Tag Archives: WordCamp

It’s Always the Embeds

I gave a talk about Embeds in Responsive Web Designs at the WordCamp Vancouver 2016.

I never though of giving on a talk on this but I found when I was surfing internet and reading articles on my phone at night I always found websites with an embed problem.

Links to examples Dated August 27, 2016:

Some of the example from this talk can be found here:

Columbia Journalism Review Ryan Lochte

WordPress.com Activity Viewer

Travels to the Edge Interactive Map

Fast Company Blockbuster article

Video of talk:

The snippets of Code I put I put in my talk are here:

PHP Snippets:

CSS Snippets:

How to connect Github and Asana

This blog post complements the WordCamp Vancouver 2014 Talk I gave called How to build your own robot.

I was working on a new website with a new collaborator who was literally 5,000 mile away for a client was 300 miles away. With all this long distance I’ve been using both Asana and GitHub to keep the team organized.

I wanted to but hadn’t tried to sync the commit message from GitHub to tasks in Asana. I was originally inspired by the svn-bot that appears in the WordPress core IRC chat.

While I had never set up this before both services make it quite easy.

You can set up the connection on your own Asana user account. But then all of the commits from everyone on the project will be attributed to you. What Asana support suggested was that I make a new user and call it git commit or commit. I took this one step further and gave my user the Octocat Icon. Once you have set up this user go into the account settings and grab the API Key.

The GitHub Sync is repo based and not user based and is located under the webhooks and services. Put the Asana API Key in the Auth token. You can also restrict it to just one branch if you like.

So whenever anyone commits to the repo all he have to do is grab the URL of the task from Asana and put it in the description of the GitHub commit and it will appear in Asana under the user Git Commit.

This method isn’t application specific any way you want to commit to Github will work.  You can also add multiple tasks and the commit will be tracked in both tasks.

The git-bot will publish who made the commit, which branch and the account and repo name it also links back to the GitHub commit.

This really helped in both a contractor and client setting. Assigning tasks to contractors was easy and feedback on the commit as well.  When the client found a bug on the beta launch of the site they recorded it on Asana and they knew when it was fixed. This really worked well in both regards as anyone involved could see the progress of the project.

The condensed workflow:

  1. Create / get assigned Task in Asana
  2. Code away upload via FTP
  3. Commit the code with the Asana task url in the description of the commit.
  4. See the commit in the Asana.

Couple side notes:

  • We weren’t using any auto deployment on upload.  ( FTPloy, Beanstalk, Dandelion )
  • I didn’t want to track every single commit on Asana, just ones which either completed the task or which required review by another team member.

If my writings have helped you out, you can buy me a coffee or a beer via paypal:

Slides from WordCamp Talk:

WordCamp Seattle Contributor Day

Why you should go to a WordCamp Contributor Day

A WordCamp Contributor Day Logo created by  Jenny Wong
A WordCamp Contributor Day Logo created by Jenny Wong for WordCamp Sheffield

You’re a WordPress developer and you attend WordCamps?

But I ask you? Have you ever attended a Contributor Day?

The reason I ask is many WordCamps now are actually two-day events. First day is the general conference with speakers and the second day is a contributor day. I have attended the contributor days at WordCamp Seattle for two years now and it’s a great place to learn, talk, discuss WordPress core and how you can contribute back to WordPress. (Hence the name)

Have you working with WordPress and said:

  1. I wish I had time to suggest or submit an improvement to WordPress.
  2. I think this is a bug but I am not sure and I am way to busy at work to investigate.
  3. Why doesn’t the codex have updated documentation on this.
  4. There are a lot of unanswered questions in the forums.

These are all great reasons to go to a contributor day and give back to the community!

You’ll also be able to meet and chat with other developer and often their are core contributors or committers to WordPress in attendance that you can converse with.

So if you love WordPress and want to start contributing but don’t know where to start. Then attend a contributor day and find a way to give back.

ps. WordCamp Vancouver 2014 is holding it’s first Contributor Day and you should attend!

