WordPress Reusable Blocks Everywhere

Today I gave a talk at WordCamp Calgary 2019 on how to use the reusable blocks built right into WordPress.

Here is the description:

A tour of the new reusable blocks that are built into the new WordPress editing experience (formerly known as Gutenberg). This new feature lets you reuse content on the fly, quickly and easily without any special skills and without copying and pasting. Find out how to make the most of it!
This talk will feature how-tos and tips for users, but also include suggestions for designers and developers who want to make reusable blocks work with their themes. 

Let me know what you think!

Just enough React: Getting ready for Gutenberg

In 2018, WordPress will modernize, streamline, and simplify the content creation experience with Gutenberg. It represents the biggest change to the WordPress user experience in several years.

This session will teach just enough React for theme and plugin developers to start using Gutenberg today. Colour palettes, meta boxes, reusable blocks: all the new features, made easy. 

This presentation was given at WordCamp Vancouver 2018.

Shannon Smith is a platform services specialist with WordPress.com VIP/Automattic. She delivers content solutions to some of the biggest names in media, marketing, and enterprise. Shannon has over 15 years experience in open source web development. She is a long-time supporter of diversity, accessibility and internationalization, and was a WordPress Montreal community organizer for seven years. Shannon is also a hiker, poet, and mum of four.

La revue de code: une arme secrète à portée de tous

Présenté lors de Web à Québec 2018

Avez-vous déjà passé des heures sans pouvoir déchiffrer le code d’un tiers? Votre application ne fonctionne pas et vous ne savez pas pourquoi. Le temps presse et vous ne pouvez manquer la date limite prévue, votre arme secrète: la revue de code. Quels sont les avantages? Comment démarrer une bonne revue de code? Quels sont les meilleurs outils? WordPress.com propulse des millions de sites web. Leur service VIP, pour les grandes entreprises, reçoit à lui seul reçoit 2,5 milliards de pages vues par mois. En misant sur WordPress.com, on ne peut pas se tromper. Venez assister à une introduction sur les bonnes techniques qu’on peut mettre en place, et ce, peu importe l’échelle.

Un grand merci à mes collègues qui ont partagé leur expérience dans la domaine: Mo Jangda, Ryan Markel, et Phil John.

Gutenberg and the future of WordPress | Gutenberg et le futur de WordPress

This Monday I gave a talk on Gutenberg and the future of WordPress for the Montreal WordPress Community.

Slides are here:
https://speakerdeck.com/cafenoirdesign/gutenberg-and-the-future-of-wordpress-gutenberg-et-le-futur-de-wordpress

The talk included a demo of testgutenberg.com with a contest and prizes. But also an introduction to how Gutenberg is built with “just enough React js” to get started building custom blocks and templates, converting metaboxes, etc. There was also a “How you can contribute right now! (even if you don’t code)” component, a mini promo for the New Contributors Chat Wednesdays at 4 EDT in the #core Slack channel on make.wordpress.org

There were tons of questions and people were really interested in the topic.

Many thanks to my team members for their assistance and for the Montreal WordPress Community for inviting me to speak.

Also, we're hiring!

And yes, this post was made with Gutenberg 🙂 

V.2 Oooh, Shiny! All the New CSS Toys for WordPress Theme Development

This weekend I gave an updated version of my talk on new CSS modules at WordCamp Montréal 2017. This talk is similar to the previous version, but with updated statistics, and Canada-specific statistics added.

Below is my talk description.

Check out all newest things that CSS can bring to WordPress theme development: CSS Filters, Feature Queries, Native Mixins, Grid Layout, Native Variables, and more. The W3C’s CSS Working Group is introducing a ton of new CSS modules in 2017. Learn how they work and when to use them. We’ll look at real examples that you can start using right now.

The talk is meant as a sampler of some new techniques that make CSS fun again. But I’d encourage you to follow the links in the slides to find tutorials and examples so that you can learn how to use these modules in more depth.

A couple of people asked questions after the talk, or requested more information.

I’d love some feedback, so please feel free to leave a comment!

Oooh, Shiny! All the new CSS toys for WordPress Theme Development

This weekend I was lucky enough to give a talk at WordCamp Ottawa 2017. It was a lot of fun, and I thought I’d share my slides with everyone who couldn’t be there. Below is my talk description.

Check out all newest things that CSS can bring to WordPress theme development: CSS Filters, Feature Queries, Native Mixins, Grid Layout, Native Variables, and more. The W3C’s CSS Working Group is introducing a ton of new CSS modules in 2017. Learn how they work and when to use them. We’ll look at real examples that you can start using right now.

CSS has seemed quite stable for some time, so I was excited to see all the new CSS modules that have just come out. They’ve made CSS fun again. There is just so much to play with.

With so much material, it was hard to choose what to present. I feel like grid could have been a full-day workshop on its own! But for this talk, I only had 30 minutes, plus time for questions. So I chose a small sampler of new CSS that you can start using quickly.

My talk is intended for people who already have a basic grasp of CSS. But, to keep the talk as accessible as possible, I’ve included links on many of my slides where you can find much more detailed information, including tutorials, demos, and online tools.

Getting started with .htaccess for WordPress

This weekend I gave a talk on using .htaccess files with WordPress at WordCamp Montreal 2014…

An introduction on how to configure your .htaccess file to do more than what WordPress provides by default. The talk will cover basics like setting up a preferred URL, and redirecting old page URLs for better SEO. How to optimize your site’s files using gzip will also be covered, as well as preventing image hot linking, and more. A sample .htaccess file will be provided to all attendees. A useful introduction to a very important file for any shared hosting environment.

These are the slides.

And if you’d like a copy of the starter .htaccess file I discussed, you can download it here. You’ll need to rename it to .htaccess to use it. Please note that the file is released under the GPL licence without any warranty whatsoever. Use it at your own risk. 🙂

Big in Japan : A guide to WordPress theme internationalization

You’ve just built a great theme, but how can you get more people to use it? All the steps you’ll need to follow to get your brand new theme internationalized and localized. If gettext, Poedit, POT files GlotPress, all seem like a foreign language to you, this session will change that.

These are the slides from my talk at WordCamp San Francisco 2013.

Want more? Try my slides on building multilingual sites or check out my article on multilingual WordPress sites on .net magazine.

Microsocial for WordPress

Seen and unseen, tiny bits of data are hard at work on every website. Search engines and social networks are using this information. But are you making them work for you? Microformats, microdata, metadata : what are they, what do they do, and how can you use them to attract visitors and improve SEO on your WordPress site.

If you liked the presentation on structured data that I gave at the Social Capital Conference, this is part II – micro social applied to WordPress. The last presentation was for a general audience, and this one is meant for intermediate bloggers and for developers. I gave this talk last weekend at WordCamp Montreal 2013.

Check out my slides from WordCamp Montreal.

If you are looking for a checklist for general users, check out my previous post.