Tips and tricks by Brian Shim for web developers, bloggers, and WordPress users
Through my clients, I have encountered tons of web hosting services. Some are great, while many are awful. Based on my experience as a full-time web developer, these are the web hosting services that I use and recommend: VPS Web Hosting I use Gridpane for all of my personal sites (including this one) and my … Read more
After migrating a Divi site to production using the All-in-One Migration plugin, I discovered that I was unable to edit and sections, rows, or modules in the Divi editor. In the console, I got the error: The front end of the site was fine. I tried all of the usual tricks including clearing caches, disabling … Read more
Like most modern WordPress builders, Kadence Blocks has the ability to display backgrounds with the parallax effect; that is, when scrolling, the background will scroll at a different rate than the rest of the page. Usually, the background scrolls in the same direction as the foreground, but slower, to mimic real life where things that … Read more
Out of the box, the Divi theme mobile menus are not navigable using the tab key, and therefore do not meet accessibility requirements. A quick solution to this is to install the Divi Accessibility plugin, available on GitHub: This works on the default built-in Divi menu. The problem, though is that it doesn’t seem to … Read more
I use the discontinued Gridpane Pro plan for web hosting. It’s no longer offered to new users, but I’m grandfathered in. The features of the plan are no longer listed on the Gridpane website or their forum (as far as I could find), so I used the Wayback Machine to go back to 2020 to … Read more
I recently discovered that Divi’s Parallax feature doesn’t work on Safari (on November 2024). When you scroll down, the background image just scrolls with the page like a regular background image. It doesn’t work whether you choose “True Parallax” or “CSS”. It works on all other browsers. According to this Reddit thread, the problem happens … Read more
The Divi theme comes with the Elegant Themes Icon Font which contains 360 cool icons. You can use these icons in the Divi Blurb module, but what if you want to use them somewhere else, like in a Text module or Code module, or sidebar? Turns out it’s easy to do. First, find the icon … Read more
There may be legitimate cases where an admin might need to access another Microsoft 365 user’s email. For example, when an employee has left the company. In this article, I’ll explain how to do that Step One: Getting Permissions The first part of this requires getting permission to access the user’s email account. As an … Read more
Here are my recommended Analytics plugins for WordPress whether based on Google Analytics or other. The Best Non Google Analytics Plugins With the shift from GA3 to GA4, Google frustrated a lot of users who just wanted a simple analytics dashboard and didn’t need the complex features that were added. In addition, since Google is … Read more
I didn’t find a working example of how to create an HTML select input in Alpine.js online, so I’m presenting it here. Select Input in Alpine.js Basically, you create a “for” loop to generate the option values. One of the keys to making this work with stored values is to set the “:selected” property to … Read more
If you’re using custom code to create users in WordPress, you may need to create a password reset link that you can email to new users once their account is created. Here’s how to do it. Creating the Password Reset URL Here’s the code to create the URL: The only thing you need to do … Read more
If you use the Fluent Forms plugin and have it sending notification emails when a form is submitted, you might notice a copyright blurb at the bottom of the email with the copyright symbol and the name of the site: This might seem harmless, but I’ve been asked by multiple clients to get rid of … Read more
Somehow I got in a situation where a page that was supposed to use the WordPress Block Editor got “stuck” and would only allow me to open it with the Divi Builder. When I tried that, it only gave options to start from scratch or a template, which of course I did not do! I … Read more
As I was learning Alpine.js for a new project I came across a problem when using HTML inputs in nested x-for loops. Data binding was working great in a single x-for loop wrapped around an HTML input tag. But, when I nest nested loops, the data entered in the inner loop inputs is not binding … Read more
If you want your WordPress site to be in different languages, there are a lot of plugins to choose from. Here’s my take on three of the most popular ones. TranslatePress – Recommended! TranslatePress is my #1 recommended translation plugin for WordPress. It is a great solution for keeping different language layouts synced to each … Read more
I had a situation where I updated the PHP version in cPanel from 7.3 to 8.0, but on the actual server it was still at 7.3. No matter what I did in cPanel, the PHP version wouldn’t change on my actual server! I called up the host, GoDaddy, and they quickly found the problem. It … Read more
I had a site with a pre-roll fade-in animation on the home page. It worked great, but it soon got really tiresome to have to wait for the animation to complete every time I returned to the site’s home page. I needed a way to detect if the user got to the home page from … Read more
Compliance with web accessibility regulations is super important these days. The accessibility compliance of websites built on Squarespace varies depending on which template you’re using. Here are some tips and tricks to fix the accessibility errors that you might find in various Squarespace templates. As part of my testing, I use the WAVE browser extension … Read more
Keeping backups of any website you maintain is absolutely essential. I make sure backups are done both at the server level and at the WordPress plugin level. My Two “Go To” WordPress Backup Plugins All-In-One WP Migration ★ This is now the backup plugin that I use the most. Very easy to use and reliable … Read more
Database Search and Replace Better Search Replace This is an easy-to-use database search-and-replace tool. I’ve used it to swap out shortcodes in the content, as well as to update URLs in the database before launching sites. There is a pro version that will show you a preview of the changes before executing, however, it doesn’t … Read more
