MainWP Blog - Archives

With Christmas only a few days away, now is the time to reflect on the many nuggets of joy that WordPress has sprinkled over our lives. As well as the frustrations and the many, many things that can break on clients site, as well as the things that WordPress core updates can break. On the 1st day of the Christmas, WordPress gave to me – A way to delete the Hello Dolly plugin on client sites, so clients did not activate Continue reading the post...

As we finish up the year, I thought it would be interesting, or fun, to take a look at some of the articles at the MainWP blog in the year 2018. Consider it a walk down the MainWP Blog Memory Lane. See the most popular articles at MainWP in 2017 This year, it seems like, was dominated by some major changes in our industry. First, there was the dreaded GDPR that launched in Europe. This lead to our friends in Continue reading the post...

A few days after the WordPress 5.0 release, the first security update (5.0.1) has been released which resolves vulnerabilities found in all previous versions of WordPress starting with 3.7. These vulnerabilities allow authors to alter metadata and delete files that they weren’t authorized to. Also, authors could create posts of unauthorized post types with specially crafted input which could be used to take over a site… WordPress team strongly suggests updating your sites immediately if you haven’t done so already… If you previously updated your Continue reading the post...

What are transients are and why WordPress uses them WordPress uses transients to store data, that can be retrieved short-term from the options database table. But the problem ends up being when different plugins are using transients, but then not deleting that data when it has expired. It can cause performance issues over-time and cause the options database table to group. So ideally you would want to delete expired transients on any of the MainWP Child Sites you manage to improve Continue reading the post...

If you are like me, you have made all kinds of mistakes in your WordPress freelancing career. I remember the time I answered the call to help a guy install a plugin. I thought it would be easy, but no. First, he was demanding. You know the type. He had spent his career as a teacher and, intellectually, he was on a higher plane. I think. My problem is that I underestimated the work of the plugin. It was actually Continue reading the post...

Zapier is a hosted service where you can mostly connect any 3rd party service with any 3rd party service. So, in this case, Zapier will enable us to filter emails and then based on the subject line, send an SMS to a mobile number that you select. We are going to use Zapier to send the MainWP email notification as SMS messages, so you can check on those instead of having to filter through all of your emails. SMS Notifications About Available Continue reading the post...

What new projects would you want to try to use in WordPress? Common current examples of using WordPress for different site builds include brochure sites or e-commerce stores. You could also use WordPress for different sites types, using WordPress as a headless application, selling download licenses if you had a store which sold downloadable products. Both Easy Digital Downloads or WooCommerce could be used for selling download products (with a license needed). Other possible uses include using WordPress for powering Continue reading the post...

A few days ago, we discussed five essential principles from the startup industry can help you run your WordPress business. Today, we are going to dive into five more principles we can learn from startups. You have seen these principles in some of your favorite startups over the years including Dropbox, Slack, Zendesk, and many more of the Software as a Service companies that WordPress professionals often use. So, without further adieu, let’s discuss. Startups know precisely who they target Continue reading the post...

Now, when the WordPress 5.0 has been released, even with the Classic Editor plugin installed, users are still being invited to switch to the newly introduced Block Editor despite assurances that this won’t be the case. This means that it’s not enough just to install the Classic Editor plugin, but one more step is required, you need to disable the option to switch editors. This option is located on the WP Admin > Settings > Writing screen Changing this can be Continue reading the post...

It looks like everyone’s favorite WordPress update, 5.0.1 which comes with the new Gutenberg editor, is launching on Thursday, December 6. It seems the decision is to coincide with WordCamp US so that contributors can be available to help with any problems. The project has been pushed back a number of times for various reasons, but the consensus seems to be that it will go forward this time due to the timing of WordCamp US. Undoubtedly, the major players on Continue reading the post...