Darren Lambert – Blog

WordPress – How to change Post Post Type Slug

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 11:53:00 GMT

If you want to change the slug of the Post post type to something like /posts/my-story/, there is no default way in the WordPress settings. Changing the Permalink settings will changes Pages as well.…

Get value from GTM, and update a form input, using Vanilla JS

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 11:21:51 GMT

Here’s a handy vanilla JS script to get a value from Google Tag Manager (GTM) and update a form input. /** * Get value from GTM, and update a form input */ ( function () { window.addEventListener(…

“cannot access install” Error when Deploying from BitBucket to WP Engine

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 08:56:26 GMT

I recently came across a “cannot access install” error when deploying from a BitBucket repo Pipeline to WP Engine. The error occurred on the rsync command, but during debugging I got the same problem…

I reduced CD pipeline from 43 minutes to 11 minutes, using parallel steps

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 12:07:05 GMT

I work on a large collection of sites for a university. It’s a single codebase, shared onto 9 sites. This is done via Bitbucket Pipelines. For years each site has it’s own step in the pipeline CD…

Eero connection dropout with Virgin Media

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 09:19:16 GMT

I moved to a new house, taking my existing Eero setup, and experience connection dropouts. I had Virgin Broadband and the old house, and the new house, and assumed I would be just plug and play. I…

Fix LightSpeed Cache + WooCommerce Caching Issues

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 20:23:33 GMT

If have any issues with LightSpeed Cache incorrectly caching WooCommerce data try this fix. Go to LightSpeed Cache > Cache > Excludes tab Under Do Not Cache Cookies, add: woocommerce_items_in_cart…

WP Engine Redirect Rules

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 13:24:14 GMT

Since WP Engine deprecated .htaccess support we need to use different methods to redirect old URLs. They offer a good redirect rule system. Here’s an solution to redirect the following structure…

WordPress: How to get the post count for a term and post type

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 13:39:49 GMT

The WordPress function get_term returns the count for the number of posts in the term, but this is for all post types. You need a custom function to count the number of posts in a term for a specific…

WP CLI Delete All Terms in Taxonomy

Sat, 23 Apr 2022 11:42:32 GMT

Delete every term in a WordPress taxonomy with a single WP-CLI command.

Improve the WordPress Audio and Video Player with 4 lines of code

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 15:13:23 GMT

WordPress styles the default audio and video elements, and frankly it’s not an improvement. Below is the code to turn the audio player from this into this Add the code to your theme functions.php…

Moving from a 2017 iMac 5K (and MBP) and a 2021 MacBook Pro M1 Pro

Wed, 10 Nov 2021 12:39:41 GMT

I’m excited by the new 2021 MacBook Pro computers. They are a great evolution from the 2020 models, and the performance and battery gains from the Intel machines are impossible to ignore. I’m…

Disable xmlrpc.php and Secure your WordPress Website

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 10:13:14 GMT

xmlrpc.php is part of WordPress that is rarely used by any site, but poses a security risk. There has been a high level of attacks targeting this file so my advice it so secure your WordPress website…

Can’t connect to the clients FTP?

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 10:30:00 GMT

Here are some tips Check the transcript log of your FTP client. In the example below the server was telling me that I needed to be using SSL/TLS, which did solve the problem.

Convert text lines to list items

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 17:55:36 GMT

Turn each line of a multi-line ACF text field into an HTML list item with a few lines of PHP.

WooCommerce Update Checklist

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 08:43:14 GMT

WooCommerce is a powerful but complex system, and larger installations often have some additional plugins or custmisations. After updating the WooCommerce plugin, or any other related plugins, it’s…

Hide the annoying outline for mouse users but preserves it for keyboard users

Tue, 28 Apr 2020 09:50:03 GMT

One line of CSS that hides the focus outline for mouse users but keeps it for keyboard users, using :focus-visible.

How to Disable WordPress PHP Error Messages

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 15:46:12 GMT

Sometimes even with the WP_DEBUG setting set to false you will see PHP error messages. This is normally because of the PHP setup configuration on the server. If you are seeing warnings that are…

How to Fix Zero Bounce Rate of all Sessions on Google Analytics when using Events

Thu, 06 Feb 2020 10:45:15 GMT

If you are experiencing a zero bounce rate across all of your sessions in Google Analytics and you are using Events then check the following. The problem Google Analytics considers a session to be a…

How to change menu items to sentence case in WordPress

Fri, 31 Jan 2020 15:36:15 GMT

A WordPress snippet that converts every menu item title to sentence case in one go.

Weeknotes 5

Fri, 31 Jan 2020 13:24:25 GMT

Pomodoro, running, MS Access

Weeknotes 4

Fri, 17 Jan 2020 14:49:53 GMT

I started using Bitbucket Pipelines to deploy projects. I’m a great fan of Gitlab due to their awesome CI system, but have only just started to use Bitbucket Pipelines to auto deploy my sites. I’ve…

Weeknotes 3

Fri, 29 Nov 2019 21:15:00 GMT

I’ve been watched the BBC’s Severn Worlds, One Planet. The production quality is astonishing, as is the human impact on the planet. I’ve enjoyed working on several different projects this week. I do…

Mailtrap not working on live WordPress server (Siteground) – Gateway Timeout error

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 15:31:27 GMT

If Mailtrap is not sending on your WordPress site and you are getting a Gateway Timeout error, try changing the Mailtrap SMTP port to 465. This worked for my Siteground hosted WordPress site. Ports…

Add Cache Version Number to editor-style.css

Thu, 24 Oct 2019 07:52:58 GMT

You can add a custom style sheet to format the WordPress editor using add_editor_style. A frustrating problem with this technique is that browsers will typically cache this css file pretty hard, and…

Set src using just CSS

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 10:36:37 GMT

Change the src of an element from CSS alone, using content: url(), for when you cannot edit the HTML, such as when styling a plugin.

fatal: pathspec ‘vendor/entypo/Iconr’ did not match any files

Sat, 12 Oct 2019 10:32:02 GMT

If SourceTree gives you the error ‘fatal: pathspec ‘vendor/entypo/Iconr’ did not match any files’ you need to ignore the file or delete it.

