Book updates! New versions of all books including Digging Into WordPress now available for download. As always, updates are FREE for all book owners :)

Excited to announce the launch of our new bookstore! It’s got a minimalist design and loads super fast. Go there to get great books like Digging Into WordPress, The Tao of WordPress, and WordPress Themes In Depth. Check it out and learn more about how the site was built.

Yay this year is the 7th birthday of our pro WordPress plugin site, Plugin-Planet.com. To celebrate the event, we are giving away 7 free copies of our premium WordPress plugins!

I get bunches of emails asking what happened to the “Custom Fields” meta box on the “Edit Posts” screen. They’re hidden by default with the new Block Editor, so questions like, “do I need to install a plugin to get them back again?” No you don’t. To view the Custom Fields for any post, click the three dots in the upper-right corner of the screen and then do one of these:

• For older versions of WordPress, go to Options and check the box to enable Custom Fields (under Advanced Panels).
• For newer versions of WordPress, click the three dots in the upper right corner, then Preferences ▸ General ▸ Advanced ▸ Custom Fields.

After enabling, scroll down the page to find the Custom Fields meta box.

We are having a Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale on our premium WordPress plugins! Save 30% on lifetime licenses for awesome plugins like USP Pro, BBQ Pro, Blackhole Pro, and more. To save, apply coupon code BLACKFRIDAY2019 during checkout. This is a one-time-per-year event that expires December 3rd!

* Sweet Friday goodness: the same coupon code also works for any of our WordPress books or combos at Perishable Press Books :)

WordPress provides an option called “Automatically close comments on articles older than x days”. It really helps to stop spam on older blog posts. The problem is that, when the setting is enabled, there is no way to override for individual posts. So I wrote a simple lightweight plugin that enables you to override the auto-close setting and leave comments open on any posts that you want.

Thanks to WPKlik for the interview! Wherein I discuss my favorite projects, WordPress, Gutenberg and JavaScript development, building secure WordPress sites, and more fun web-dev topics :)

This Summer I had the opportunity to record a new video course for LinkedIn/Lynda.com. The course walks through the process of installing and running WordPress on a shared hosting account. It’s very straightforward and kept as simple as possible, recommended for anyone who wants to get a new WordPress site up and running as quickly and inexpensively as possible. You can find the course at both LinkedIn and Lynda.com.

shapeSpace is my own WordPress starter theme. I’ve been developing and fine-tuning it over the years. I use it as the foundation to build high-quality themes for sites like DigWP.com, PerishablePress.com, and many others. It’s 100% free and open source. Get it @ shapespace.io.

Digging Into WordPress celebrates its 10th anniversary this month! Thank you to everyone who visits, shares, and contributes to DigWP.com — Cheers! :)

After months of development, I am excited to announce my newest premium WordPress plugin: GA Pro! Quite simply it connects your WordPress site to your Google Analytics account just like the free version, but with awesome new features like visitor Opt Out, multiple trackers, code previews, and more.

Save 20% on Digging Into WordPress, The Tao of WordPress, .htaccess made easy, and WP Themes In Depth. Visit Perishable Press Books and enter coupon code HOHOHO during checkout for instant savings. Happy Holidays! :)

What up! Just to help spread the word about the DigWP newsletter. Get WordPress news, tips, and special offers delivered fresh to your inbox. 3-4 times per year max. Always good stuff, never spam, and we never share your info with anyone. Just a quality newsletter letting you know about awesome stuff happening in our corner of the WordPress universe.

Weak passwords leave your site vulnerable. WordPress sites with more than one user should enforce a “strong password” policy for better security. To help with this, check out Password Policy Manager. It is a CHOICE WordPress plugin that makes it easy to define a strong set of password requirements for your site’s users. Easy to use and provides a robust set of features. Check it out.