Away from things I discussed I also discussed the upcoming WordPress 6.9 release, building WordPress blocks with AI (and the security implications that provides) and changes to the Plugin ecosystem.
What’s with all the folks online tearing down other people’s stack?
I’ve read many a post in the past few weeks where people have been complaining about WordPress. There are justifiable complaints, obviously. However I feel like some developers and designers have made their entire existence about hating WordPress. Celebrating people moving off the platform. There are folks who post 2,000 word articles about how they hate Wapuu’s, sharing it as critiques on the community at the whole. But if you read the article fully, they simply hate Wapuu.
Obviously, everybody is entitled to their opinion. But I find it a bit strange. Making your entire personality on hating anything is weird, but especially for hating something as benign as a tech stack. Mate, Node.js won’t sleep with you. I also think it’s strange that people openly post on company blogs this. At least I try and keep it a bit separate. It’s woefully unprofessional and I can’t imagine it gets many customers.
Of course WordPress has problems. The block editor is a bit clunky still, and I am cheering on Fair to succeed. But nothing else is perfect. Shopify has problems2, Next.js has problems3, Webflow has problems. Different tools have positives and negatives. Being wedded to one system is always limiting. Be curious of other things4, explore the bubble outside, recognise which tools are best for the job, and go with them.
Never one of the Cool Kids
For me, I find the tool the most comforting to be WordPress. It’s creaky and clunky at time, but the sites rank well enough and do okay, plus I can make changes easily. There’s a reason why it’s been popular for so long. Same way COBOL has been around for so long. WordPress doesn’t attract the cool kids, but do you want your bank account to be cool5? Or traffic light systems to be cool? I don’t know about you, but I’d rather they work. I think WordPress is in the same place.
I find it similar to a patriotism. Usually the ones who I deem to be the most patriotic I find the ones who don’t bang on about it and recognise there are problems along the way. Whereas the folks who make their whole personality around a flag or a leader just a bit weird. Like they have nothing else to offer bar a piece of fabric from a flagpole. Because their piece of fabric is in their mind is better than your piece of fabric. And they want you to know about it.
I think developers who make their whole personality of “Hating on WordPress” similar. It’s text in a file that you open on a computer. We don’t have to be so emotional about it.
Finally – I’d like to draw your attention to the heading of the post. Do you know how difficult to find a roundabout that hasn’t been defaced in the UK in the year of our Lord 2025? To use as a base for my top image? Surely that’s worth a share just for that.
I may have assumed the gender of Wapuu. In which case, I apologise. ↩︎
Shopify is a nightmare for redirects. Like really bad. I had to use my friend Shane’s approach to redirects with it. As redirects in Shopify is completely unusuable. ↩︎
Have you ever tried to use Next.js to put anything in the header – like JSON+LD? And for it to work? Impossible. ↩︎
For those of you who are unaware, the Link Manager was the first high profile thing dropped from WordPress. In the earlier days of the web you were encouraged to link – freely – to other sites. The Links Manager was a way to link to blogs you liked, and it was known as a “blogroll”. When you linked blogs you tended to have sidebars with a whole host of links to sites you liked. Over time, when link equity became a thing, you removed sites, instead focusing on your own stuff, or removing them entirely.
As WordPress became more of a CMS than a blog platform, the Link Manager popularity dropped.
I remember when it was removed in WordPress 3.5, and how to handle it. In the end, it was enabled for those who had a WordPress installation since before 3.5, hidden for those that installed WordPress for the first time in 3.5 and above. Should you want this feature, you should use the official plugin to restore it.
As this site has been present on the internet since before 3.5, mine was never hidden.
I clicked it and pined for a simpler time. Sure it’s largely gone, but I miss people being creative. Many of the domains have expired, dreams lost, projects abandoned. Furthermore, I’ve lost touch with a few of the folks there. One site is still going (waves at Jem!), the rest haven’t been updated in years, turned into static websites, or abandoned.
Sad. I hope the folks that were there that I don’t follow on socials are doing well.
Organised on a bit of a shoestring, but let’s do it…
So one factor to come out of WordCamp Europe for the UK crowd is/was “how to get face to face time with the community all together?”. Many of us it was the first time we saw each other since COVID and for 3 years and there hasn’t been much, if anything going ahead.
There didn’t seem to be much enthusiasm for creating a WordCamp as of yet*, as – well – life has gotten in the way of a lot of the volunteers. However it was good seeing the community again.
So a few people proposed an informal meetup, and I’m deciding to run with it. I’ll be sat in Mayfield Park, Manchester on the 19th August at about 11am (train times permitting). The aim is to be there until about 4 or 5pm where we’ll all go our separate ways.
I’ve been calling it PicnicPress as it’s an informal, social meetup to discuss WordPress stuff and get some community face to face time. Bring a picnic as well as any sort of things to make you comfortable (camping chairs, picnic blankets). Hopefully the day will be dry but we can play it by ear if not, and if we have to relocate so be it!
PicnicPress Details
Where – Mayfield Park, 11 Baring Street, Manchester M1 2PY (Google Map). I’ll bring something loud and obnoxious so we’re easy to spot. Think a flag like at Glastonbury.
How Much – Free (please bring your own refreshments).
There are no tickets, but drop me a comment or a message if you are attending or thinking of attending. Obviously if it turns out to be a success and something people want then we can go forward (and I am happy to take it out of my blog but…you know…I felt it was better to get something up and running).
I think I have everything. If I’ve forgotten something, or if you have any questions – then pleasedrop me a message (or on Twitter, Linkedin or Mastodon – or if you have my phone number or my Facebook, then message me on there), and I’ll do my best to answer this and update this blog post if needed.
