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Developer Blog

I have never been a big fan of WordPress. But I was wrong all the time. WordPress is in a transition however. It's slowly going away from blog engine to a visual website design tool. Slowly. I share the things I learned these past few weeks. Enjoy!

01/10/2024 19:12:56 | Pieter | Login | Reply | Replies (0)

Web.config for hosting WordPress on IIS

I have been playing (a lot) with WordPress on IIS (Windows Server 2019) lately. Nick has been very helpful by guiding me around. WordPress is some kind of an application in the end as long as you stay away from performance-killing plugins.

Even though IIS is not the recommended host for WordPress, it does the job. And the stronger your specs, the better. I get very good results on a very basic AWS Cloud Server with 8GB of RAM on 2 CPU's.

The web.config below is all you need to:

Have a recent version of PHP working (PHP 8.3.11 in the example below) for all PHP files
Add the one and only static file handler for all other files.
Have index.php as your (only) default document
Have a rewriting rule to mimic the unsupported .htaccess
Note that this web.config does not deal with any MicroSoft technology (.NET or Classic ASP).

Here it is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<system.webServer>

</handlers>

<files>

</files>

</defaultDocument>

<rules>

</conditions>

</rule>
</rules>

</rewrite>

</system.webServer>

</configuration>

18/09/2024 18:39:00 | Pieter | Login | Reply | Replies (0)

Help, I need your opinion!

I am offered a job as a teacher in Webdesign. So I have a question for you guys. What would you consider modern webdesign tools, trends, do's and dont's? Thanks!

26/07/2024 14:53:42 | Pieter | Login | Reply | Replies (41)

Nick says: (26/07/2024 21:44:15)
1. Essentials:
- HTML
- CSS

2. Trends:
- JavaScript , and JS libraries such as: (I hate JS !!!)
- REACT
- Vue
- Angular
etc...
https://kinsta.com/blog/javascript-libraries/

3. Tools:
- Developer Tools found in browsers like chrome.

Note: Stay out of the topic of SEO (at least for now), where most likely you will look like a fool, as nobody knows what the hell is going on with that anymore, thanks to AI.

4. AI:
- Open AI
- Perplexity
- Suno !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Github Copilot perhaps?
etc..., etc...

5. Pick a platform, WordPress, QS, Drupal, Shopify etc..., and depending what you choose, you can have a gazillion ideas and topics to teach...

But before anything, start with the basics of CSS and HTML, take them back 25 years...
Pieter says: (26/07/2024 21:57:06)
Thanks Nick. Suno for Webdesign?
Pieter says: (26/07/2024 22:13:40)
I totally agree, start with HTML/CSS, but the choice was made already to not dive into that. And the more I think about it, the more I can live with that decision. There are plenty of visual web design tools these days.

Is WP a web design tool? There are sitebuilders and pagebuilders... ok, but that does not sound like webdesign I think.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (27/07/2024 09:43:09)
Nowadays I throw in Suno with everything... If you had asked me what car to buy, my answer would have been Suno !!!

As far as WP is concerned, and specifically design tools, you have to look at Advanced Custom Fields, where you can transform the platform to something similar to ASPRunner/PHPRunner, they have a free version, but the Pro is 100x more powerful, I have unlimited lifetime access, let me know it=f you want access...

Also, WP has a plugin called Microthemer, which also has a free version which does 70-80% of the premium version. In simple terms, you can point to any element of a page and style it. The beutiful thing is that you can also see the generated CSS code. That's how I style my themes, and over time, without realizing it at the time, that's how i learned CSS, not to mention all the experiments you can do with it. Again, let me know if you want access to the premium version as I also have lifetime unlimited sites license... Before I forget, to include my CSS additions/changes, I copy the generated code and append it in the theme's style.css file.

With your experience I would say that you can master ACF Pro within weeks, and Microthemer within a few hours. Both are amazing and very powerful. The Microthemer is the best tool anywhere to learn CSS, I was an early adopter about 10 years now, and one day after just a few months of using it, and copy/pasting the code, I realized that because of it, I learned a lot of CSS. It has responsive points too, and you can also add custom responsive points as well.

