WordCamps, so organizers will need to raise 100% of the expenses for their events. A group of Community Team deputies are working on a proposal for the 2022 Global Sponsorship Program, aiming to finalize it by the end of October. In the meantime, organizers will need to find a way to foot the bill. As scientists consider the increasingly more likely possibility that SARS-CoV-2 becomes an endemic virus, WordCamps and other gatherings will need to find the right combination of precautions that will enable them to continue in this new era. The Community team has become skilled at hosting virtual events, but 18 months into this pandemic it is clear that the connections fostered at WordCamps are irreplaceable. “The deputies and I know that many places around the world are not in a position to organize in-person WordCamps at this time,” Jin said. “The team will continue to support online events, and do not expect organizers to host in-person events if they are not ready to.” Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingHow to Update PHP in WordPress (Kinsta, DreamHost, & cPanel)
[ad_1] There is a lot of advice on keeping your WordPress themes, plugins, and core files up to date. This helps keep your site in working order. Though, it’s not the only element to focus on. You’ll also want to update PHP in WordPress, to keep the server-side running smooth. Every site has a front end and back end. The back end makes sure your site loads quick, is performant, and keeps malicious users at bay. Your PHP version should be current, for many of the same reasons your site’s files should. In this post, we’ll give you an overview of how WordPress and PHP interact. From there, we’ll show you how to update your PHP in WordPress. How WordPress Uses PHP to Serve Websites Before we get into the bulk of the article, let’s discuss PHP itself. For the unaware, websites run on a ‘stack’. This is a collection of software that helps the site run. For example, WordPress runs using a few different tools and languages: Front end: HTML, CSS. Interactivity: JavaScript, React. Back end: PHP. Server: MySQL. While we won’t be going into the details of everything here in this post, know that PHP is important to WordPress’ functionality. It’s a ‘server-side’ programming language that makes websites dynamic. Take a contact form. The ability to send the information it contains to the server, and store it in the database is crucial for basic operation. The isn’t possible without PHP as part of the WordPress stack. Why You Should Update Your PHP Version in WordPress Given how WordPress uses PHP – it’s inherent in its operation – keeping the PHP version up to date on your server has a lot of benefits. Many of them are the same here as they are for other site elements: You can take advantage of new developments in the language. There is often better performance in the newer version. Security issues found in previous versions will often be patched, making your site stronger and more secure. For a real-world example, take PHP 8. This is the most recent version of PHP, and it’s been adopted by lots of leading web hosts, for a few reasons: PHP 8 has tightened up its error reporting, which helps developers maintain better code. There are new performance features, such as ‘Just In Time’ (JIT) processing. This can be compared to caching, in that PHP tracks often used scripts and optimizes them. There are a lot more benefits, but they’re beyond the scope of this article. Even so, there are some situations that don’t call for an immediate upgrade. Let’s discuss this next. When You Should Update Your PHP Version As per the standard advice for anything relating to your site, updating depends on a few variables. In most situations involving your themes, plugins, and core files, you’ll update as soon as you’re able. In contrast, your PHP version may not warrant an upgrade straight away. For many cases, there are more drawbacks than positives. Here are a few: Some functions have been depreciated in PHP 8, but are still used in lots of WordPress plugins. As such, upgrading could break them (and by extension, your site). In other words, your site and its dependencies may not be compatible with the update. You may find that you don’t need the enhanced functionality of a new PHP version. Your host might not support the newer version of PHP yet, for reasons of security and stability. Again, there are lots more reasons, specific to your own needs and that of your host. In general, unless there’s a huge spotlit reason for not upgrading, you should do so. What’s more, lots of hosts will let you know how to upgrade when the time’s right. They should all have a blog, newsletter, knowledge base article, and more detailing whether an upgrade is possible, and how to do it. How to Check Your Current PHP Version First off, you need to check your current version of PHP before upgrading it. Achieving this depends on your host and current plan. Most custom dashboards will have a specific panel dedicated to PHP management. For example, Kinsta (our review) includes it in your list of sites: In contrast, DreamHost gives you the information after navigating a few subscreens: For cPanel users, your current PHP version can be found in the MultiPHP Manager: Regardless of your host, it should almost always display the current version of PHP used on your site. You may also find that you’re running the latest version of PHP anyway. Lots of hosts will automate this with your permission, such as confirmation through a newsletter, or a dedicated toggle within your control panel. It could also be that you don’t get to update PHP in WordPress just yet. This is often because the host wants to test the functionality first before deploying it to the public. In these cases, there’s not much for you to do. Your host will handle the process, and you can sit back. It’s fair to say that this article is less relevant if you’re on a managed WordPress host. Still, the process is worth knowing as you may want to update PHP in WordPress for reasons specific to you. What You’ll Need Before Updating Your PHP Version The good news is that because updating PHP in WordPress is straightforward, you won’t need too much to get the job done. In fact, there are less than a handful of elements you’ll need in place: Administrator access to your server. The ability to upgrade your PHP version within your hosting panel. Other than this, there are a few preventative measures you can take before pressing on with an update: Make a current, clean backup of your site – in case the worst happens and you have to start from scratch. Update your WordPress site’s core files. Update your site’s themes and plugins. Check the compatibility once again. Once you’re set, you’re ready. The next section will show you