Hope to see you! Bring sandwiches!
Update – 11th July 2023
So I went to check out the Mayfield Park on Sunday to answer a few questions to myself, and I thought I’d share them. We’re likely going to meet on the big green flat area in front of the “Depot Mayfield” sign here.
There were a couple of additional things, it’s largely signposted from the taxi area of Manchester Piccadilly Station towards Fairfield Park.
There is a small kiosk that sells sandwiches and coffees, and the map suggests there’s a loo by the kids play area (I didn’t check it out).
One important thing is no alcoholor smoking in the park. There were signs around.
*Though that may have changed since I started writing this: waves in the direction of Whitley Bay.
Update – 14th August 2023
So as a couple of people have asked me, yes this is still going ahead 🙂. As said it was an informal meetup rather than anything formal so yes I’m planning on being there this week (I’ve a minor update on that towards the end of the post). So I’ll guess I’ll share a few questions and things that have been going around in my head.
Weather – Manchester is dodgy weather wise at the best of times, so please bring wet weather gear. It’s very changeable at the moment. I still plan to show up but if it’s chucking it down we may relocate to a cafe nearby (there’s a few cafe’s nearby), Foundation Coffee House on Whitworth Street is nearby. I’ll try and post updates as soon as I can.
Transport – No train strikes planned that day 🎉. Obviously there may be work on your area.
COVID – So for full disclosure I’ve a nasty cough I’ve been trying to shift. Every COVID test has come back negative. As it’s a public park I cannot insist on people taking tests beforehand, but I hope if you do have an illness you’d stay away, or at the very least take a COVID test. Thanks.
Should you need to get in touch with me the best way is on the UK WordPress slack, or Twitter DMs.
It’s no secret the majority of my work is at a higher price point. It’s with good reason: it’s custom work, often built from scratch, to high standards. I’m confident in my code, and that’s what people pay for.
However, whilst this works for the majority of my clients, there are odd cases where quick, simple sites are a struggle to price. I’ve built sites on to top of other themes before, and happy to communicate that with a client that I am using a child theme.
However, they have a habit of looking the same, which is generally looking like a TwentyTwenty child theme. It’s fine, and the client is happy, but I’m not 100% satisfied myself.
Sure, there are other themes, but I tend to find they are bloated mess and I struggle using them, using custom admin setups and – more often than not – the demo doesn’t look like what it looks like out of the box.
Recently, however, I saw a question from noted newsletter peddler Remkus de Vries, and read the replies.
What's your favorite WordPress theme at the moment?
From the replies, one theme, from names that I trust and admire, kept cropping up. I also had a potential lead that came through that explicitly asked for help in that theme.
So – with the philosophy shared in my last side project build – where I make sure each side project is a learning experience, I reached into my box of domains, pulled out one – Dad Joke Ipsum – and set aside a day to build it.
So the idea behind Dad Joke Ipsum is a tool for web designers to generate dummy text for their designs. However the dummy text will be all dad jokes. After crowdsourcing a bunch of dad jokes (as well as using ChatGPT – did you know ChatGPT knows only 25 dad jokes? Dads: you’re safe), there was a bit of developmental work to build the generator with a database behind it. Ideally I didn’t want to be spending a huge amount of time on the theme, so Kadence WP made sense.
So, after soft launching the website at WordCamp Europe, I was impressed with Kadence WP, in a number of ways.
Kadence WP – Why I like it
1. It’s fast
So, the site is hosted on a bog standard SiteGround installation, and with a few images. Obviously other sites have a lot more images, but even using the SiteGround optimiser, it scores in the 90’s on mobile (though the largest contentful paint seems to be determined by the joke pulled from the database).
Check out the speed!
This bodes incredibly well as there isn’t a huge overhead from the theme itself, suggesting it is incredibly efficiently coded, with very little bloat. Also it scores highly in accessibility (the only error is me being odd with my heading tags placements). So it bodes well for a site that I’m trying to pick up traffic.
2. It doesn’t take over the admin
Honestly, I’m sick of themes that don’t use standard UI’s and take over the admin. Kadence WP very much does not. Logging in after installing and everything is either in the default Customiser, or within the posts. If anything I struggled to find where everything is located.
The theme uses the default customiser
It’s everything you need, though even though I could do most of what I wanted to without one. I do have a child theme. This is more for structuring the dad joke archive page and individual jokes.
Once you get your head around it (which is incredibly straightforward if you use Gutenberg on a daily basis), then you’re good.
3. Free is more than suitable
So everything you see on Dad Joke Ipsum is using the free version. I’ve not used the premium version, just a bit of basic customisation, and I can use the Gutenberg editor to build out the pages. There is a premium version which includes starter templates, infinite scroll, WooCommerce integration & a few other bells and whistles.
However, I’ve not needed it. It’s good enough to use on its own with the free version. I have recommended the premium to a client who I felt they needed it (the basic look is quite basic, but the starter themes do change the look of it quite a bit), but even for things like the WooCommerce additions and Infinite Scroll, I’d probably stick to the free version.
Conclusion
So yeah, I am a bit of a fan of Kadence WP, and have already recommended it to a couple of legacy clients who needed a site building rather quickly. I cannot really see myself using anything else for things like side projects where getting things out the door is paramount. For bigger projects, I’m still going to be building from scratch – if you pay for a custom WordPress theme, you’d get a custom WordPress theme for me, but for those that need something built quickly, this feels like a great compromise.
Disclaimer: There are a few affiliate links in here. But yeah, wanted to write here that I am a fan of Kadence WP. You can click on those links and give me a small commission if you decide to buy it. Or just Google it and play around with it. Do what you want, I’m not your real dad.