Something that I should have mentioned before anything else, teach them good coding hobbits, such as adequate backup systems, speed is very important, not to overload with too many libraries, whether it jQuery, JS, CSS frameworks etc... balance things out between functinality/looks vs speed, the importance of readbility, choice of colors, fonts, fonts sizes (Google wants a minimum of 16px). As far as modern designs go, fluid typography, which in terms of the new Block based themes, fluid typography is supported. This is where the font sizes get bigger or smaller depending on the device. BTW, even though you can have php and css code in your theme, they are no longer necessary, things are done basically with html and json files. Much easier and faster..., but because my themes and more complex I have to use some php, css and even some JS in my themes.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (27/07/2024 09:43:22)
Finally, speed is important. Good (Cloud) hosting, caching and getting rid of things you don't need is the way to go.
Pieter says: (29/07/2024 12:43:56)
hi Nick, thanks a lot. I'm sorry for the delay. We're on holidays in France so I was not online for a while. 40°C = 104.00°F...

I'll have a look at your suggestions asap and I report back. Thanks!
Pieter says: (05/08/2024 09:43:48)
Nick what do you think of using Nicepage as a starting point for learning web design?
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/08/2024 20:15:32)
Last time I looked at Nicepage was 4-5 years ago. It's cool, but the bullshit that comes with it is not worth my time - what do I mean?

1. It's really a cloud based service software, and sometimes their server goes down, and you can't even edit pages on a live site. That's right, they have a WP plugin, but you have to be logged in their server to edit pages. It is not a template/theme builder like Artisteer was, where you did your design, exported it, and that was it. The real question is that what info can these commies steal from your site since their servers are always connected?

2. They market Nicepage as an AI product, years before AI really came around. There is nothing AI about Scampage, sorry Nicepage, ok? It has some interesting algorithms to place things in containers with some randomize functions, but that's about it. As far as it's WP performance goes, at that time of testing, it was horrible.

Let me say it one more time. Do you want to teach just for the sake of teaching, or do you really want to help them become successful in the real world? If your answer is the ladder, then you really have one choice:

WP in now 42.1% of the entire internet, and you want to use a block theme, not a traditional php based theme, for these 2 important reasons.

1. Block themes are faster, easier to code, easier to mintain, smaller in size.
2. With block themes it's like having Artisteer/JSTemplate built right inside of it. With little code, and in 90% of the time with no code (visually) you can edit the theme and even create new post/page/cpt templates for your site, and easily export your new theme to be used elsewhere. I did abandon my Artisteer project mainly for this reason among others...

Again, let me know if you need any help/demos/files, etc... to prove what I'm saying are valid. At this point it seems to me that you don't want to really teach web design (by code), but to teach a tool that makes websites, in other words a tool that will write the underlying code for you. Then you might as well try one of the AI site building tools that many hosting companies have, for example Hostinger has one (I am a client of theirs), and have you seen https://zipwp.com/ ? You can have AI create 2 starter websites for free per month. I think Wix has something similar tool too, and I'm sure there are a gazillion other AI tools as well...
Pieter says: (05/08/2024 20:16:29)
Very interesting thoughts. Thanks Nick.

The NicePage you once used was v2.5.1, back in 2019. I actually donated a user license to 10 users, you were one of them.

Today, NicePage is at v6.15.2. In other words, they have released zillions of versions ever since we used it back then.

What you say about NP being a cloud based SAAS product is not 100% correct. NicePage has 2 different license models: the subscription and license (downloadable app). I bought a downloadable professional license back in 2019. It still works on my laptops even though I never renewed that license. It was a lifetime license that I bought for 169.00 USD back then. Even today their licenses are lifetime. The program keeps on working, even if you don't renew.

I once setup a QS demo site on a Nicepage website: https://nicepagedemo.quickersite.com/. It's still working and it does not rely on any CDN that relates to NP.

You do know that NicePage is the flagship product by the same guys from Artisteer and Themler, and that they're from Nicosia, I assume?

And you're right, talking webdesign, I really think that the page and block editing features in WP are very poor, except when using specific editors and/or plugins. WP is not a design tool, not in a million years. You need commercial plugins, that DO need renewal fees every year.

