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How to Prevent Changes to Plugins, Themes, and WordPress Core FilesThis is a common question I get from folks in the WordPress community. How can I “lock things down” and prevent any changes to plugins, themes, and WordPress core files. For example, how to prevent any themes and/or plugins from being updated or deleted, and how to prevent any new [...]Round Up: 18 Free Plugins to Help Troubleshoot and Debug WordPressI’ve written numerous tutorials explaining how to troubleshoot WordPress, plugins, email, and more. When investigating issues, diagnosing problems, and hunting bugs, troubleshooting is a critical core skill for any web developer. To help readers level up their tool belt, here’s a quick round-up of free plugins to help troubleshoot any [...]The Difference Between Taxonomies, Categories, and Tags (Oh My!)A common question for new WordPress users is, “what’s the difference between categories and tags?” Like everyone knows what a “category” is, but the idea of “tags” can seem very similar. And then you throw in related WordPress concepts like “taxonomy”, and things can get confusing very quickly. But no [...]Stay Logged in to WordPressI work from home so can afford to leave tabs open for each of my WordPress sites. That way I can jump on anytime and update or add new content very quickly. The problem I kept running into is that WordPress automatically logs out users after 48 hours. Which means [...]How to Disable Embeds for Any Specific URLsQuick tip: how to disable embeds for any URL(s). The other day I was adding URLs to a draft post in WordPress. Some of the URLs were for Twitter tweets. Checking a preview of the post on the front end, I was surprised that WordPress had automatically embedded the actual [...]How to Add Custom Code to WordPressThere are many books and tutorials that share useful code snippets for WordPress. For example, you can find hundreds of custom functions right here at DigWP.com. You can also find them in my WordPress books, tutorials, and code snippets. For many code snippets and custom functions, the usage instructions will [...]Database Tip: Clean Up User-Agent DataI just finished up my latest book, Wizard’s SQL Recipes for WordPress. And it’s packed with over 300 time-saving code snippets for managing and optimizing your WordPress database. For example, one of the recipes from the book shows how to delete unwanted user-agent data from the WP comments table. This [...]How to Disable Gutenberg Styles on the FrontendBy default the Gutenberg Block Editor loads its default CSS/stylesheet on the front-end of your WordPress site. This is fine for most cases, but there may be situations where you want to disable the Gutenberg styles for whatever reason. For example, my free WordPress plugin, Disable Gutenberg, enables users to [...]Fix Site Health Error: The authorization header is missingQuick post that explains how to fix the error, “The authorization header is missing”. This error may be found under “recommended improvements” in the WordPress Site Health tool (located under the WP menu ▸ Tools ▸ Site Health). When running a Site Health check, the “authorization header” warning happens when [...]How to Troubleshoot WordPress, Easy Step-by-Step GuideEasily hands down the most common thing that I find myself explaining to WordPress users is how to troubleshoot WordPress in order to find the cause of some issue. And it makes sense if you think about it. WordPress and all of its plugins and themes are made of code. [...]How to Check if Post has Taxonomy TermSomething I did not know about when working with Custom Post Types and Custom Taxonomies. Normally when checking if a regular WP Post belongs to a specific category, we can use the WordPress function in_category(). But that does not work with Custom Post Types. To check if a CPT belongs [...]Is it okay to use plugins that are not current with latest version of WordPress?People often ask me whether it is safe to run plugins that are not tested with the latest version of WordPress. And it’s a good question, because software in general is something that you want to keep current and updated with all the latest. For WordPress plugins however, there are [...]Which Pricing Model Do You Prefer: One-Time or Recurring?For a long time, premium WordPress plugins and themes were sold as a one-time payment. So for example, if you wanted to buy a new WordPress theme, you would make a single purchase and own the theme indefinitely, with no future payments due. Then somewhere along the way, a recurring [...]WordPress uninstall.php file – The Complete GuideWordPress plugins that clean up after themselves are pure awesome sauce. If you are developing a plugin that adds any sort of data to the WordPress database, it is important that the plugin removes any unwanted or unused data if and when the plugin ever is uninstalled. This complete guide [...]How to Add Custom Content to WordPress FeedsThere are numerous ways to add custom content to your WordPress feeds. If you’re not using a plugin, it’s possible to just add a code snippet to your theme’s functions.php file. For most cases, I think probably going the plugin route is the easiest way to