Blog Title

Website shame

2025-05-11T00:00:00Z

Finally, I’ve done something about the terrible blog that bears my name.

Admittedly at this point I've only moved it from WordPress to the 11ty base blog , but it's a start.

I have learned

Not to register new domain names for every new content idea.
Not to care about search engines.
Not to overthink a personal blog.
Not to ignore my website shame.

That said, I probably need better post than this one,

Migrate Or Clone A WordPress Site To Any Host With Migrate Guru

2021-05-11T08:26:49Z

Notes From This Presentation

Why Migrate Guru?

One-click migration. It will clone 1 gigabyte sites in under 30 minutes.

Key Features For Me:

There’s no overload on their site. Everything is transferred and migrated through their server so it can’t crash at you site.
It’s built for large sites, also it will move and clone sites as large as 200 gigabytes.
There’s no need for any extra add-ons it will take care of your serialized data.
There’s no storage space required because it’s sucking everything up to their server and then spitting them out to yours at the very end.
It doesn’t keep a backup and it erases the copy that they’ve kept.
It will work on every web host.
It’s fully automatic and its got built-in search and replace and it will change all your urls.

The Few Things That Migrate Guru Can’t Do:

If you’re working with localhost you’re building on your own computer then you can’t migrate sites from there.
Although you can migrate large multi-site networks you can not do sub sites in that network.
Migrate Guru has a limit of five site migrations per user per month. You can request extension and I’m probably sure that the user relates to email address you give them. So if you need a sixth move in a month you could probably just use another email address.
I’ve give you all the pros and cons. Watch my video if you would like see an example of how I clone a copy of my site onto a sub domain on another server and then migrate it again after doing some work on it.

Easy WordPress traffic statistics for free

2020-12-26T22:30:53Z

Notes from this presentation

Why Analytify?

MonsterInsights (Google Analytics Dashboard Plugin for WordPress)
Created by Yoast and bought by Syed Balkhi (WP Beginners/Awesome Motive) Very popular with 2+ million installs. Freemium.

ExactMetrics (Google Analytics Dashboard for WP)
Popular (1+ million installs) and once highly rated Now 2.5 star rating after being bought by Syed Balkhi (WP Beginner/AweSome Motive) and features were removed and put in the pro version. Freemium.

Google’s Site Kit
Newer, but had a security issue. Limited but best if you need PageSpeed Insights, Optimize, Tag manager & Search Console. Completely free.

Others: Google Analytics By ShareThis, 10WebAnalytics and JetPack Stats

Why Analytify?

Reliable for us since October 2018.
Free weekly email reports (added 2020).
Less promotion of the paid plans & clients preferred low level branding.
Less cost if upgrade are needed (arguable).
Entrance/exit count.
More info popular pages and other extras in the free version.

Track User ID
Scroll Depth
Demographic & Interest Tracking
Page Not Found (404)
JavaScript Errors
AJAX Errors
Setup Cross-domain Tracking

Why not Analytify?

Main site dashboard statistics only available to admins (post/pages only for editors).It does not have post SEO features of Monster Insights/Exact Metrics (but not wanted).
It does not have the popular post addon.
Less updates (arguable both ways).
My knowledge! I’ve used the pro-ecommerce plugin, but not tried many of advanced features to be 100% confident.
Small company (wpbrigade) that sold lifetime deals, but longstanding (since 2007).

How to Kill Gravity Form Email Spam: Zero Spam

2020-12-07T04:21:34Z

Notes from this Gravity Forms presentation

We don’t use: reCAPTCHA

Gravity Form supports V2 (visible and invisible).
reCAPTCHA V3 not on the roadmap until after GF v2.5 is out.

Why:

More data to Google.
Lack of feedback on visitor experience.
Perhaps best as a last resort.

Also not used: A.kis.met

Gravity Forms has default integration with Aksimet under Forms > Settings.
It’s added to all forms, but there’s (code) filters to disable individual forms and/or fields.

Why

Again faff with keys and accounts.
Only free for personal use.
More for comment spam.