I am going to teach web design to students who will only occasionally build and/or maintain websites. In all honesty, the universtiy already made the choice to use WordPress. So yes, I need help. I kind a hate WP...

I will look into your suggestions. Many thanks.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/08/2024 20:15:57)
Yes, apparently they are located in Nicosia, just 3 miles where I was born and grew up until 18.

This is where I totally disagree with you... Gutenberg is the fastest editor/page builder in the WP world, and nobody else come close. The issue with it is that because of the choices they are making many of the traditional page building features are missing, such as responsive controls etc... That said, once you understand and get fully acclaimed to it, you can very easily fill up all the missing tools and features with FREE plugins, or making your own, even if you are not a real coder with the help of ChatGPT, Preplexity, etc... No need to ever buy any premium plugin to make the editor any better.

The only money I do spend on WP that I use:
1. About 10 years ago I bought ACF pro lifetime unlimited site license for $75. Now, for unlimited sites, ACF costs $150/year...
2. WPVivid backup plugin: The free version will do for 95% of the time, but the premium version will also work with multi-sites, and that['s why i got it... I don't really use multisites except for demo purposes, so I can get away by letting this plugin go if I wanted.

Everything else, it's either something I have coded, or comes from a free plugin.

Let me know specifically what you need (demos, plugins, themes, tutorials, etc...).

BTW, one of my fav. design tools is https://instawp.com/ . I use the site as a free user simply because they don't accept PayPal, but I use their services almost on a daily basis. Great for testing things without relying on a localhost. You get a test site within 2 seconds, I have no idea how they can do that.l...
Pieter says: (06/08/2024 20:31:18)
The one thing that confuses me a lot is how WP has been organised lately.

You can have pages and blog posts. That I get.

But with its own Twenty Twenty Four template, you can also have content (text and images) in one or more templates or even in patterns. I fail to see how that glues together.

Also, as soon as you use a theme like Astra, a completely different control panel takes over your WP control panel, and WP begins to acts as a poor webpage builder, that does not even comes close to the free version of Mobirise.

I can't find a video that explains this jungle to a dumb dumber guy like me. Do you know of any video about that?
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/08/2024 20:16:57)
Yes, I'll post some videos tomorrow, as I have to go through the vast number of Bookmarks. In the meantime:

1. Twenty Twenty four is a block theme, Astra is not. Astra is a php based theme, now called a "Classic Theme". In block themes, WordPress pretty much controls the menus to develop your themes etc. This is the place where global styles come in very handy where you can style things visually through the SITE EDITOR or with code, using json commands. If you switch to another block theme, very little will change with the interface.

2. I understand your confusion - here we go - the developers are almost idiots but there is a plan behind their madness.
a. Stupidity number 1: WordPress releases each version on a time based usually every 3-4 months between versions. They should release each version like a normal human being, when the new features are ready. But just like a big socialist government results are not important in the WP world, but showing there is some sort of activity. Each version has about 600 contributors, unlike QS which always had 1. Furthermore, many contributors are paid good money by corporations to work full time on the project. A couple of years ago it took an army of people and 2 weeks to create a new version of their About page - https://wordpress.org/about/ It could have been done by a 10 year old in 10 minutes.
b. So they have created this new interface call the Site Editor which is very similar in ways with the Editor. Right now it's confusing because things are in between, eventually both these things will become one. Bet because the releases are time based, you have 2 systems to edit things. Even though you can edit content on the Site Editor, for the confused people, I would suggest to ise the Site Editor to edit the theme and create new pge templates, etc... and use the Editor (Gutenberg) for content editing (Pages/Posts/CPTs).

Topic for another day are Patterns - formerly known as Reusable blocks. Patterns are just like Constants in QS, only 100x better. You can have a pattern, which you can add to a page and make changes to it. Then you have Synced patterns, where they are locked. So you put a synced pattern in 50 pages, and you make a change to your synced pattern and all fifty pages get the update automatically. WP 6.6 last month introduced Partial Synced Patterns. You can now decide which elements of the patterns can be individually be edited, like images, text ,headings, buttons, etc... more...
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/08/2024 20:17:17)
... but the structure of the overall pattern stays locked like a regular Synced pattern. So the creator of the pattern can give you access to edit each individual Pattern's Text, Images, etc... but you can add new blocks, remove blocks, or even move them around or set settings like background images, text color, dimension settings etc... Perfect for control freaks who set the design and allow their web site clients to only change certain allowed content. That said, with one click you can free things up and do whatever you want with the pattern.