Screenshot of Make WordPress Core

How to submit a WordPress Trac Ticket

I was asked by the organizers of WordCamp Vancouver to give a lighting talk on how to submit a proper Trac Ticket for WordPress. Here is the transcript of the talk. Hopefully the video will make it’s way up to WordPress.tv.

After using WordPress for years my First Trac Ticket I submitted was actually only last December and interesting enough it’s still open as of August 2013.

But first… a word from Nacin…

Andrew Nacin speaking about WordPress Security
Do not report potential security vulnerabilities in WordPress in Trac email WordPress directly to:
security [at] wordpress [dot] org
Do not report potential security vulnerabilities in WordPress in Trac as you will be telling the whole world how to exploit the loophole. email WordPress directly at security [at ] wordpress dot org

What is Trac?

Trac is open source software that WordPress uses. It is the place where all of those design / functionality decisions are made. It is part project management, part bug tracking software, part repository (via SVN). It is all of those things at exactly the same time. The only thing it doesn’t do is provide support… but don’t worry that’s what the forums are for…

Check list before submitting a ticket.

a. What version of WordPress are you running?
– If your running alpha or beta make sure you grab the latest build before submitting.

b. Has it been submitted previously?
– Do a query on trac before submitting a new one.

c. Check in various browsers. Is it consistently replicated? Which browser does what?
– Record in the description what you find…

d. If you turn off all of your plugins does still happen?

e. If it’s something visual take screenshots. Annotate if possible.
– You can upload screenshots directly to trac or use something like cloud app.

f. A link to the page or site with the issue.

g. Make sure the code is actually core and no your own.
– eg. If you child themes has code in the function file that overwrites the parent theme then it is your code and not core.

You now have all the details required to complete a useful trac ticket.

Go to https://core.trac.wordpress.org login using your same WordPress.org login details.

Properties:

Screenshot of a WordPress Trac Ticket
Empty WordPress Trac Ticket

1. Summary: Title of the Trac Ticket.

2. Description: Explain the issue explain as much as you can. You can also upload screenshots directly to trac. A lot of people use screenshot programs like cloud app. Any service will work as long as it is reliable.

3. Type: Bug, Enhancement or Feature Request

4. Version of WordPress:
– Which version of WordPress are you using to product the bug?
(eg. Trunk is currently in 3.7 and once that is release Trunk will be into 3.8)

5. Workflow Keywords: (couple common ones)
• Reporter Feedback (needs more detail from the actual reporter of the ticket)
• Needs Patch (needs a patch ???)
• Has patch (either you or someone has submitted a patch to this)
A full list of keyword descriptions can be found here.

If you don’t know what the keywords means then don’t apply it. Core committer like Sergey Biryukov who truly have amazing attention to detail in Trac will apply keyword if needed. (If you put enough detail in the description they will be able to figure it out)

6. Priority: Reporters without commit status can’t set this… But they range from:
• Trivial
• Major
• Normal
• Highest OMG BBQ.

“Which means it is as Important as BBQ… Sadly you don’t get BBQ if you close this ticket.” ~ Samuel Wood ( Otto42 ) WordCamp Seattle 2013

7. Component:
• Default Themes are called: Bundled Themes as they are bundled with core.
• Post Format are about Post Format’s
• Widgets are about Widgets
• etc…

If you don’t know where it fits just choose general and those above you on the “Trac food chain” like Sergey will find the proper home…

If you want to find out more about the WordPress Trac and how to submit tickets visit the WordPress Core Contributors handbook.

Taking your website backgrounds to the next level Talk

With the varying shapes and sizes of screens these days. Websites either need to flex to the size or make use of a background colour or image to fill in the spaces around the edge. These spaces are somewhat neglected and sometimes lack the connection to the branding of the site and or company. Through a lot of trial and error Robert Dall of 32spokes shows you some tricks and trades to use in my daily development.

This talk was given at the 2013 WordCamp Seattle and previous at the Vancouver WordPress Meetup Group. held at The Network Hub.

Below is a list of the website mentioned along with the slides from the talk.

This video is from the Meetup Presentation at the Network Hub.