Continue readingPipe Wrench Publication Releases New Native Land Search Plugin for WordPress – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Pipe Wrench, an online publication that dissects different topics through longform stories, reactions, interpretations, and asides, has released a free WordPress plugin called Native Land Search. The publication commissioned the plugin from Alex Gustafson, a subscriber and contributor to the magazine. Native Land Search offers a search block or “Native Lands Aside” block pattern that users can add to the post content. Site visitors can search an address to discover if it is on indigenous lands. Pipe Wrench implementation of the Native Land Search block On the Pipe Wrench publication, the content authors have added a Cover block with a background image and put the search block inside the Group block. Here is an example of the output for a Florida location: The search results are powered by the native-land.ca API and Google Geocoding API. Native Land Digital, a non-profit organization, created the maps with the following mission: We strive to map Indigenous lands in a way that changes, challenges, and improves the way people see the history of their countries and peoples. We hope to strengthen the spiritual bonds that people have with the land, its people, and its meaning. We strive to map Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages across the world in a way that goes beyond colonial ways of thinking in order to better represent how Indigenous people want to see themselves. Native Land Digital notes that the maps do not represent or intend to represent official or legal boundaries of any indigenous nations. “All kinds of sites — magazine, newspaper, personal blog, academic hub, nonprofit — can use the block to add depth to all kinds of content involving Indigenous groups,” Pipe Wrench Editor Michelle Weber said. “LandBack, residential schools, climate change, general history — offering this search tool helps non-indigenous folks uncover and understand vital histories with ongoing ramifications.” The Native Land Search Plugin is available for download from WordPress.org and contributions can be submitted on GitHub. It may never have a million active installs but the plugin could be an important tool for sites involved in education or advocacy efforts. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingWeekly WordPress News: WordPress 5.8.1 Security Release
[ad_1] Hey, WordPress fans. We are checking in with your latest dose of weekly WordPress news. This week, WordPress released a security and maintenance update with 60 bug fixes and 3 security fixes. We recommend updating your sites if you haven’t yet. Beyond that, Jetpack acquired Social Image Generator, a plugin that automatically creates social share images. We also have a lot of news, tutorials, and roundup posts for you. Let’s get to all of this week’s WordPress news… WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS RESOURCES [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingAdd a Little Pumpkin Spice to Your WordPress Admin This Autumn – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Autumn is my favorite time of the year. On some weekends, I like to drive through my old hometown with the windows rolled down. I crawl through the school zone at 25 mph and breathe in the football field’s freshly cut grass. All those memories of blood, guts, and glory under the Friday night lights flood back. Nervous homecoming dances. Hayrides next to the girl who actually agreed to accompany me for the evening. It is a time of festivals, candied apples, and the lingering heat of an Alabama summer that refuses to fade away. It was always a time of magic and memories, and now it is also the season for pumpkin spice lattes. With a couple of short weeks left before autumn hits, stores and shops are already gearing up for it. Love it or hate it, nearly everything has a pumpkin spice flavor now — even the WordPress admin interface. Ben Byrne, the co-founder of Cornershop Creative, released Pumpkin Spice Admin in the past week. It is a WordPress plugin that brings the sights of the autumn season front and center. Dashboard screen when using Pumpkin Spice Admin. Never let it be said that I am not a fan of the more whimsical WordPress plugins. One of the joys in my life is seeing these creative attempts at throwing a bit of fun into this thing we call the world wide web. Far too often, we focus so much on business deals and technical features that we sometimes forget to stop and enjoy something as beautiful as autumn leaves changing colors. Even if we are not simply running a personal blog, it never hurts to install a fun admin-side theme for our own amusement, unbeknownst to our visitors. Just a little something to brighten our day when we cannot be out and enjoying nature. The biggest downside to the plugin is that it does not rely on the standard WordPress admin color scheme system, which allows each user to select their preferred style. For solo site owners, this is a non-issue. For multi-author websites, it could be problematic if everyone is not on board with the change. I would even consider using it here at WP Tavern, but it might come as a bit of a shock to the rest of the team when they log in. Technically, it is more than a color scheme. It adds a custom font and a falling leaves animation on each admin screen. However, it would be easy to tie those to user preferences. At first, I was somewhat off-put by the leaves falling down on the post-editing screen. It could be an annoyance for some users, but the few that appear, quickly pile at the bottom of the browser window. It is not a continuous animation. Falling leaves on the post-editing screen. The plugin’s font also overrules the post title, but I can live with that. In some ways, I actually prefer it. It does not affect other fonts in the editor. Pumpkin Spice Admin will automatically stop working after the season is over. It sets itself to run only from September through November, so there are no worries if you forget to deactivate it. I only have the plugin running in my test environment, but I am enjoying it for now. All that is missing is a pumpkin-style cursor to complete the look. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingIs It the Best WordPress Affiliate Plugin? (2021)