I'll post some professional tutorial videos tomorrow.
Pieter says: (06/08/2024 21:37:59)
Actually, I found an interesting video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jRJKl9Tf74

WordPress is trying to become a visual drag and drop site builder. But there are tons of better options if you're into that. There is no way to freely position elements, create overlays, overlaps, or even have some slightest website design freedom. All you have are dumb blocks you put one beneath the other.

WP is not a design tool. Not in a million years. It's a text editor with some extra's.
Pieter says: (12/08/2024 17:04:26)
OK, I admit, I have to take this back. WP is not just a text editor with some extra's.

As I have no choice anyway, I had to redive into WP and I'd like to share my thought so far.

1. At the risk of stating the obvious: IIS is not capable of hosting WP. WAMPserver for Windows is. I have however hosted some WP sites in the past on various Windows Servers. I still do actually. But these are very small sites, with no or very few visitors. Don't even think about hosting a busy WP on IIS. It's gonna blow your RAM.

2. Even though WP introduced it's blockeditor in 2018, today the most popular templates (Astra...) are still PHP based. I don't understand that. Also, the Classic editor seems to be still very popular. The default Gutenberg blockeditor seems to be very unpopular: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/gutenberg/reviews/. I think it's very powerful though.

3. I'm still very confused about the various ways WP "accepts" content: templates, template parts, pages, posts, patterns... it's a jungle. And with each theme or plugin you install, things get even more complex. The initial idea must have been to come close to easy-to-use drag 'n drop website builders I guess. And that partially worked out well. Even though most drag 'n drop website builders I have used in the past did a much better job.

4. WP misses a basic built-in lightbox for popups (alerts), images and videos. Also, the built-in Gallery-widget is useless. At least, it does not better than FrontPage back in 1997.

5. WP misses a basic built-in formbuilder that generates contact- and registrations forms.

6. The most popular plugins have little or nothing to do with CMS. They're about SEO, security, backups, migration, performance and caching. Boring, extremely boring stuff.

That's it so far.
Thanks Nick for all your comments so far. They helped me a lot to look at WP from a different angle.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/08/2024 20:17:27)
Sorry for the delay, today is the first day I'm feeling like a human again... having fever for about a week during heat waves builds character. I'm no longer afraid to going to hell !

1. I have no experience hosting WP on windows, so...

2. Before I answer this one, look at https://zipwp.com/, you can start for free, they use Astra for the sites... Ok, this is where I make tons of enemies and tried to get cancelled... WP is a huge community, and the majority o0f them are idiots, or uninformed, and too lazy to test things and do their own research. Gutenberg is absolute garbage actually on it's own, BUT, with some plugins, custom blocks, etc..., you ca make it the best and the fastest page builder. More on this later...
Gutenberg compared to other page builders is weird to use, and weird to get use to. But once you do... It's developers are complete morons, 600+ of them, with no real leader, and with no real plan how to proceed. Some examples: They change naming things, including IN THE CODE, so if you have coded something for the editor, it stops working with the next version, and it's up to you to figure out what changed and fix it. Another example is that patterns used to be call Reusable blocks for years. so users were getting confused. Back to the topic: When it comes to developers, a php based theme can only be changed with coding where most people don'[t know how. With block themes not only you can edit things visually, but after you make your changes, not only you can export the theme for distribution, but you can create a brand new theme from it. Astra, Divi, etc... took them years and a fortune to market just to get at the point they are now, they are not willing to give the control and power for a block theme... Simply put, a developer of php themes, have more control and the users need to do more work to switch to another theme. With blocks themes, switching is easier, BUT NEVER fast either.

3. I know: Until everything is built, and we get a system that makes sense, just use the editor for content, and the Site Editor to edit the theme. Do not use the site Editor for content, even though you can. In the site editor you can switch between editing content, and editing a template.

