Tag Archives: development

Theme my login and WordPress updates in general

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One thing I often do is end up overseeing WordPress site updates, both to the WordPress core and to plugins. In theory this is an easy task, and a very important one especially security wise, but often people are reluctant do it. There’s one main reason and that is breaking things. Generally it doesn’t happen and the benefits of breaking a small section of a site are usually massively outweighed by not leaving a vulnerability in the site and getting hacked.

Of course a WordPress core update, especially to a new version needs a bit of planning, but a plugin update is usually trivial. However the issues that can occur were highlighted recently when I discovered a change in the Theme My Login plugin. This plugin allows WordPress site owners to setup login and registration forms that are powered by the site templates, thus keeping everything more focussed and on brand. In a recent version the developers have now removed automatic redirecting after login and have instead added this functionality as a paid for plugin. I’ll be honest I don’t think that’s a great idea and will annoy a lot of the user base for the plugin but I’m sure the developers have weighed up their thinking behind the decision. That said removing this core functionality essentially breaks the login process. You login and land on the same page with an empty login form, which would take an eagle eyed user to spot. So what to do? If you don’t wish to pay for the plugin then I would point you in the direction of this tutorial on Envato (https://code.tutsplus.com/series/build-a-custom-wordpress-user-flow–cms-816) It needs a little developer know how but there is a downloadable version you can grab from github on the article to get you going.

If you’ve been sensible and backed up you can always roll back and use an old version and continue on with that.

It is worth having a think through the options. But mainly I just wanted to point out the Envato tutorial for anyone who’s looking for a solution to this problem at the moment.

It’s a problem you should look to fix though, as mentioned at the start of the article, building up security issues is not worth it to save solving a few functionality issues.

Little Wing Dev – A rebrand and a few changes

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So like everyone 2020 has been some year so far. One big thing for me is moving from full time to part time flying, a little earlier than planned and a little more part time than I had planned to. The upshot of which is I’m doing much more web development work and enjoying it!

Ahead of this I started a little bit of a rebrand, but managed to pick up work quite quickly and as with all good “internal” projects it gets pushed back. However I have finally launched my new site and essentially rebranded my dev side of work to https://littlewingdev.uk As you’ll see when you visit the site I’m not really keeping a full portfolio, mainly because of the fact I’m doing a lot of “white label” type work and joining clients as part of their in house teams to help clear backlogs and plug gaps in experience.

I’ll be keeping the site here as my blog slightly separate and hopefully start to post a few more web posts (I already have a few drafts started!)

Moving Hosts

I’ve also moved my hosting. I’ve hosted with Media Temple for over a decade but having found clients I work with often want a U.K. based service recommended I decided to switch over myself so I’m now with TSO Hosts and all is going well so far.

So why not check out the site at https://littlewingdev.uk and let me know what you think.

Where to keep up with the web and continue learning

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In my last proper post I introduced a couple of resources I recommend to those getting started on the web.
But where do you go from there to keep up to date and continue learning? Apart from browsing these hallowed pages of course.

Here are a few of the resources I regularly use to keep track and reference, I have plenty more in my RSS reader (Google reader! I’ll be looking for an update) but these are the ones I regularly end up visiting and reading from. They offer a variety of levels of interest and difficulties.

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A look ahead to the rest of 2012

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V for Vendetta

IMG Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kashklick/3406150405/sizes/m/in/photostream/

A little late, this post was supposed to go up on Six Revisions at the start of the year as “Five things that will keep shaping the web in 2012” however there were a few issues over there so I’ve decided to publish it here anyway. As it was written at the end of December some of the things may already have moved on a little.

So having looked back at last year’s predictions and having survived a sober new years eve (I was driving and had places to be on New year’s day) I’m back to have a look at what 2012 might have in store for us.
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It’s not about succeeding, it’s about trying something new

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There are some very interesting things going on recently in terms of how we put together our sites and it’s leading to quite a few interesting discussions, mostly between those who aren’t ready to even consider using new web technologies until IE offer support for them and those who have whole heartedly embraced the ideas of progressive enhancement and graceful degradation. Personally I fall into the latter category, using HTML5 to code up sites and using CSS3 all over the place.

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