1. Advanced (WordPress)
Development Techniques
Tips & tricks to make your life easier

2. Beau Lebens
@beaulebens
beau@automattic.com
http://dentedreality.com.au

3. 1. Development Stack

4. Go get a decent text editor

5. Coda
TextPad
Vim
Emacs
TextWrangler
Notepad++
UltraEdit
DreamWeaver
PSPad
Eclipse
SubEthaEdit
BBEdit

6. Coda
TextPad
Vim
Emacs
TextWrangler
Notepad++
UltraEdit
DreamWeaver
PSPad
Eclipse
SubEthaEdit
BBEdit

7. TextMate (Mac OS X)
http://macromates.com

10. (local)host(ing)

11. http://www.mamp.info/
Host your development stack locally
Apache 2.0.63, PHP 5.2.10, MySQL 5.1.37

12. http://www.wampserver.com/en/
Windows version of MAMP
Apache 2.2.11, PHP 5.3.0, MySQL 5.1.36

13. DBA

14. CLI

15. phpMyAdmin

16. MySQL Query Browser

17. Control the intarwebs

18. Accept requests for any hostname
Fully-configure those hosts locally

19. Accept requests for any hostname
Fully-configure those hosts locally

20. Hosts File
Tells your machine where to resolve a hostname to.

21. /etc/hosts (Mac)
C:WINDOWSsystem32driversetchosts (Win)

24. Flush your DNS cache if you change anything:
dscacheutil -flushcache (Mac, Terminal)
ipconfig /flushdns (Win, DOS)

25. SVN, FTW

26. Command Line
$ svn help

27. Tortoise SVN
http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/

28. Versions (Mac)
http://versionsapp.com/

29. FileMerge
(comes with XCode)

30. $ svn co <URL> <directory>

31. You’ve Got WordPress

32. $ svn up

33. $ svn switch <URL>

34. You’re now running WordPress 2.8.5

35. 2. Tools && Tricks

36. Move wp-config.php “one directory up”
Put wp-content “somewhere else”
define( ‘WP_CONTENT_DIR’, ‘/path/to/wp-content’ );
define( ‘WP_CONTENT_URL’, ‘http://website.com/wp-content’ );

37. Find Stuff

38. $ grep

39. All function definitions within WordPress

40. $ grep | grep

41. Definition of a specific function

42. Definition of a specific function, with line numbers

43. TextMate’s “Find in Project”

48. Secure Development

49. SSH (SOCKS) Tunneling

50. SSH (SOCKS) Tunneling

51. FoxyProxy is awesome
http://foxyproxy.mozdev.org/

52. FTP, FTL

53. Mount remote filesystems via SSH

54. MacFUSE (for Mac, duh!)
http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

55. Macfusion (again, for Mac)
http://www.macfusionapp.org/

56. ExpanDrive (hey! for Win)
http://www.expandrive.com/windows/

57. WebDAV?

58. Kick it, old-skool

60. WP_CONTENT_DIR
WP_CONTENT_URL
WP_PLUGIN_DIR
WP_PLUGIN_URL
PLUGINDIR (maybe)

61. $table_prefix

62. $table_prefix

63. Symlink in your plugin(s)
Same plugin code on multiple WP installs

64. Symlink in your plugin(s)
Same plugin code on multiple WP installs

65. Symlink in your plugin(s)
Same plugin code on multiple WP installs

66. 3. Testing?

67. wfm

68. Writing tests doesn’t need to be hard

69. APIs
“Libraries”
CRUD

70. PHPUnit
SimpleTest
RYO

71. http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress-tests/

72. Frontend?

73. Firebug will change your life

77. Browser Testing
(a.k.a.The Tenth Circle of Hell)

78. Level the playing field

79. Abstract away (most)
browser differences
jQuery
CSS Reset

80. Develop in Firefox
(or something else standards-compliant)

81. Tweak Internet Explorer

82. CSS Hacks

83. All browsers

84. IE6 + IE7

85. IE6 only

86. height: 1%;

87. There are lots of different browsers...

90. 1 4 1

93. FAIL

95. 8 0

96. 8 0
plus these!

98. MOAR?

99. VirtualBox

102. You are a craftsperson
You need a workshop
You need good tools
It’s worth the investment,
you’re going to spend a lot
of time doing this stuff.

103. Beau Lebens
@beaulebens
beau@automattic.com
http://dentedreality.com.au