4. There are a gazillion form buildrs out there bo0th free and premium. Actually there is a very basic one being build in Gutenberg, probably we will see it by the edn of the year, and of course it will be block based.

5. I have to leave, I'll make you a list...
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/08/2024 22:53:59)
... of plugins and videos, and show you some of the crazy things you can do in WP right out of the box.

You have to look WP like football (soccer), or playing the guitar. Very easy to get into, quickly developing some skills, but you need to have that obsessive personality and work on it and think about it 24/7, if you want to get to the top level. Any moron can kick a ball, or strum a guitar, however, very few can become a pro football player, or Metallica's next guitar player !

Keep asking questions, now that you are onboard, I will put my WP hate hat on, and tell you what's wrong with WP. And WP ifor me it's just the USA. They are both the best in the world, but they are both very fucked up, really, REALLY fucked up !!! When I talk to non WP users, people think I'm a WP sheep, and when I talk to WP people, they think I'm a WP terrorist, trying to destroy it. I'm just trying to be fair and truthful...

I'll have some more either tonight or tomorrow depending what the medications are doing to me !
Pieter says: (13/08/2024 22:49:04)
Get better soon Nick.

I have installed WooCommerce on my localhost. All of a sudden, each and every page now takes 5 seconds to load. What a bummer. I thought I had finally found a good hosting solution in Wampserver. Noooot. Damn. WooCommerce installed about a dozen of plugins in the back. I probably don't need them.

Anyway, I reverted to a clean install. 1 minute job. No further questions for now. I really have to break down all elements that make WP a designer tool, like the document overview, the right pane with styling options, the drag 'n drop options, sizing stuff, etc. I am sure I will face lots of problems. I'll report in private. Nevermind my questions for now. Get better soon
Pieter says: (14/08/2024 14:58:19)
Yesterday, I spent quite some time with Google Sites. Just to make up my mind about whether or not I would mention it to my students: https://sites.google.com/view/mysuzukisamurai/

But today, for some reason, I renewed my 5y old Nicepage license. 1 hour later, I was able to upload: https://site22273299.nicepage.io/

It's game over for Google Sites. Nicepage comes with 100's of premade and ready to go templates, blocks, animations, popups, icons, galleries, headers, footers, exportable to any format, including as a WP theme. Nicepage also ships with an AI site, page and blockbuilder. I have not written a single word of this site myself. I used my own pictures though.

From a design POV, NicePage is amazing. The only problem I face is that I think it's not possible to ask students to buy a 100$/year tool if all they will ever use it for is one single website...
Pieter says: (14/08/2024 15:09:53)
2 minutes later... I let NicePage build a website about ... learning web design. 100% AI.

https://websitedesign2039506.nicepage.io/

Check out all these animations on load... I have not touched it. It just rolls out the app like this...
Pieter says: (15/08/2024 17:22:40)
To those who receive these notification emails (there are a dozen of them) and don't want to read all this crap, please unsubscribe below! This web design chit chat is too much fun. I can't help it.

Back to WP

It seems that the built-in WP 2024 theme is quite popular with 1 million installs. But it's boring. It does not have lightboxes, does not have the option to create overlaps, apply opacity, or free position anything. At least, not without breaking into the code, or not without being Nick and being into WP for more than a decade.

It looks like you need to install templates like Astra or Elementor if you really want some design freedom. And these are commercial templates. Let's be honest. The free versions are only meant to make you buy the pro. Pro versions cost more than an average hosting solution these days, who include their own website builder today, like Hostinger, Godaddy, etc. Elementor is only useful for agencies I guess. It's even quite affordable for web agencies for only 33 EUR/month. But once you start using an Elementor theme, you can't live without it anymore. You just have to keep on paying license fees until you die. I always think that's scary.

By the way, I just gave the Elementor basic gallery a try. It's crap. But it has a lightbox. And Elementor has some AI, even the free version. But Elementor is marketing it's product very well. They must spend a fortune to advertising. It's amazing how often I get ads from Elementor everywhere I go on the internet. Same for Nicepage btw. These days, everything is about online advertisting. You need to reinvest 90% of your revenue back into advertising. It's crazy.

