WordCamp Columbus 2016

The REST API allows WordPress to grow beyond “blogging” and “websites”.  Through the REST API the power of WordPress is now available to all sorts of apps, sites and the full Internet of Things. This may sound complicated, but RELAX! You’ve got this…

The primary goal of this talk is to highlight the Prototypal inheritance of Javascript, which revolves around Objects and Object creation. As a WordPress developer it is important to understand how this differs from Classical Inheritance as viewed under the guise of Object Oriented Programming. Which as we know, is the cornerstone of good programming in WordPress and the great PHP community as a whole.

Some of the concepts which we will cover are:
The difference between classical and prototypal inheritance.
The concept of composition over inheritance.
We will look at various Object Creation patterns:
-Object Literals,
-Constructor Function,
-Factory Functions,
-Native Object Creation (Object.create, Object.assign)
-ES2015 Classes

This talk will be geared towards both new and seasoned Developers. The concepts themselves will give veteran Developers some new ideas to explore. This talk will also be presented in a easy to understand way, so that those new to Javascript will be able to take the next step after learning the basics of JS syntax.

It’s easy to feel disconnected from the software/tech industry when you’re working as an in-house developer, but there are plenty of ways to make the most of your current position as well as ways to get yourself “out there” in the community.

I’ve been working as a developer in the travel industry for over two years, but it’s only recently that I’ve started to feel connected to the greater development community. Let me give you an inside look at the life of an in-house developer, the unique challenges we face when our client is sitting at the desk next to us, and what you can do to stay connected to the community at large.

Learn how to create your first WordPress plugin. I will be starting with a shell and as a group or individually we can come up with ideas for a plugin. Bring a laptop if you can and have git installed on it to download the shell code.

Never let it be said that this flying fat broad has body issues.

Oh no.

How many times have you needed to tweak a category of posts to make some element fit a little better?

Or had a site with some content aimed at fashion-conscious adults – and another set of posts aimed at their kids?

You could use all sorts of fancy taxonomy – custom post types or multisite, or some other foolishness. But I just don’t have the patience.

But I do have a secret weapon.

Body classes.

They’ve gotten me out of more styling jams than Janet Jackson’s wardrobe staff. (Wait. That’s not saying much, is it?)

Let’s take a look at how a good look through all those classes on your body tags can lead you to a world of styling options – with no malfunctions allowed.

WP-CLI is a great tool when you don’t need a fancy UI, need to write scripts to perform regular maintenance, or to provide deeper functionality to your awesome plugin. Like WordPress, it’s free, open source, and far more powerful than some people give it credit for.

This session covers the components necessary to write great WP-CLI scripts; from structure to execution, arguments to output, attendees should leave the session with everything they need to know to implement WP-CLI commands in their next project.

The Plugin API enables plugin and theme developers to hook into WordPress and run at a specific time, but to those new to the platform it can be a lot to wrap their heads around. This presentation is designed for WordPress developers–both new and old–who are ready to do things “The WordPress Way.” Topics include registering and triggering hooks for both actions and filters, managing priorities, and de-registering hooks from other sources.

Blogging is relatively easy – write some stuff, add some pictures, and click “Publish”. Getting people to actually read your blog and be part of your tribe is harder. Join the Snarky Gardener (a vegetable gardening blogger) and follow his 3 year blogging journey from WordPress.com site to where he is today, including Search Engine Optimization, moving to a hosted WordPress.org, and guest posting. He doesn’t have all the answers but hopefully he can inspire you to take your blog to the next level.

Teaching online with Online Courses is booming and WordPress along with some cool plugins are making it easier than ever. In this session, I will share why you should consider creating online courses and how to do it.

We’ll discuss which tools, plugins and resources to use to create, host and sell your online courses (starting with WorPress, of course!). I’ll talk about how you can package your intellectual property and make online courses to sell. And I’ll provide case studies of successful online courses and how they were able to leverage the power of online courses to teach more effectively and grow their audience.

(I believe that learning how to properly teach online and package it together using WordPress based tools is a very popular topic and something that many will want to learn about in my session.)

Site Speed becomes more critical every day. It’s a search ranking factor, mobile devices are now the norm, and yet our sites get more complex and complicated. It’s important that we build our sites understanding the need for speed from the beginning.

The talk will cover:
JS and CSS minification
The creative use of WP Transients
CDN implementation
Cacheing
AMP Implementation
Smart Site Structure

What exactly is a Widget and how do they work? I’ll go through and demo Widgets for beginners and give the basics. And if there is time, I’ll go through the 5 Widgets I can’t live without.

A local development server has become essential to working with WordPress. There are many different options for users to use such MAMP/WAMP, Vagrant/VVV, Homestead, Docker, etc. Over the last year the whiling working on the Web Development team at Lorain County Community College have found Vagrant or VVV (Varying Vagrant Vagrants ) is a streamlined tool that allows us to rapidly build development environment on both Mac and Windows. I will be discussing why to choose vagrant, and how Vagrant can aid you in streamlining your local development environment process. In additional I will be demonstrating how to install Vagrant and what tools can be used to quickly generate your local web development environment for your specific project. So bring your computers and questions so that by the end of session I hope you will walk away with local development environment you can leverage to accelerate your WordPress projects.

From installing WordPress to using themes, plugins and adding content, we’ll walk you through getting started with the world’s most used content management system.