These are some invaluable plugins for debugging, developing, and monitoring WordPress sites. Debugging Database Queries Debug This See exactly what query WordPress is running. Great for debugging WordPress query problems in your code. Query Monitor Similar to Debug This, but this has more emphasis on the WP queries on your site. Very useful. WP phpMyAdmin A lifesaver … Read more
These are some of the most useful plugins for the Divi builder that I’ve seen. They work great with the Divi Theme or Divi Builder Plugin. Divi Accessibility ★ (GitHub) This plugin fixes many of the accessibility problems with Divi, and lets you see where your site is in violation so you can fix others. … Read more
Check out these Gutenberg Block plugins that add new block functionality to WordPress. Accordion Blocks Adds the much-needed accordion block to Gutenberg. You need to style it yourself using your own style sheet, but it’s lightweight and just works. Block Visibility Schedule when any Gutenberg block is displayed and to whom, or hide it altogether. … Read more
Someone described WordPress Multisite as the “bastard child” of WordPress, and I think that is an accurate description. I’ve burned many hours dealing with the quirks of Multisite, and this is one of them. If you look at Local WP’s official docs on how to migrate a Multisite to local, you’ll see the painful instructions … Read more
These plugins will help you tame the size of your images and help your pages load faster. Imsanity Imsanity is a lightweight plugin that reduces the size of jpeg images as they are uploaded. It also can re-size existing images in your media library. If I don’t put this on my client’s sites, they will … Read more
Check out these plugins for migrating to and from WordPress, or between servers. Whole-Site WordPress Migrations These plugins will migrate your WordPress site from one server to another. All In One WP Migration ★ (requires payment for restoring files over 512MB) Install this plugin at your source, download an archive file, then import that file … Read more
Displaying a map with clickable pins or regions is a common requirement on websites. These are some of my favorite plugins for doing that! Clean Outline Maps (No Roads Shown) These plugins are great for showing clean maps showing outlines of regions. They don’t show details like roads. Interactive Geo Maps ★ (free and paid … Read more
These plugins help you manage your WordPress Media Library Happy Files This is the de-facto standard WordPress Media Library management plugin that lets you assign your media to category folders. No actual folders are created on your server; it’s just metadata. As a bonus, it includes a gallery shortcode and Gutenberg block to display images … Read more
The Best Classified Plugin Another WordPress Classifieds Plugin Great solution if you want to set up a classified ad section on your site. No login by users is required. There are paid add-on modules, but the free version is totally usable. I purchased the add-on module that lets you use custom fields. See an example in action … Read more
These two WordPress menu plugins have been really useful to me! Max Mega Menu Look no further than this plugin if you need a menu on your site, whether it is a mega menu or a normal menu! It provides a menu with accessibility support (unlike the native Oxygen Builder menus, for example). Easy to … Read more
I don’t recommend WordPress Multisite except for some very specific use cases. Read why here. If you must use Multisite, here are some plugins that can help. Multisite Migration Plugins Many of the most popular WordPress migration plugins don’t work on Multisite (at least most free versions don’t). Here are some plugins, paid and free, … Read more
While HTML is usually the best way to display information on a website, there may be cases where you need to display a PDF. To do that, you could simply link to the PDF, but then when someone clicks on the link, they go off of your site. These are some ways to embed a … Read more
A poll is a great way to increase user engagement on your site. You might even see increased sharing on social as people encourage others to vote. These are some plugins that allow you to add a poll or questionnaire to your website: WP-Polls WP-Polls is a good free plugin for generating a single poll … Read more
Clients seem to love popups despite their pitfalls (SEO, accessibility, etc.). If you need to indulge them, here are a few good options. Popup Maker Whether you need a popup that happens automatically after page load or on button press, this is the best modal popup plugin that I’ve found and it’s probably the “industry … Read more
Check out these plugins to manage and improve your WordPress posts. Post Appearance Add Widget After Content Does just what it says. Great for adding email subscription forms right after your article content. Advanced Excerpt Use if you want more control over your post excerpts, like adding HTML. Secondary Title It’s good practice to have … Read more
Compliance with privacy laws is an important consideration for almost any website these days. Here are some plugins that can help you comply. Best Paid Solution Termageddon This is probably the closest thing to the “industry standard”. If you polled web developers for their preferred privacy solution, you’d probably get Termageddon as the winner. Cost … Read more
The most performant way of doing URL redirections is at the server level. But, sometimes, the convenience of using a plugin is more important than speed. These are some WordPress redirection plugins that I recommend. Redirection The Redirection plugin is a quick and easy way to redirect URLs in WordPress. For complex redirections, you can … Read more
Some say RSS is dead, but it still can be useful to display posts from other sites on your site. These plugins help you do that. Featured Image in RSS Feed Adds the featured image to your RSS feed. Or, if you’re comfortable adding a bit of code to your theme, use this solution. FEEDZY … Read more
The default WordPress search is bare-bones and leaves much to be desired. These plugins improve the WordPress search results and appearance. Better Search ★ One reviewer said this plugin should be standard for all WordPress installs. It’s a lightweight plugin that improves the search results appearance by highlighting the search terms, and sorting by relevance, … Read more
These plugins hide your site during development or maintenance. Force Login ★ Force Login can be a great way to hide a site before it’s ready. Unlike other “coming soon” plugins, it doesn’t give you a landing page. It just presents the WordPress login form. I like the simplicity of that. I’ve used other “coming … Read more