If I had to use WP, I'd stick to the built-in WP twenty-series and go from there to learn how to use WP as an all-in-one website builder. That's OK. But I would add a lightbox-plugin at some point. Or write my own. All you need is one of the many JavaScript plugins and some CSS. Can't be that hard I guess.

Back to my students

It's gonna be a dillemma. There are 2 ways to teach web design. Use (and buy) a commercial website builder like Nicepage, Mobirise, Elementor, Astra, etc... or learn to handwrite HTML/CSS (and use something like Bootstrap to make it fun). There are equally good arguments for both approaches. There really are. It's like a religious dillemma, a philosophical puzzle. I can't get my head around it. But I will have to. I urgently need to start preparing my lessons.

To be continued!
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/08/2024 20:16:05)
WP has an option for overlaps, opacity and lightbox.

Remember the other day when I said the developers are idiots? Well, they are a bunch of typical lefties who want things both ways, and by doing so exposing themselves as hypocrites and morons. The left wants free speech as long as you agree with them, otherwise you get cancelled, name called, and even jailed in Europe. In WP they want simplicity for non developers, but some complexity for advanced users (developers), where logic and stupidity collides. That is why many things are hidden behind menus, buttons, panels etc...

I have a video demonstrating overlaps and opacity. However, out of the box WP believes in intrinsic design, so there are no responsive controls, this is where people do run into troubles when viewing things with smaller devices. My plugin incorporates many other plugins, and one of them is "Responsive Controls" which solves the issue - https://wordpress.org/plugins/responsive-controls/

I have a video demonstrating negative margins which they just added with WP 6.6 (which shouold have been included from day one, like a descent page builder, but hey, 6 years later is good enough right? Just like a big useless government here...

The video demonstrates the issue with small devices, and then the fix by adding the responsive margin settings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIX1g9qxlb4

Gutenberg is awesome once you know all the ins and out, horrible otherwise. In the video I also have a plugin that shows the borders between the blocks just like a descent page builder, but out of the box, Gutenberg wants you to guess those borders...

I have to go, so tomorrow I'll show you lightbox...
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/08/2024 20:16:43)
BTW, the reason of the silent videos are that my voice is gone, and my throat is killing me...

WP has a lightbox, but out of the box it is not active. You have to activate it via the Site Editor, on the block level, in this case the Image block. The video demonstrates the image block without the lightbox activated, and then how to activate the lightbox in WP. I also use a plugin for Lightbox, so I can have one in my custom made ACF Pro blocks. In WP once lightbox is activated, the WP gallery block gets the lightbox as well (I believe), I don't use the WP Gallery as I have coded my own with ACF Pro, which is way more powerful than the default one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmv4BhTWfcc

Keep 'em coming... Now I'm really out for the day !
Pieter says: (16/08/2024 22:30:43)
Wow, this helps Nick, thanks!
More questions and thoughts will follow soon.
Pieter says: (17/08/2024 18:36:21)
Nick, what do you recommend for using AI in WP? Whick themes, plugins?
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/08/2024 20:16:35)
By far the best plugin for AI is AI Engine - https://wordpress.org/plugins/ai-engine/ . They also have a pro version - https://meowapps.com/products/ai-engine-pro/ . Both the free version and the premium require you to have your own OpenAI API key, which will cost you some money depending on your usage.

That said, in my plugin that I have made with ACF Pro, I have embedded Getwid - https://wordpress.org/plugins/getwid/ . It comes with an AI assistant block. Like in most AI cases, do NEVER trust what AI says, do your own research as well to verify the accuracy of the answers. For example. if you ask about Quickersite, in my case it says it is a drag and drop CMS among other things.

Getwid comes with many blocks - besides the AI the ones that stand out for me are the Sections block and the Image Hotspot.

BTW, you can install and activate as many block plugins as you want. without affective page load speeds. The blocks along with any resources that they are using, only get loaded on the front if a particular block is being used. So you can have 5000 blocks, and if in a page you only are using 3 of them, it will be as if you only have 3 blocks installed.

