Cello Expressions
The Cello Expressions Sheet Music Library has opened with a table view listing all sheet music in the library since its beginnings in 2012. As the library has grown past 100 pieces (currently around 120 pieces), this format has gradually become less effective. New pieces jump to the top of the list as older pieces become lost in a sea…
I currently manage five actively-supported free themes on WordPress.org. Moving forward, I plan to coordinate theme updates on a regular cycle. Updating all of the themes at the same time allows for efficient review and response to WordPress core updates. While WordPress core has shifted to an approach that frequently releases breaking changes, I plan to maintain my collection of themes in a more stable format.
My theme updates will typically occur on an 18-21 month cycle. I may release intermediate theme updates on a one-off basis when I need to add features for a particular site or fix critical issues caused by WordPress core changes. This cycle is intended to reduce efforts to accommodate core changes that become obsolete shortly thereafter. It ensures that updates are more substantial in content. And it falls within the 2-year maximum update sequence allowed by WordPress.org.
I released updates for all five themes between August and October 2020. The themes all support WordPress 5.5 (and likely back at least to 4.7, unofficially). They support the block editor selectively. I support editor styles, color settings, and wide alignments (where appropriate). But there is limited custom block styling, no support for block patterns, and no support for custom fonts, colors, or gradients. I may support similar features once WordPress introduces a stable global styles system. For now, trust that my themes emphasize stability and sustainability.
I have developed over 25 free plugins on WordPress.org. My plugins offer functionality for multimedia content, site customization, widgets, social media, and site utilities. I published most of these plugins between 2013 and 2016 and have made fewer updates in recent years. I still use many of them on my personal sites, some are simple enough that updates are not…
Five-plus years after its launch as a bold new typology for WordPress themes, Figure/Ground has been updated to version 2.0. This modern reincarnation maintains the bold design language while taking its functionality to the next level. Accessibility-ready support and full compatibility with the WordPress 5.0 block editor “Gutenberg” are the most notable upgrades. Figure/Ground runs this site, as well as…
Cello Expressions has existed in its current form for nearly six years. After briefly serving as the website for my high school cello quartet, it has been the home of my various digital projects for most of its existence. As this site and its content reach a level of relative digital maturity, it’s time to update the status if its…
For anyone still using the Twenty Fourteen theme with custom colors via the Fourteen Colors plugin, now would be a good time to try on a fresh coat of paint. I’ve just released version 1.4 of the plugin, which adds instant live-preview of base colors with all colors updating without a page refresh on a slight delay. This leverages the customizer’s selective refresh API added in 4.5 and is based on the same logic that powers the custom highlight color plugin. I’m leveraging this framework in all of my upcoming themes and will be posting a walkthrough of the code in the coming weeks. Here’s a quick visual demo of the new experience:
I’ve updated my Figure/Ground theme on WordPress.org (which also powers this blog) with a few nice enhancements:
The new customization experience is the most notable enhancement. See every color change instantly as you play with it in the color picker, without any delay. Enjoy!
I’ve just released version 2.0 of my Custom Windows Pinned Tiles WordPress plugin. This is no small update, as it brings the plugin from a simple favicon-adding-like utility to an immensely powerful tool to app-ify your website for Windows 8.1 users. Custom Windows Pinned Tiles now creates a live-updating tile when users pin your site to their start screen. All…
I recently released version 1.4 of QuickShare, my favorite social content-sharing WordPress plugin. There are several new features, tweaks and bugfixes, in what is the most notable update since version 1.0.
My favorite feature is the addition of a [quickshare] shortcode (that’s the shortcode – it’s just “quickshare”). This allows you to place QuickShare exactly where you want within the post/page, and you can even have multiple instances. The best part is that adding this extremely versatile feature was super easy, it only took 5 lines of code (including the comment). That’s the power of WordPress!