Weeknotes 2

Fri, 11 Oct 2019 13:05:13 GMT

This week I did a bunch of updates on the optilabs.com and listenandlearnresearch.com websites. These are both sites I have worked on for years. I really value continued relationships with clients,…

Show PHP error or debug log in VS Code terminal window

Fri, 11 Oct 2019 09:18:06 GMT

Monitoring your PHP error log is a great way of tracking any errors or debug information when working on your site. Showing the log file in the VS Code terminal window is a great way of keeping an…

Weeknotes 1

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 10:59:56 GMT

DKIM signing emails, Spit Spreads Death and payment dodging clients

DIY Honeypot to Stop Spam Registrations

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 10:51:55 GMT

A simple DIY honeypot for WordPress forms: reject submissions filled in too quickly to be human, and stop spam registrations reaching your CRM.

Change Default Image Size on Visual Composer Single Image

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 10:43:07 GMT

The Visual Composer Single Image component defaults the Image Size to ‘thumbnail’. This really isn’t very useful, especially if your clients are using Visual Composer to build pages. An Image Size of…

WordPress redirect https to http without SSL certificate

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 10:39:28 GMT

If your website has an invalid SSL certificate for your site (perhaps your shared hosting company has a wildcard certificate), most browsers will show a warning about the validity of the certiticate.…

Assign a Tag to a Contact in Infusionsoft using Affiliates Pro

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 10:37:30 GMT

If you’re using Affiliates Pro, and Infusionsoft, you might want to tag the Infusionsoft contact for an affiliate, once they have signed up. Here’s a handy function to do that. Important: You need to…

How to change WooCommerce product gallery zoom image size

Fri, 27 Jul 2018 09:25:42 GMT

By default the WooCommerce product gallery zoom image size is very big. This can cause the zoomed image to look distorted and too far from the original. The cause is that WooCommerce selects the…

How to enable Hot Reloading in React Native

Tue, 08 May 2018 13:49:55 GMT

By default Hot Reloading in React Native only works if you extend React.Component. If you are using your own base classes to inherit from you need to change the .babelrc file. Below is my working…

WordCamp London

Sun, 15 Apr 2018 09:39:30 GMT

WordCamp London, in it’s 4th year in 2018, is an excellent event that I’d recommend to anyone working with WordPress. Whether you are a seasoned developer or have only just starting working with…

Rebuild of CampervanLife.com – day 5 – Import of data and Pre-go Live

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 12:07:03 GMT

Newsletter I decided to get a newsletter subscribe form active right from the start. Previously I had used a Drupal module to collect emails and to send the emails. This worked out OK. For smaller…

Rebuild of CampervanLife.com – day 4 – Pre-import checks and theme selection

Fri, 10 Feb 2017 18:02:06 GMT

Pre-import The pre-import went pretty well. I had to add author and comments to several of the post types to preserve the data from the Drupal site. All of the posts and comments imported straight…

Converting my Travel Blog from Drupal to WordPress

Sat, 04 Feb 2017 16:40:23 GMT

Before I start the mammoth task of converting www.campervanlife.com from Drupal to WordPress, I thought I’d try the same process on a smaller site, my travel blog www.itravelabout.com. Of course,…

Rebuild of CampervanLife.com – day 3 – WordPress vs Drupal

Fri, 03 Feb 2017 16:32:12 GMT

The current www.campervanlife.com website is powered by Drupal 7. The original website was a simple flat-file website. Then I converted it to Drupal to allow me to edit it online, and to add…

Rebuild of CampervanLife.com – day 2 – The Plan

Wed, 01 Feb 2017 16:15:28 GMT

The success of a project like this relies on good planning. Time spent thinking and making good choices before the work starts will save time and headaches not just now, but for years to come. 1.…

Rebuild of CampervanLife.com – day 1 – Introduction

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 17:29:07 GMT

What is the website? On 31st March 2006 I registered the domain name campervanlife.com. I was about to convert an empty van into a campervan, and then travel through Europe in it. I had seen a few…

Lovely checkout detail on swrve.co.uk

Sat, 26 Nov 2016 10:04:24 GMT

I loved this final checkout page detail on swrve.co.uk (who make excellent commuting cycling jeans).

Send WooCommerce emails using code – useful for testing custom emails

Thu, 10 Nov 2016 18:32:57 GMT

If you need to test custom WooCommerce checkout email templates or functionality you don’t want to constantly be generating orders, or changing order statuses. Instead use this snippet to send the…

How to Show KGs as grams in WooCommerce

Thu, 13 Oct 2016 08:59:15 GMT

The default metric value in WooCommerce is KGs. My client has been running his site for years in KGs, and many of his products have the weight entered as KGs. Now he wants to show the value in grams.…

wp_foots() Compromised WordPress and Drupal sites

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 08:24:45 GMT

I’m seeing a few WordPress and Drupal sites with template files being compromised, and a call to a PHP method wp_foots being added This PHP call injects malicious Javascript code…

Dropbox stuck at 100% CPU on Mac, nothing seems to work

Sat, 04 Apr 2015 09:34:14 GMT

If you find your Dropbox is stuck at 100% CPU and constantly ‘Downloading file list’ on your Mac, and you’ve tried all of the unlink/re-link suggestions, be sure to check you don’t have a symbolic…