Why We Love the React Framework (Or Why We’re Willing to Forgive Facebook for Taking over the Internet)

Dear fellow development aficionado: Is your body wracked with anxiety over a new web or mobile app that’s got a tight budget, a tight schedule, or both? Does the idea of taking a deep dive into some jQuery spaghetti code make you want to leave it all behind and restart your life in rural Appalachia?

Take a deep breath, put down the industrial-strength muscle relaxer because—and I never thought I’d say this—all of your problems have already been solved by Facebook.

So light some candles and put on the Luther Vandross, because I’m going to introduce you to the new love of your life: the React framework. Continue Reading

Leveraging the WordPress REST API

The WordPress REST API Plugin is a simple-to-use plugin that allows you to access your WordPress posts, pages and other data via a JSON-based REST API. REST APIs have grown in popularity in recent years because they are fast, platform-independent and easy to integrate.

WordPress is a powerful CMS with a ton of extensible features, so why use the WordPress REST API? I’ll let the authors of the plugin explain:

“WordPress is moving toward becoming a fully-fledged application framework, and we need new APIs. This project was born to create an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand and well-tested framework for creating these APIs, plus creating APIs for core … WP API exposes a simple yet easy interface to WP Query, the posts API, post meta API, users API, revisions API and many more. Chances are, if you can do it with WordPress, WP API will let you do it.”
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Debugging WordPress on VVV with PhpStorm

So you’re using Varying Vagrant Vagrants and PhpStorm for local WordPress development. Maybe you’ve heard or read what a great boon PhpStorm is for debugging but you haven’t made it all the way through configuring the project. Maybe you haven’t had time to read the tutorials or you set up a new dev environment seldom enough the steps just aren’t sticking in your long-term memory. If you’re still using var_dump to track down issues, never fear. Let this brief, handy walkthrough guide you to debugging bliss.

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Introducing the WordPress Admin Command Palette Plugin

When you're using the Admin Command Palette, it'll feel like you're navigating the WordPress admin at warp speed.

What it is

It’s a live search modal window in the WordPress admin! Using it to search admin content will return results for WordPress Admin Menu items, as well as links to the Edit Screen for user-generated content. We also included some keyboard shortcuts to make WordPress Admin Actions faster.

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The Hub and Spoke Model for Marketing: The Wheel is Still King

No need to reinvent the wheel. It’s still awesome.

Digital footprints, driving traffic – we’re all on a mission to make our mark and constantly improve our online presences. A marketing strategy based on the Hub & Spoke model can help spread your top notch content across the web and around the (real) world. Luckily, the concept is simple. By making some simple tweaks to your advertising, marketing, PR and social media strategies, you’ll be better much equipped to manage your brand, build up its equity and expand your audience. The execution may require a little work, but the payoff is worth it in the end. Continue Reading

Styling Radio Buttons & Select Boxes in Firefox

Thanks to the miracles of CSS, there's not much these days that a front-end developer can't style: we can even put CSS gradients on pseudo-elements, which is pretty nifty.

But one thing, the one thing you should never try styling directly is a radio button. Your CSS hubris will tempt you to do so, but trust me: you’re only in for a world of hurt. I know you may have some questions:

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The Right Way to do WordPress Custom Taxonomy Rewrites

If you look at the default WordPress archive for a taxonomy (like "Categories"), it can be hard to tell which post type the taxonomy belongs to. Fortunately, taxonomy rewrite rules help us dynamically rewrite the URL.

Ok, this is just a quick hit, but it touches on something that has annoyed me for a long time. Here’s the situation:

  1. Say you’ve got a Custom Post Type, like “Work.” Hypothetically.
  2. Say you’ve got a Custom Taxonomy for Work, called Type. Continue Reading

Building on Emmet: Crafting your own Sublime CSS Snippets

Emmet is a shorthand system for front-end developers, so if you're an ex-stenographer or you just get a kick from coding by dictation, you're gonna love it. Even better: you can add your own shortcuts too.

First things First: Install Emmet

If you’re building websites via Sublime and you haven’t installed Emmet yet, go do that now. Why, you ask? Because I couldn’t imagine writing CSS without it. Continue Reading

Enterprise Florida launches new website designed and developed by CNP

“It’s like comparing a shiny apple to a potato!” This was one of the many wonderful comments made by an Enterprise Florida stakeholder as the staff unveiled their new website to the Board of Directors this week in Tallahassee.

Florida's Secretary of Commerce and Enterprise Florida's President & CEO Gray Swoope with Katie and Alex at the EFI Board Meeting in Tallahassee.

Florida’s Secretary of Commerce and Enterprise Florida’s President & CEO Gray Swoope with Katie and Alex at the EFI Board Meeting in Tallahassee.

You know you’ve done your job right when your client’s constituents use the very same words to describe the completed project that they themselves used in those early discovery meetings month and months ago – “Bright, modern, clean, innovative” and, most importantly, “easy to use.”

Enterprise Florida is the principal economic development organization for the state of Florida and is primarily focused on facilitating job growth for Florida through recruitment and retention, international trade and exporting, promotion of sporting events, and capital funding programs to assist small and minority businesses. Continue Reading