Category: Meetings

Building a Portfolio in WordPress Grand Rapids

Building a Portfolio in WordPress: June 2015 meetup

We talked about Building a Portfolio in WordPress at our June 18, 2015 meetup. Below are the notes.

Building a Portfolio in WordPress Grand Rapids

What are clients looking for in your portfolio?

Presented by Andrea Napierkows­ki

  • Clients want to see themselves in your portfolio
  • Less is more: don’t overwhelm people
  • Make it easy to find the info they’re looking for (your portfolio, your phone number, etc.)
  • Be uniquely you
  • Use colors carefully; for example, blue and greens are generally more calming than reds, oranges, and yellows, which can be alarming
  • Be funny, and joke as appropriate to your clients

Using the CMB2 plugin for custom fields

Presented by Topher DeRosia

Using CPTs and Advanced Custom Fields

Presented by Chad Warner

Booking Reservations Appointments WordPress Grand Rapids

Booking Reservations and Appointments in WordPress: April 2015 meetup

We talked about Booking Reservations and Appointments at our April 16, 2015 meetup. Below are the notes.

Booking Reservations Appointments WordPress Grand Rapids

BirchPress Scheduler and PTA Volunteer Sign Up Sheets

Presented by Matthew Patulski

Other reservation, appointment, and event plugins

Presented by Chad Warner

Even more options

These plugins and services were recommended by the group.

Topher DeRosia recommended the post Best Hotel and Room Reservation Plugins for WordPress (WP Mayor).

WordPress Network (Multisite): March 2015 meetup

We talked about WordPress Network (Multisite) at our March 19, 2015 meetup. Chad Warner introduced WordPress Network (Multisite). Then, Mika Epstein from DreamHost joined us via Google Hangout to talk about the dos and don’ts and answer our questions. Below are the notes.

Intro to WordPress Network (Multisite)

Presented by Chad Warner

Dos and Don’ts of WordPress Network (Multisite)

Presented by Mika Epstein

  • WP-CLI: a set of command-line tools for managing WordPress installations. You can update plugins, set up multisite installs and much more, without using a web browser.
  • Search Replace DB: A PHP search replace tool for quickly modifying a string throughout a database. Useful for changing the base URL when migrating a WordPress site from development to production.

WordPress Network (Multisite) tips

  • Blue Network Plugins! groups network-activated plugins (note: hasn’t been updated in over 2 years)
  • WP Migrate DB Pro: Copy your database from one WordPress install to another with one click in your dashboard
Steve Day presenting on Retina-Ready WordPress

Retina-Ready WordPress: Feb 2015 meetup

We talked about Retina-Ready WordPress at our Feb. 19, 2015 meetup. Below are the notes.

Steve Day presenting on Retina-Ready WordPress
Steve Day presenting on Retina-Ready WordPress

High Density Images

Presented by Steve Day

Jetpack Photon and WP Retina 2x

Presented by Chad Warner

Jetpack Photon

What it is

  • Jetpack module
  • CDN for images
  • Runs on WordPress.com infrastructure

How it works

  • “[W]e just grab the best version that we can find, and manipulate that single source image for whatever size, crop, or filter happens to be requested at the time. That lets us do cool things, like upscaling for Retina displays, as well.” George Stephanis, Jetpack dev
  • “There’s a script we load with photon that will detect if your user is on a Retina display, and then swap out images for the higher-resolution versions.” George Stephanis, Jetpack dev
  • Photon filters content but doesn’t change the info in the database.
  • Photon currently only acts on images in posts and pages, as well as featured images (post thumbnails). Also works for CPTs.
  • Photon will apply to old posts and new ones alike and can be turned on or off easily.
  • Photon looks at the img element’s width and height attributes and then serves an image resized to those dimensions or to the width of the containing element (whichever is smaller).

How to use

Enable the Photon module in your Jetpack settings.

WP Retina 2x

  • Tutorial
  • Creates the image files required by Retina (High DPI) devices and displays them to your visitors accordingly.
  • Supports 4 different methods to serve the images to your visitors.

How to use 

  1. Make a full backup (in case images are damaged)
  2. Settings > Retina
    1. Basics
      1. Disabled Sizes: select those that are not used by theme (often thumbnail, possibly unused theme-specific sizes)
      2. Enable Auto Generate
  3. Media > Retina > Generate

X-Icon Editor: favicon generator

Generates single favicon.ico containing 64×64, 32×32, 24×24, and 16×16 px favicon.