(If the, often overlooked, WP settings are not working for comment spam I use the lighter Antispam Bee)

Email list spam

Double Opt-In Forms often get mentioned when talking about reducing spam addresses going to your email list. I think since GDPR this is the standard and without a genuine email address to confirm consent spammers are thwarted.

AWeber, Campaign Monitor, CleverReach, Constant Contact, EmailOctopus, Emma, GetResponse, HubSpot, iContact, Mad Mimi, Mailchimp.

My default

Turn on anti-spam honeypot. (A honeypot field is a hidden field that tricks a spam bot into filling it out when it should really be left blank.)
Limit entries per day. (This is more for more serious attack which could slow a site or result is a large bill if using a transaction email service.)

Worth considering

A question field which only when answered correctly allows the “submit” button to work.

I can not vouch for this because we tend advice for conversion limit the fraction for users.

Talking of conversion expert tend to agree that the default “submit” text is not great micro-copy. Send maybe a better default when nothing better seem obvious.

Finally: Why not the default?

Excellent question!
It blocks visitors with JavaScript turn off in browsers and I started in the web when not supporting JS free users was frowned upon.

In truth, I think most sites are now so dependent JavaScript to deliver a good user experience that only bots and experts who know what to do would turn it off.

Gravity Forms: Easy to miss features and tips

2020-11-25T06:33:24Z

Notes from the Gravity Forms presentation

Gravity Forms Website

Templates: https://www.gravityforms.com/form-templates/
Video Training: https://www.gravityforms.com/video-tutorials/
Roadmap: https://www.gravityforms.com/gravity-forms-roadmap/

Personal data

Automate GDPR (for clients).
Reduce database bloat.

Restrictions

Avoid unexpected transactional email costs.
Avoid a performance hit from email spammers.

Notifications

Routing.
Conditions.

Should I use PX, EM or REMs? Page Builder Edition

2020-11-25T03:10:12Z

Should I use PX, EM or REMs?

(page builder edition)

Why

BB V 2.2 added Em, Rem, & Viewport-based units and I’ve not covered this for 2 years.
The Page builder documentation can not really advise on what to use.
Page Builders help no-coders ( DIYers and client) who could be confused by the options.
I’ve started to reconsider my approach to speeding up work and be less dependent on platforms.

Quickly

This is contentious even amongst experts. I only offer my thoughts as a page builder user.
Things change as we move to modern browsers supporting new ways to manage units.
I’ll save viewport width (VW) for type for another time because of the present browser support for it.

Units

PX (PIXEL) Absolute length. WYSIWYG. Arguably not as accessible. Browser support 100%.
EM (emms) Size relative to it’s parent. Accessible, Suffers with compounding issues. Support 100%.
REM (root emms) Size relative to the root or html element Support 99.46% or higher.
VW (Viewport width) effectively relative to the browser size. Needs taming! Support 96.6% (ish)

Why PX?

Designers work with static units.
Theme support for setting your text and headings in px is more common.
You know where you are with pixels. (no inspecting to find 0.9474em of something somewhere).
Browsers let us zoom if we find pixel based font sizes too small (or big).
KEY POINT: We need to be pragmatic about accessibility.

Why EM?

Accessibility. Allows users to change the text size in their browsers without breaking the design.
Supported by many WordPress themes.
Flexibility. For many a relative unit for the web is the only thing to make sense for the medium.
You don’t have to pick one unit. A EMs can be useful on a more modular level.

Why REMs?

Mostly the same benefits as Em.
Reduces the compounding/inheritance problems that come with ems being relative to the parent.
Fast for design changes and responsive settings.
62.5%! Set the root rem to this and 1 rem = 10 px and 1.6 rem = 16px.

Summary

The debate is mostly about whether fixed or relative units are best for the web,
Pixels are more accessible to non-coders being consistent with image sizes (and WYSIWHYG)
Rems offers a easier route to the advantages of relative units.
Over to you. What have I missed?