[ad_1] Searching for a way to create an affiliate program for your WordPress site? In our hands-on AffiliateWP review, we’ll help you decide if this plugin is the right tool to create an affiliate program for your eCommerce store, online course, membership site, and more. Spoiler alert – I think that AffiliateWP is probably the all-around best WordPress affiliate plugin when it comes to: Built-in tracking integrations. Features and flexibility. Longevity (it will be around for a while because it comes from a reputable developer – the same team behind Easy Digital Downloads). In our full review, I’ll help you understand why I say that, and I’ll also highlight some negatives and key details to understand. Here’s everything that I’ll cover: Let’s dig in! ⚙️ AffiliateWP Review: Introducing the Features In a nutshell, AffiliateWP helps you create an affiliate program for your WordPress site. Other people can register with your affiliate program and AffiliateWP will automatically track the traffic and sales that they send you so that you can reward them with a commission. It offers built-in integrations with most popular WordPress eCommerce plugins, membership plugins, and LMS plugins for easy setup – there’s no complicated tracking to configure. AffiliateWP also offers lots of flexibility for setting up your affiliate program exactly as you want it to be. Let’s go through it… Built-in Referral Tracking Integrations One of the really cool things about AffiliateWP is that it has one-click integrations with popular plugins. This makes the setup process super simple. Basically, you just check a box and AffiliateWP will automatically start tracking conversions – no need to mess around with tracking pixels or code. Here are the built-in integrations that it has: AffiliateWP doesn’t include a dedicated integration for LearnDash’s built-in payments feature, but you can easily use AffiliateWP with LearnDash if you use EDD or WooCommerce as your LearnDash payment processor. Learn more about LearnDash. If you’re not using one of those platforms, you can still set up tracking yourself using the affiliate conversion script shortcode. Key Features One of AffiliateWP’s high points is that it gives you a lot of features for managing your affiliate program. For example, let’s look at commissions. You get: Global commissions – either flat rate or percentage. Option to override commissions on a per-product basis or exclude certain products. Custom affiliate tiers to reward high performers. Option to set custom rates for individual affiliates. Lifetime commissions. Optio to award commissions for new user signups. Custom affiliate coupons. To pay out your affiliates, you can use: The developer’s custom payout service, which supports 31+ countries. The built-in PayPal payouts integrations. Manual payouts. Other useful features include: Detailed reporting and stats. Option to add creatives. Bulk import/export for affiliates, payouts, referrals, etc. Zapier integration. Your affiliates also get lots of useful features: Front-end affiliate dashboard. URL generator. Campaign sub-ids (affiliates can add their own tracking IDs – a really useful feature for them). Statistics/reporting, including graphs. Notification emails for new referrals – i.e. when they get a sale. Area to view creatives. This is just a taste of the many available features – I’ll share more when I talk about the 33+ available add-ons. 🆚 Key Benefits of AffiliateWP vs Alternatives I would say there are a few benefits to using AffiliateWP over working with an affiliate network like ShareASale, CJ, etc. Cost/Commissions The biggest benefit of using AffiliateWP is that you can save a ton on costs/commissions. With AffiliateWP, you’ll pay a one-time cost ($149-$249) to set up your affiliate program*, but there are no ongoing costs based on the volume of commissions you pay out. It’s 100% a flat fee. Let’s compare that to ShareASale. With ShareASale, you’ll pay a one-time $550 fee to add your platform. Then, you’ll also pay an ongoing fee for every commission that you pay out, which is 20% of your commissions. So if you pay an affiliate a $5 commission, you also have to pay ShareASale $1, which makes the total cost of that commission $6 to you. Other affiliate networks can be even worse! For example, CJ charges a one-time $3,000 signup fee plus a $500 per year fee plus a fee based on your sales/commissions. Overall, using AffiliateWP to create your own affiliate program is significantly cheaper. *You’ll probably want to renew your license to continue receiving support/updates, so you’ll need to pay this every year. Own Your Audience Another big benefit is that you get to own your audience and have a direct relationship with all of your affiliates. With an affiliate network, your affiliates are controlled by the network (though you can obviously still contact them). This puts you in a somewhat weak position. For example, if you’re negotiating fees with your network, they have leverage because they control the relationship. With AffiliateWP, there’s no middleman getting between you and your affiliates. Of course, the downside here is that you’ll also need to build your affiliate numbers from scratch – you won’t benefit from the built-in pool of affiliates that a network has. Flexibility Finally, you also just get more flexibility because AffiliateWP is an open-source, GPL-licensed WordPress plugin. You can edit the code as needed to create the perfect setup for your affiliate program, which isn’t possible if you use a network. 🔧 How to Create a WordPress Affiliate Program With AffiliateWP Now, let’s look at what it’s like to create an affiliate program using AffiliateWP – I think you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to set up the core features. For this section, I will be just using the core plugin – but I’ll also talk about the many features that you can add with extensions after this. I’ll use WooCommerce for this example, but remember that AffiliateWP also integrates with all of the other tools that I mentioned above. Setting Up Your Integration(s) When you first activate AffiliateWP, the first thing that you’ll want to do is set up your integration(s) – AKA what you want to track.
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