Author: Corey Collins

Breaking the Cycle of the Mean Developer

We’ve all done it before. Imagine this: you inherit code from some unknown, unseen website developer and you scoff at it as you begin to pore over it. You repeatedly face-palm as each new line of code brings another cry of, “Why...

Five Reusable Code Snippets to Reduce Development Time

When was the last time you started a project from scratch? I mean literally from scratch—not using a framework, a parent/child theme, or any plugins. Maybe never? One could argue that as long as you’re using WordPress that you’re not necessarily creating anything from scratch since...

Filtering ACF Content Blocks with WordPress Hooks & Filters

Here at WebDevStudios, we do quite a bit with Flexible Content Blocks in Advanced Custom Fields (ACF). If you aren’t familiar with the plugin, ACF allows for the creation of a multitude of custom meta field types using a graphical user interface (GUI)...

The Journey to 1.0 — WDS Blocks and WordPress Gutenberg

WordPress made a big leap into the world of modern web development with its announcement of Gutenberg last year—reimagining what WordPress is and can be by providing a new interface for creating content built partially on the React.js platform. Since it will...

Creating a Global Options Component in Gutenberg

At WebDevStudios (WDS), we’ve seen many iterations of page builders and page builder-esque tools over the years. I think it’s safe to say that the experimentation began with CMB2 and led us down an exciting path that included a handful of full-fledged page...

The Importance of QA and UAT

We all have pride. Whether that pride comes from our career or what we create outside of work, we all have a sense of pride in something. In web development, it is critical to balance personal pride in your work with taking constructive criticism about your creations. After dedicating...

Snippets Saved My Life: How Sublime Text 3 Snippets Changed Everything

We are always striving to find better, faster ways to do the mundane tasks we have in our lives. We got bored with having to make our coffee in the morning, so some brilliant mind created an automatic coffee maker with a...

Visual Composer: Taming and Customizing a WordPress Page Builder

Options are great. It’s always a wonderful thing to have options. I think most of us likely grew up being told that having options was important–for instance, fallback options, or when Plan A falls apart. Sometimes, though, too many options can create...