Level Up

A collection of resources for WordPress Developers, written and curated by experts

Posts tagged: Development

5 Ways to Create a WordPress Plugin Settings Page

The extensibility of WordPress has always been one of its strong points. Not only are there thousands of plugins available, you can build your own. At some point, you might… Read more

Iain Poulson

Dec 2, 2024

Minimizing DNS Propagation Issues With a Reverse Proxy

Migrating servers is a complex process that involves many moving parts. One of the most challenging aspects of server migration is dealing with DNS propagation. When you update your DNS… Read more

Mike Davey

Aug 9, 2024

Syncing WordPress Database Changes Between Environments: How We Handle Merging

Database synchronization is a problem that still gets raised almost every month in the local WordPress communities I’m part of – “if I am making changes to my local site,… Read more

Iain Poulson

Jul 23, 2024

Writing Functional Tests for WP-CLI Packages

Functional tests are crucial for WP-CLI packages as they simulate real-world scenarios, test integration with WordPress, and how they behave in a command line environment. In this article, I’ll show… Read more

Matt Shaw

May 9, 2024

The Best Local WordPress Development Environment: XAMPP vs MAMP vs Laragon vs Local

A local development environment lets you make changes to dev sites quickly without having to transfer files. It also greatly reduces the risk of making and breaking changes on a… Read more

Mike Davey

Mar 28, 2024

WP-CLI Packages: Supercharge Your WordPress Development

WP-CLI packages take the increased efficiency of the command line even further by extending it with new or modified commands. In this article, we’ll show you how to install packages,… Read more

Mike Davey

Mar 21, 2024

How to Set Up AMP on WordPress

Should your WordPress sites use Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)? It’s a simple question with a complicated answer. In this article, we’ll cover how AMP works, how to use both… Read more

Mike Davey

Feb 1, 2024

Everything You Need to Know About Installing WordPress in a Subdirectory

In this article, we look at the benefits and limitations of installing WordPress in a subdirectory, how to install and manage subdirectory installs, and how to move WordPress core out… Read more

Iain Poulson

Nov 30, 2023

Using JavaScript FileReader to Upload Large Files in Chunks and Avoid Server Limits

If you’ve spent any amount of time messing with PHP config files to get a file to upload, you know that uploading large files can be a real pain. You… Read more

Matt Shaw

Nov 25, 2023

Examples of Refactoring PHP Code for Better Readability

Refactoring code is when you restructure existing code without changing its external behavior. Basically your aim is to make “bad” code better without changing the underlying functionality, and one of… Read more

Gilbert Pellegrom

Sep 15, 2023

Strategies for Handling Large WordPress Media Libraries in Dev and Staging Environments

Offloading your media files is a well-known tactic for speeding up your WordPress sites, but WP Offload Media can also greatly reduce the time it takes to replicate a new… Read more

Ian

Aug 11, 2023

Why Developers Should Use SVG Files

SVG images have advantages that should make them an essential part of any developer’s toolkit. While they share a few similarities with JPG, PNG, and WebP image types, SVGs have… Read more

Mike Davey

Apr 6, 2023

DE{CODE} 2023: Developer Focused WordPress Education

You know code…but do you know DE{CODE}? Hosted by WP Engine, this 100% virtual event is dedicated to helping WordPress developers build smarter, maximize conversions, and modernize the user experience.… Read more

Mike Davey

Mar 3, 2023

WordPress Plugin Development Best Practices: Plugin Templates

WordPress functionality is largely defined by the available plugins, and many clients want functionality that’s best served with a custom plugin. The initial setup is often a tedious affair, with… Read more

Mike Davey

Dec 6, 2022

The Developer’s Advanced Guide to the wp-config File

How well do you really know wp-config? There’s a surprising amount of power in those few lines of PHP! This article is a tour of some bits of wp-config that… Read more

Ross Wintle

Sep 27, 2022

Installing, Updating, and Managing WordPress Plugins With WP-CLI

WP-CLI allows you to do practically anything you can do in the WordPress admin, but on the command line. This saves a lot of time and provides a cleaner workflow.… Read more

Erik

Jul 26, 2022

Managing Your WordPress Site With Git and Composer

Managing WordPress with Git and Composer has some big advantages. In particular, it can give you version control and helps get new people up to speed quickly. But it’s not… Read more

Ross Wintle

Jul 6, 2022

Our Guide to WP-CLI Command Structure

The WordPress command line interface (WP-CLI) is an incredible tool for improving your development workflow. Understanding how commands are structured is key to using WP-CLI to its full potential. In… Read more

Erik

Jun 28, 2022

How to Use tmux for Remote & Local Development

The tmux terminal multiplexer is often used in remote development, but it has interesting applications for local dev work as well. In this article, I’ll explain what a terminal multiplexer… Read more

Ian

May 25, 2022

Best Ways to Encrypt Passwords, Keys, & More with PHP in 2022

A few years ago I attended Laracon EU where Marcus Bointon gave a great talk on Crypto in PHP 7.2. I left the talk having a much greater appreciation for… Read more

Ashley

Sep 29, 2021

The Ultimate Overview of the WordPress Block Editor (Gutenberg) for Developers in 2022

I’ve been loosely following the noise and #wpdrama surrounding Gutenberg for as long as it has been around and honestly for the most part I’ve had negative feelings around it… Read more

Iain Poulson

Aug 25, 2021

Reviewing Craft Nitro & DevKinsta for WordPress Local Development

One of the cool things about my job as Developer Educator at Delicious Brains is that sometimes I get to try out new things that I might otherwise never discover.… Read more

Jonathan

Jul 28, 2021

How to Use Xdebug for Advanced PHP Debugging

You could just debug your PHP code using dump debugging functions such as error_log, print, and var_dump, and let’s be honest, we’ve all done it a lot! While helpful sometimes,… Read more

Iain Poulson

Apr 21, 2021

Why You Should be Using WP_DEBUG_LOG in Your WordPress Development

Whether you’re a developer, or a site owner troubleshooting a problem with your site, understanding the WP_DEBUG_LOG constant for turning on the WordPress debug log is very important. In this… Read more

Brad

Apr 13, 2021