WordPresss 101 is a full-day workshop on Friday, August 26 designed for those who are just getting started with WordPress, or who may not even have a WordPress website yet. To get the most out of WordPress 101, we suggest you attend the entire workshop from beginning to end. For details of the topics covered, click the more link.

WordPress 101 is a full-day workshop designed for those who are just getting started with WordPress, or who may not even have a WordPress website yet. Below is a brief outline of the topics covered.

What IS WordPress Anyway? On overview of the software.

• WordPress.com vs Self-Hosted WordPress
• Installing WordPress

Adjusting The General Settings

• Review the General Settings
• Review Your Writing Settings
• Review Your Reading Settings
• Review Your Discussion Settings
• Review Your Media Settings

Getting to Know Your Dashboard

• Customizing Your Dashboard
• Dashboard: Media
• Dashboard: Pages
• Dashboard: Comments
• Dashboard: Appearance
• Dashboard: Plugins
• Dashboard: Users
• Dashboard: Tools
• Screen Options

Adding Content To Your WordPress Website

• Pages Versus Posts: What’s the Difference?
• The Importance of Regular, Relevant Content
• Planning Your Parent and Child Pages
• Adding Pages
• Planning Your Posts: Categories and Tags
• Adding Posts
• Getting Familiar With The ToolBar
• Publishing Options: Status, Visibility, Schedule
• Adding Media: Photos, Videos, Documents
• Managing Existing Posts and Pages Quickly
• Managing Comments
• Moderating Comments

Theme & Templates

• Changing the Appearance of Your Site
• Themes: What are they and what do they do for you?
• Changing Your Theme
• Managing the Home Page of This Particular Theme
• Adding and Managing Widgets
• Adding and Displaying Custom Menus
• Accessing the Theme Editor

Expanding The Functionality of Your Site With Plugins

• What is a Plugin and How Can You Use One?
• Adding and Managing Plugins
• Accessing the Plugin Editor
• Recommended Plugins

Allowing Others Access To Your Site: User Management

• User Roles
• Adding New Users
• Editing Profile
• Tools: Press This, Import and Export
• Import and Export

And more!

Let’s discuss Rich Pins. Did you know there are 6 types of Rich Pins? The difference in each will be discussed as well as how to your prepare your website with the meta tags needed. Pinterest has to approve your application but once you understand the process, it is easy.

So what is a Rich Pin? Basically, Rich Pins are Pins that include a lot of extra information right on the Pin itself.

We will also discuss the different sized images needed for Pinterest and other platforms.

Do you create content for search engines or for people? If you answer, “people,” you’re at once ahead of your time and behind it.

Only now are SEO specialists finally catching up to what most copywriters have known since the medium first hit the computer screen – content matters more than keyword loading. Join Gery L. Deer, managing and creative director of GLD Enterprises Communications, Ltd., for a discussion on the elements of audience-focused, high-quality content to generate organic search results and retain visitors.

In WordPress there are infinite ways to create the perfect site. But there are a handful of ways to correctly customize WordPress.

This session will cover the wrong ways to customize a site, the right ways and even how to create a plugin to house custom changes.

Everyone needs a website. Everyone knows it too. The market for web development services these days is enormous. However, selling these services effectively in a way that makes success and profitability for all involved can be very complicated. In this session, we will have an open discussion about the challenges, dangers, opportunities and need-to-knows present for freelancers and agencies who make a living building WordPress websites for others.

Shortcodes are one of the coolest and most powerful features in WordPress. They empower us and enable us to do things far beyond simple word processing within our content. In this session we will: – Cover the many useful applications of shortcodes – Discuss why they are so cool – Walk through creating a basic shortcode – Explore creative ways to make shortcodes more user friendly Will cover the basics as well as some intermediate concepts.

The life of a freelancer is not for everyone. The Ups and downs, juggling many roles and feast or famine nature of a freelance business can take it’s toll on even the most talented WordPress professional. But the WordPress economy is expanding, and there are lots of great companies out there looking for talented folks to fill jobs. It may be time to trade in the freedom of freelance for the stability of a full-time gig! This session will take a look at how to build your reputation through personal branding, creating new relationships with networking and ways to land that job with your dream company.

Google is pushing Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) in a big way. AMP pages restrict what you can do all for the sake of performance on mobile devices. In this talk we’ll cover the basics of AMP, how it’s different than mobile-ready and responsive design, and the plugins you’ll need to take advantage of AMP on your WordPress site.

Three or so years ago I got a call to take a job writing a WordPress framework for news websites. I took the gig. Since then we’ve built a great team and written a framework used by hundreds of sites. But it hasn’t all been easy. Let me help you avoid some of our mistakes.

WordPress would be nothing if it weren’t for the thousands of people contributing to the project, but what if you’re not a developer or designer and still want to be involved?

Adam was faced with these very questions and quickly learned that it’s much easier to contribute than he previously thought. In this session, Adam shares the top five ways in which non-developers can contribute to WordPress—from participating in the WordPress community through support forums, to reviewing documentation and even understanding patches in Core. Adam also shares bonus ways to contribute for those wanting to completely immerse themselves in the WordPress community. Session attendees will learn new ways to get involved and gain a greater understanding of how their participation makes a difference to millions of users worldwide.

HTML5 is no spring chicken anymore, but its many new features are still woefully under-utilized. Learning to use HTML tags in a way that is meaningful is the key to writing HTML that is readable, sustainable, and accessible in any WordPress website, widget or plugin.