WordCamp 2011 Portsmouth part 1
My first WordCamp. And I didn’t really know what to expect. I was on my own – didn’t know anyone. But I found the WordCamp folks to be a lovely bunch of people.
Here’s my notes, mainly for myself so I can keep track of all the things I learned and people I thought were truly inspirational.
Even before the first plenary session I got a tip from Jean over a scolding coffee (I didn’t get her card – grrr, get in touch Jean) that www.tsohost.co.uk do fast reliable web hosting for WP. Will follow that up as I’m not happy with Zen or Heart at the moment.
First plenary session
40 million downloads of WP since last WordCamp.
Blogging is growing up, more group blogging.
WordPress growing up, Big IT now see it as a proper platform. But often those who use it don’t make the most of it as they are inexperienced! ie no caching strategy on some government WP sites.
Some complex installs were mentioned:
- Dept of Transport
- Telegraph (blogs and communities),
- I’m a scientist (13 custom plugins, 45 php files, live chat)
- Chicago Tribune (uses multisite, 90 local sites)
- University of Nottingham (blogs)
- British Airways
- KPMG
- Nandos
- Barclays
Kieran O’shea: Legacy to latest
Kieran wrote the Calendar plugin.
Legacy is fine if you don’t need the features of the latest version.
Kieran went though the pitfalls of upgrading and what to watch out for:
- deprecated functions
- you’ll need to first switch to classic theme
- then manually port across changed code
- phantom features: new WP features that your old theme doesn’t support eg menus
To debug in config put (‘WP_DEBUG’, ‘true’) may have the syntax wrong here
He went through what to do about plugins that used db tables rather than the shiny new ‘custom posts’ and how to write a script that will turn them into custom posts instead. This bit was for the plugin developers, there were over 20 superstar plugin developers in the audience.
He gave some sound advice that developers should keep the migration script separate from the plugin.
Kieran has written a superb donation plugin using custom fields.
WordPress and mobile
Loved this session. Rachel McCollin looked at the available options when you want to make a WP site mobile-friendly.
First check your analytics: do people view your site on a mobile? What OS? Old Blackberry 
, iOS, Android?
Different content for mobile?
- Do users have different objectives for mobile? They are in a different situation – on the move.
- They need information (possibly different information) quickly
- They need to get at some things immediately eg contact details
- Low bandwidth considerations
Choices:
- Mobile themes: quick easy reliable, tested, web and mobile look the same, less individual, quick and dirty. Todd Halfpenny (in the audience) customised 2010 to be ‘responsive’ ie shift size when viewed on a small screen. Also mentioned smoochi? Carrington, Mobius, Jigoshop for ecommerce.
- Plugins: quick, easy, reliable, tested, less control, one size fits all, only takes the content, no widgets and media. eg WPTouch – can tweak paid-for version to be branded (I asked: why doesn’t Stephen Fry’s designer do this?), WordPress mobile pack, BuddyPress mobile. 3rd party slooshing out eg Mobilise. We weren’t sure about this option!
- @media queries: in css. Retain elements of existing design, templated, can add, remove or change position of content. We debated whether removing content such as a graphical slideshow means that the content is downloaded to mobiles but not shown. Not reliable on old Blackberries. Can make the most of WP’s new menus system to show a drop-down menu on mobiles.
- Theme switcher: switch themes depending on device. Mobile uses different theme templates. I’m going to investigate this one. Build a completely separate theme that doesn’t even attempt to pull in the content that’s not appropriate for mobile. (ie not loading then hiding). Look more like apps. But 2 themes to maintain. eg WP Tap, WPTouch. Telegraph blogs and The AA use this method. Less complex content, bigger links (for sausage fingers).
- an app-like experience.
Some CSS useful for mobile themes or @media queries:
- Display: none
- width: 100%
- img {max-width: 100%; float:none)
How to test:
- On friends’ mobiles?
- Resize your browser
- Download Android and iPhone SDK
- Android virtual machine
- Safari – agent detect
- Firefox – change user agent
- Use Opera
- Adobe Device Central
- Nokia – can rent a virtual handset
- We agreed none of these are as good as actually using the device with ‘sausage fingers’
View Rachel’s slideshare for the full presentation.