You should figure out how to add/delete fonts to your themes with the site editor. You can even have the site editor download and install one from Google, without having any legal issues in Europe.
Pieter says: (18/08/2024 12:25:57)
Thanks Nick. I have meantime updaten my OpenAI account. I had used my 5 free credits, enough for 2 lines of AI generated texts ;)

I have also found the best plugin (for me) so far. It's free, and it does NOT come with a paid version: Twentig. It extends the built-in twenty-twenty themes with lots of patters. I now have more than 200 patters, instead of the 40 built-in. This is a real game changer for me. It makes WP a little less boring.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/08/2024 20:16:18)
If you want to create your patterns you can:

1. Create the patterns in the editor, where they will be stored in the database. You will have to export them and them import them elsewhere - real pain !

2. Code them manually and store them in json files, which is a pain too, especially dealing with images, or,

3. Use The Pattern Manager plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/pattern-manager/

With this you can create your patterns in the editor, even create your own categories, and the patterns will be stored as actual files in the activated theme, and all the images will also be localized. All you have to do is zip the theme folder and take it elsewhere, or copy the folder where the patterns are stored in the theme and insert them into another theme.

Be careful though when using a pattern created in a theme when using them in another theme. If not done properly you will have spacing and/or color issues, because the WP blocks use css variables to style them, and there are no standard naming policies on those. If a theme in it's theme.json file does not reference a specific variable, things probably will not end well. Remember what I'm saying this part, I'm sure sooner than later you will ask me why this is happening and how to make the patterns universal to be use in any theme without any issues...
Pieter says: (18/08/2024 20:32:15)
This is telepathy. I was just looking into https://wordpress.org/patterns/?curation=all&s=overlap and have copied 2 patterns (with overlap-look) from there. I simply copy/paste the JSON into an html-block. That appears to work.

All in all, WP is far behind on Nicepage when it comes to patterns. NP has over 10.000 patterns, and NP has an AI builder to automate both their texts and images. Also, WP's patterns are far less attractive than NP's ones.

But (these) WP's patterns are free. You can't compete with that.

That https://wordpress.org/plugins/pattern-manager/ hasn't been updated lately...

Another thing I just discovered, that Twentig plugin adds animations and visibilty tweaks. Amazing plugin!
Pieter says: (20/08/2024 20:01:55)
What I fear most in WP is outdated and abandoned plugins. Sometimes these dev companies just disappear. What if you've been using their plugins for 100 websites... and all of a sudden they're gone and their plugins are no longer compatible with WP. These things happen, all the time. One example: Getwid by MotoPress. It once (not even that long ago, in 2020) offered many useful additional blocks for Gutenberg. But they seem to have lost focus on this free plugin lately. It shows several issues with the lateste WP versions, it even crashes Gutenberg.

And that's only 1 plugin. Imagine you're using 10 of them.

So I am already having doubts about Twentig. What if I promote it amongst my students, and the devs decide to pull the plug in 2 or 3 years from now...

WP is kind of a kamikaze ride anyway. You never know if your site will still be up when you wake up. You really don't. I have not had that feeling with QuickerSite in the past 15 years... I did know the feeling back in the early days, when security issues were discovered. But after I fixed those, in 2008, I'm pretty sure all 300 QSites I host will be available as long as I pay my hosting fees.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/08/2024 20:15:13)
I use Getwid with almost all my websites. Never crashed - not even once. It was last updated a month ago - https://wordpress.org/plugins/getwid/ I even your their AI assistant block which uses open source AI (not as good as some others), but hey, it's free and I don't even need an API key.

You have this typical WP hatred syndrome, where you are trying to manufacture issues where issues don't exist. Another example is what you said the other day about the Pattern Manager plugin - that it has not been updated for a while - updated to what? It does it's advertised job, there is nothing else I can think of that can be added as a feature or improvement, and it has no known security issues. QS get's an update every half a decade at best, are you knocking down QS now too?
Pieter says: (20/08/2024 23:28:14)
Getwid's AI Assistent does not work for me. Does it for you?
And WP clearly states:
Warning: This plugin has not been tested with your current version of WordPress.

Same is true for that Pattern Manager.

For a newbie like me, these are red alerts. I don't want to use plugins that WP itself considers possible unsafe, untested or outdated. That's all I'm saying.

