Tools

Automate WordPress Installation and Development WorkFlow

By DeveloperDrive Staff

Do you work on multiple sites at a time? Then no doubt you would love to improve your speed and your overall development workflow. Think of what it takes to set up WordPress the old school way:

  1. Downloading the latest version.
  2. Extracting the downloaded zip file.
  3. Creating a new database.
  4. Creating wp-config.php file.

Developing WordPress sites has never been easier with WAMP and Simple WordPress Auto Installer.  The Auto Installer script is now available that allows you to add a WordPress install within the WampServer together with a database, all in one shot, thereby speeding up your local WordPress development.

To make this happen, you will need to download WampServer and the Simple WordPress Auto Installer, both of which are open source and available as free downloads. You will need to install the WampServer first and ensure that it is working. This is usually straight-forward and quick.

Upon downloading the Simple WordPress Auto Installer, you will notice 3 files: installer.php, license and readme.md. To install, simply drop a copy of the “installer.php” file into the root directory of WampServer designated as “www”.

When you open the “installer.php” file, you will see these lines of code:

array(

'label' => 'Latest version',

'url' => 'http://wordpress.org/latest.zip',

'description' => 'Download the latest stable English version'

),

array(

'label' => 'Last nightly',

'url' => 'http://wordpress.org/nightly-builds/wordpress-latest.zip',

'description' => 'Download the latest beta version'

You can configure these settings to change the WordPress version as well as the build to your own preferences.

You can also add more languages by including an array like the one below:

array(

'label' => 'French',

'url' => 'http://fr.wordpress.org/wordpress-'.$last_v_doted.'-fr_FR.zip',

'description' => 'Download the latest stable French version'

),

Other global settings you can configure include the default username, database, password and CSS parameters.

Fire up your WampServer and navigate to the installer file we just uploaded using the link below:

http://localhost/installer.php

The Auto Installer will then allow you to configure your local site settings that include; the folder where you want WordPress to go, the database server (which by default should be localhost), the DB name, DB username and DB user password.  From here click `GO` and

the script will then download the latest copy of WordPress, extract the files to the directory you named and will create a new database.

Set your site’s name, username and password and you are ready to roll.

Whenever you need to start a new development project, you will simply fire up the installer using the above link and configure the settings for the new site as we have done. You will no longer need to download WordPress again, set up a database in phpMyAdmin or make any other configuration settings. Everything has been done for you.

Web Development

Why building a gift card option is essential for ecommerce

By Natalie Pavlovskaya
Gift cards possess huge potential for merchants who want to increase revenue, acquire new customers and get their brand noticed. It’s generally believed that a gift card program is a marketing tool perfect only for the biggest holiday season or that it can be applied merely by big brands. However, gift cards can be a great tool to drive customers and increase sales, regardless of the season or the brand size. According to the National Retail Federation 2014 survey, 60% (or 6 in 10) of shoppers say...
C#

A basic database SCRUD class using abstract and generic modifiers

By DeveloperDrive Staff
Introduction ... SCRUD is short for Select, Create, Read, Update and Delete. These are the general actions that any program will perform when working with databases. Yes, there are plenty of ORM applications ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-relational_mapping ) out there that can replace this, but as a general introduction to abstract or generic classes and general development I still think this is worth a read. I should also explain why I have used an abstract class instead of an interface....
DesignBombs

How to Create a Landing Page with Bootstrap 4

By DeveloperDrive Staff
Bootstrap 4 is currently the most popular front-end framework in the world. You can use it to build any kind of user interfaces, from admin templates to full-featured websites. In this step-by-step tutorial, we will have a look at how to build a responsive landing page with Bootstrap 4. You can even use it as a homepage or connect it to a specific marketing campaign. The landing page we will build will have five sections: a fixed navigation bar, a hero section, a three-column "Services" section, a full-width...
WordPress

How to build an auto-ranking Twitter list with WordPress

By James Montgomery
My team and I recently built an awesome list template on WordPress that ranks a set of Twitter users based on follower count. It allows a content writer to easily add a list of Twitter handles, and generate a well designed post. The first piece of content we created with it generated a 1,212% increase in traffic to our site. Check out the tutorial below if you're interested in building it as well. Requirements ... Input Twitter Handle (required) Name (optional) Tagline (optional) Image (optional) Bio...
DesignBombs

How to build your own theme for Grav CMS

By Angie Vella
Grav is an open source flat-file CMS platform, built by the RocketTheme Team. While there are plenty of great CMS platforms available, they are all mostly database-driven, which can be overkill for smaller websites. Instead of a database, Grav uses folders and a basic file structure, it is focused on speed, simplicity, and flexibility. After reading all of the documentation and spending some time trying Grav out, I’m definitely sold and will be using the platform. I hope you will too. What We’ll...
JavaScript

Developing With The HTML5 Element

By Scott Stanton
Videos have been a great way to attract viewers to a website long before YouTube launched back in 2005.  But it wasn’t until the release of HTML5 that web developers have had a lightweight solution to playing the video.  In the past, displaying a video on your site meant your viewer was required to have a Flash or Java-based player installed on their system in order to watch the video.  This was one more thing that would weigh down your site, causing pages to load slower, and be one more thing you’d...
CSS

HTML5 and CSS3 Form Validation

By DeveloperDrive Staff
In HTML5 forms got a major upgrade with the addition of some simple, yet flexible validation attributes. To support these added attributes CSS3 also added several new pseudo selectors styling controls based on their validation state. Adding validation ... To illustrate the new attributes and some of the new input types, we'll be building up a simple sign up form. Every sign up form is essentially the same, you fill in your details and click submit. How many times has the form been reset on you after you've...
HTML

OAuth2 and the LinkedIn API – A WordPress CV/Résumé plugin

By DeveloperDrive Staff
Continuing on from last weeks introduction to OAuth 2.0 using the Twitter API, this week we're going to focus on an alternate implementation of OAuth 2.0 used in the LinkedIn API. This implementation requires that you manually authorize the application before you can get a token. This implementation is a more complex as it requires you to be re-directed to the authentication server, which then re-directs you back to your own site with the approved token. This allows LinkedIn to add additional permissions...
Home CSS Deals DesignBombs HTML HTML5 JavaScript jQuery Miscellaneous Mobile MySQL News PHP Resources Security Snippet Tools Tutorial Web Development Web Services WordPress