add custom content to [...]Better Way to Add Inline ScriptsIf you are a WordPress developer, you may have used the WordPress hook wp_print_scripts to add any necessary inline JavaScript. Alternately, you may have used the function wp_localize_script() to add your inline scripts. But did you know that not too long ago, WordPress added a new function for adding inline [...]Shortcode to Display Recent Posts on Any Post or PageWordPress provides a widget that can be used to display recent posts in any sidebar or widgetized location. Likewise many WordPress themes provide some sort of “recent post” functionality, so users can display their latest posts in specific locations around the theme. Such functionality is great and useful for displaying [...]MailOptin Review: WordPress Newsletter Signup Made EasyOne of the few regrets anyone can have in an online business is the failure to collect email addresses of their visitors. Simply put, the failure to have a list. More often than not, you will hear people say, “the money is in the list” and that by itself is [...]List of WordPress Developers & Designers (2024)Previously we posted a list of available WordPress Developers & Designers. Lots of great people and companies shared their information, but a lot has changed since then. So rather than try to contact everyone on the list and ask them to update their infos, here is a new post of [...]How to Disable CSS and JavaScript Added by PluginsOne of the most annoying things in the WordPress universe are plugins and themes that don’t conditionally load their scripts and styles (i.e., JavaScript and CSS files). For example, you install a dashboard plugin and it loads its scripts in the entire Admin Area and the frontend. Instead, the developer [...]Display Your WordPress Site Statistics: Complete GuideJust to be crystal clear, this post is all about displaying basic statistics about your site, not about your visitors. So if you are thinking something like, “duh, just use Google Analytics or whatever,” then imagine a giant buzzer sound telling you that you’re incorrect. Sure, Google Analytics gives you [...]Official Resources for the Gutenberg Block EditorJust a quick post to share some recommended useful resources for anyone working with the new Gutenberg Block Editor. Our book Digging Into WordPress now links to this post, so readers can learn more and dive deep into Gutenberg. Or just bookmark for future reference. What does that mean? It [...]How to Selectively Enable Gutenberg Block EditorPreviously, we covered numerous techniques to disable Gutenberg. For example, you can disable Gutenberg on specific post types, user roles, post IDs, and so forth. But what about doing the opposite and conditionally enabling Gutenberg? For example, if Gutenberg is disabled by default, you could then selectively enable it on [...]About the “Warning! WordPress Encrypts User Cookies” ErrorUpgrading from older versions of WordPress is designed to go without a hitch, but depending on the setup and the two versions involved, you may encounter some hangups along the way. For example, if you are upgrading from a version of WordPress older than 3.0, eventually you may encounter the [...]Subscribe to Comments Plugin: Delete Data from DatabaseDuring the latest site redesign, I removed the Subscribe to Comments plugin. Wisely, the plugin does not delete any subscriber information from the database. So as a part of the site’s redesign slash clean-up, I wanted to export/save and then delete all subscriber information to decrease overall database size. After [...]Securing the WP REST APII think many WordPress users probably underestimate the amount of data that is made available via the REST API. Just about everything is available to anyone or anything that asks for it: posts, pages, categories, tags, comments, taxonomies, media, users, settings, and more. For most of these types of data, [...]How to Disable Gutenberg: Complete GuideGutenberg soon will be added to the WordPress core. This is great news for some, not so great for others. With 99.9999% (estimate) of all WordPress sites currently setup to work without Gutenberg, the massive changes barreling down the pike are going to affect literally millions of websites. And as [...]Display Custom Fields in GutenbergGutenberg is coming soon to your WordPress, whether you like it or not. Debate and drama aside, it’s time that we start looking for practical ways to adapt current WordPress sites to the many imminent changes brought to us by G7G. One of these changes involves Custom Fields. Currently, and [...]Gutenberg Block RecipesI’ve been working on updating my collection of WordPress plugins for the imminent Gutenberg update. So far it has not required much time to learn, and the API is straightforward. It will however take significantly longer to integrate Gutenberg support into 20+ plugins. To help keep things organized, I will [...]Thoughts on GutenbergThere has been lots of discussion about the new WordPress “Gutenberg” project. Some people love it, some hate it, and most WP users probably have no idea about it. And that’s too bad, because it means many changes will be required for thousands of WordPress plugins and themes. We’re talking [...]