Mike Jolley

plugins

  • Launching WPJobManager.com

    I’m happy to announce I’ve finally flipped the switch on WPJobManager.com, a site which I’ve been working on for a few months now in my spare time. I felt it was about time that I had a better sales platform and a dedicated place for the plugin which has been steadily growing in popularity during…

  • 6 ways to polish a plugin before release

    Before you release your plugin on WordPress.org it’s always good to spend a little time polishing the final product; not only does this make your job easier in the long run (so you don’t have to fix it later), it gives a better first impression to new users.

  • Plugin development and the fear of change

    Yesterday I was taken off guard with a comment/concern from an anonymous WooCommerce developer named “Jonathan”. Jonathan was annoyed at upcoming changes in the core WC plugin: Mike, one thing that strikes me about WC as compared to WP is stability of maintstay features and code structures. Notice that WP rarely breaks a site. He…

  • Tweaking the donation monitization model

    Most developers agree the donation model isn’t great (giving the plugin away for free and requesting, not requiring, a small donation as a sign of support). Arguably the best alternative is freemium model (where you have a free plugin and build premium functionality plugins around it) which is growing in popularity and is used by plugins such…

  • Plugin installation techniques; activation, deactivation and uninstall

    If you are building a complex plugin, or one which needs it’s own database tables, you’ll likely be installing all kinds of things during activation or first run. Uninstalling your data however may be an after thought. In this post I’ll explain techniques you can use to install and remove your data to keep things…

  • Eight ways to contribute to a WP plugin (and why you should)

    Contributing to a plugin you use (or use for client sites) can not only benefit the developer of the plugin, but can also benefit you (and other users) too. There are many ways to contribute to a plugin, not just in terms of development as well; anyone can get involved.

  • The importance of stating the obvious

    Writing documentation and other supporting content can be hard, especially for plugins. Why? There are many levels of user; developers, web ‘assemblers‘ and DIY-ers, all of whom will need to understand your content. You may think you’ve covered everything, but things that are obvious to you may be well beyond what some users can grasp.…

  • Use WordPress’ URL manipulation functions

    WordPress comes with many useful functions developers can make use of in their plugins. Today we’ll look at the URL manipulation functions – add_query_arg and remove_query_arg, both part of WordPress core. add_query_arg Incredibly useful in plugin development, add_query_arg lets you reliably modify an existing URL by adding or changing it’s query arguments. So for example,…

  • Avoiding feature bloat in plugins

    As a plugin developer, if you release a product (no matter how popular), its a given that over time you’ll receive an influx of feature requests; some user somewhere thinks your plugin should do X to better suit their own personal needs. Feature requests shouldn’t be dismissed as they can give valuable insight into your…