Gravity Forms version 2.5. What's' new

2020-11-23T11:09:23Z

Notes from the Gravity Forms presentation

Main features:

Cleaner (Gutenburg-esque) styling to the Gravity Forms editor and revamped settings pages.
Drag-and-drop column control (for up to four columns).
Frontend user experience revamped with focus on usability. Helped by specialist Rian Rietveld and the team at Level Level.
New Form Markup and Styles (for easier styling).
Improved theme Integration.

Other additions:

New Settings API – making settings easier to render on any page, not just an add-on page. This is for developers who extend Gravity forms with addons.
Added Security Enhancements – Always top priority for Gravity Forms.
Conditional Logic – Pages hidden via conditional logic no longer appear in the page navigation which alleviates end-user confusion.

Nitty gritty

CSS Grid is being used and REMs.
For backward compatibility the default will be: Form Setting > Enable Legacy Markup.
All scripts (including inline) are deferred and loaded in the footer for performance .
Accessibility warnings.

Go here to get Gravity Forms

WooCommerce database updates made easier with MainWP Pro

2020-05-09T12:18:34Z

One of my frustrations with maintaining WooCommerce sites has been updating the plugin in bulk via MainWP (easy) only to login to one of the sites later and discover it is waiting on a database update.

What it did not realize for the last 5 years is that as a MainWP Pro user I could have done this with the Bulk Settings Manager extension.

This plugin make it easy to create your own bulk settings for WordPress, plugin and themes, but in this video I am taking one from the collection by MainWP that is available on Github. Go here for the one use in this demo.

Best available MainWP deal

25% discount code for the Life time MainWP Pro package. Enter “digitalfreedoms” on checkout.

How to remove the WordPress Site Health Check widget

2020-05-05T06:38:50Z

In WordPress Version 5.4 the Health Check widget was added to the Dashboard by default. For many of us who support clients with administrator roles this could be an annoyance, but here are a few ways to remove it.

1. Manually add a code snippet

Add this to your child theme’s functions.php file

// Removes site health check widget
add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'remove_site_health_dashboard_widget');
function remove_site_health_dashboard_widget()
{
remove_meta_box('dashboard_site_health', 'dashboard', 'normal');
}

2 Bulk install a plugin to all sites

The plugin was create for those who use a management tool for client sites and can add and activate a plugin across multiple site. I use MainWP Pro and could do this, but I have use option 3.

Remove Site Health From Dashboard

3 Bulk add a snippet to all sites (MainWP)

For this I use the snippet above and MainWP’s Code Snippets extension. I cover this in the video.

Best available MainWP deal

25% discount code for the Life time MainWP Pro package. Enter “digitalfreedoms” on checkout.

Note:

The Code Snippets extension adds the code to the database. Should you send to bad code can correct this by deactivating and reactivating the MainWP Child plugin (I have test this).

WordPress Productivity with Assistant

2020-05-05T01:56:43Z

Assistant is a pre-release plugin (available on the WordPress repository and on Github) and by the Beaver Builder team, In their own words:

Assistant is a new way to work with WordPress. It’s an every-day productivity tool that lets you navigate your WordPress site and handle quick tasks without needing to go to the WordPress Admin area.

I have been watching this since it came in first place in the Orange County WordCamp Plugin-a-Palooza Competition in 2019, but it is only over this last month that I have been using it fully. I like it – a lot.

It’s far from the first plugin I have adopted to male navigating WordPress less of a chore and much is likely to change with this one, but I feel this might be what I have been looking for.

Presently ( due to it’s pre-release status along with much actively on Github) it is not something I’m introducing to clients just yet, but I believe by the end of the year version one will be in the wild.

Immediate Benefits

More efficient navigation that feels more responsive due to the user interface and Ajax loading.
Ability to duplicate post, custom post types and pages without another plugin
Flexible labeling: ie. I could arrange my media library (removing another plugin) or label pages for collaborators.
It really the drudgery out of working with many CPTs (ie. WooCommerce site with memberships, events and course)
Beaver Builder users will find extra navigational help.

Mystery

No one quite knows where this project is going More is planned for it than we are seeing and based on a few comments much is open.