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WordPress still needs a better shortcode parser.

WordPress 5.0 has now been released, with the new block syntax front and center. This data structure is completely new, and lays on top of all the existing structures that modify post-content, such as shortcodes, leaving many people wondering “why didn’t they just use shortcodes to store block data?”. There are several reasons for this, one of them being the Gutenberg team’s preference for HTML comments since they default to being un-rendered by browsers. However, the biggest reason for the switch that I can see is a bit more fundamental than that. Simply put, shortcode parsing in WordPress is terrible! read more »

If WordPress 5.0 broke your site, here’s how to fix it.

Posted on by gschoppe

WordPress 5.0 is launching tomorrow, and the internet is likely to be flooded with searches for this question when many people update to WordPress 5.0. Some users will be unable to edit pages that they have made, and others will be unable to even access their edit screen. There may even be 500 errors or white screens for some users. These issues will mostly effect WordPress sites running older or unsupported themes or plugins, but may affect some brand-new sites as well.

The process for fixing these errors is well known among WordPress developers, but for the many people who use WordPress as a tool and not a livelihood, this can be a major issue, and there isn’t currently a clear source for information on remediating the issue.

So, in order to make things simpler for these users, I’ve compiled a simple set of steps to get your site back up and running: read more »

Are all WordPress Plugins and Themes Open Source? It’s not a simple answer.

Posted on by gschoppe

Recently, I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on reddit telling users that they can do whatever they want with WordPress themes and plugins, and demand or pirate free copies of paid themes and plugins, because they’re all GPL licensed. Unfortunately, this isn’t the whole story. I figure it’s time to clear the air about how this all works.

Note: I am not a lawyer, and one of the most important things to take away from this article is that you shouldn’t make your own legal interpretations without the support of a lawyer, specializing in intellectual property law. read more »

Gutenberg Can’t Switch Semantics, and that’s a BIG Problem

Posted on by gschoppe

I’ve been critical of WordPress’s new Gutenberg editor since day one, primarily because of its “HTML+comments as structure” language, and I’ve blogged before about the importance of context-aware rendering of blocks, but with the complete lack of complex block layouts in the initial set of beta Gutenberg blocks, It was hard to show people a hard and fast example of how HTML as structure is insufficient in the real world.

Then the columns block was released. read more »

How to Disable Gutenberg BEFORE it’s Released

Posted on by gschoppe

Many agencies and managers are concerned about the changes the new WordPress Gutenberg editor will cause for their users and their editor customizations. In many of these cases, changes will need to be made to accommodate the new Gutenberg editor, and clients may not have time to do so before the aggressive launch date that WordPress has put forward.

With the recent announcement that WordPress 4.9.5 will incorporate a call to try Gutenberg that is shown on the admin panel for all users with plugin installation privileges, the time to take action is now.

The WordPress team is using the Classic Editor Plugin as a metric for the success or failure of the launch methodology that they have chosen for Gutenberg, and when the merge proposal occurs, the method of replacing Gutenberg will likely change, so it is important that it be used to disable the editor, rather than writing custom functions in themes or plugins to do the same. The Classic Editor plugin is also promised to receive official support, so as Gutenberg becomes more ingrained, it will be important to use this method.

However, the classic editor plugin doesn’t suppress this call to install Gutenberg, and by default leaves Gutenberg as an optional editor in the admin panel. Both of those features are counter to the goal of stripping Gutenberg entirely until workflows can be evaluated and training can be done.

To that end, I’ve published a new plugin along with Pieter Boss, that will strip the “Try Gutenberg” messaging before it is released, and will allow you to run the Classic Editor plugin and have it truly strip Gutenberg with no configuration or management, before the merge occurs.

If you are running a site management dashboard like MainWP, ManageWP or even Jetpack, pushing this solution to all your clients can start today, and is as easy as bulk installing Classic Editor, and the plugin available here:

Get Classic Editor Addon