Inline SVGs are a lesser known trick for performant assets. Using them in traditional static sites is problematic due to how verbose they are. Inline SVGs can be anywhere from a few lines of code to a hundred! Not the prettiest solution. That is why it’s much better to use a component based approach. Using […]

If you’re creating a custom theme with even a little bit of complexity, chances are, you need some kind of custom post type. There are a few ways to approach it, some involving plugins. The CPT UI plugin is great for managing more complex post types with an intuitive interface. Though, like anything else in […]

Cypress is an end-to-end testing framework designed to provide coverage for front-end UIs. Learning how to automate tests has its learning curve, but the benefits grow with your application’s complexity. I was tasked to test a process that involves uploading multiple types of files. In particular, application/pdf and image/* mime-type files. Doing this with Cypress […]

As a developer, a fair portion of your time is spent on the command line. Certain command are used religiously, so why not save a keystroke or ten? Let’s take a common unix need: updating your packages. When you update, you use something like this: sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade Wouldn’t it be […]

In the last post, we saw how easy it is to conditionally display markup and use inline logic in blade templates. Conditionals are a very useful tool and you will probably use them often. In this post, we will explore how to reduce repetitive code and help adhere to DRY(don’t repeat yourself) principals. What’s one […]

If you develop custom WordPress themes, there’s no doubt ACF (pro) is in your toolbox. Simply put, it feels like a natural extension for developing custom themes. If you still haven’t picked up this tool, I’d recommend hopping over to their website and see what you’ve been missing. Out of the box, you get powerful […]

There comes a time in a WordPress theme’s life where custom PHP is needed. This can be a packaged plugin that’s used across multiple client sites, or a single theme. There are several ways to approach a custom admin button. A common approach is invoking a JavaScript function on click, then using AJAX to send […]

It’s no secret that Git is an essential tool for all kinds of software. Git isn’t terribly hard to pick up, yet has a complex learning curve. The neat thing about the learning curve is the little tricks just waiting to be picked up. Today, I will be going over something that can be massively […]

In our last post, we learned about Laravel Blade and its capablities. That post only scratched the surface, blade can do so much more! In this post, we’ll dive into conditional statements and rendering. Every good templating engine has simple ways to conditionally show blocks of markup. Blade makes this very easy. If you’re used […]

If you’re here, you’ve probably already gone through part 1 of the series. In that post, we covered why SASS is so great and the basics of what it does. This post will be all about getting set up with a basic build process so we can actually start using it on projects. Unfortunately, SCSS […]