Maintaining, securing and testing plugins for a volatile web application like WP must be outrageously time consuming. I understand that developers give up on that sooner or later. I would too.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (21/08/2024 19:20:59)
Before I forget late last night I made a video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIWeDYRs6H0 I'll explain later down the post.

How things work security wise in the WP world:
1. All plugins and themes in the WP.org are first checked to guideline errors, code errors and security errors by machines. Then when passed those tests they have to pass similar tests conducted by humans. On a regular basis the file are checked by automated systems.
2. If a security hole is found, most of the time is kept a secret for a few days, the developer is informed of the issue and is given the chance to fix the issue. If the developer needs some time for the fix, the theme/plugin gets temporarily suspended. If the developer does not respond, the theme/plugins gets deleted. There was a discussion for a while where in such cases WP itself would automatically delete such themes/plugins from websites, but so far so good - they attempted another socialist/communist move !
3. There are at least a dozen or so companies who look for security holes, because they want to sell their security plugins or get some bounty reward money offered to them. When they find something, both the WP and the developer is notified before going public.

To keep safe, make sure your username is not exposed, in the Users screen make sure you publicly display anything else but your actual username. NEVER use Admin as your username either - long story for another day.

When deciding to use a plugin don't bother too much when it was updated, which WP version it was tested with last, etc... Look at reviews and read the low ones, look at the active installation numbers, and look at the percentage of happy reviews. Foe example, and let's say even though Getwid was actually been updated a month ago, in this example let's say it was updated 2 years ago... IT has 60,000 active installations and 97% happy reviewers. You test the plugin against your server, and see there are no conflicts with other plugins/themes, and go from there. One question that I always have to answer is, is the cost of the plugin (not monetary but how much will a plugin slow down the site) worth it? Does the load time cost justify what the plugin/theme offers? more...
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (21/08/2024 19:43:44)
Ok, let me get into this example. In my 70 or so ACF Pro blocks that I have created, one of them is to display a text, then in the middle the current year and the copyright symbol, and a text after that. So the site admin can configure it to display something like this:

QuickerSite - 2024 (Copyright symbol), All Rights Reserved. The text before and after the date are customizable, the date is automatically updated with a simple php functions.

Now, let's say I get this block out of my theme and make a stand alone plugin with it so it can be used anywhere no matter which theme you are using.

Now 10 years go by, and I never update the plugin, because there is no new functionality to add, and there are no security issues. WP is going to list this AUTOMATICALLY as an outdated plugin, which is not really. Why does this happen? The min. php version requirement, and which WP version it was last tested with, are obtained automatically by software and not humans, from the header part of the plugin's main file. If every 3-4 months I go and update the header part that changes these 2 values, then it would look a freshly updated and well kept plugin, even though NOTHING has actually changed.

I have my issues with WP, and how it's been developed, but you have to understand their goals, and experiment and always search for better solutions with their 60,000+ plugins and tens of thousands of themes, not to mention even more stuff in other marketplaces. Their goal is to have WP easy enough for a newbie to just jump in and put his/hers ideas on a site, while at the same time have the tools (mostly hidden) for advanced users to do more complex stuff, and with tools like ACF PRo make idiots like me make a fool of all other CMS - trust me on this, there are no dull moments in the WP world, you can hardly catch your breath...

To finish things up for today, I never had any issues with Getwid AI, except the images (who cares), make sure you accept the answer you get, so it will import the answer in blocks. The video also demonstrates that I could not talk without waking up everyone in the house at 2am, some interesting tricks, and some plugins out of the many that I use to make things easier.

My suggestion to become an expert in WP are to follow these steps:

1. Learn the philosophies of the WP community, and don't believe the hype, negative or positive, make your own opinions with testing proofs.
2. Learn everything how to use the Editor and Site Editor (you are here).
.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (21/08/2024 19:59:15)
...
3. Learn how to customize, edit themes with the Site Editor with block themes, and export and create a new one with your changes included.
4. Learn to how to create your own blocks (I use ACF Pro which is the easiest way by far), and at the same time learn how to easily create you own Apps using WP as a framework. What do I mean by an App? Imagine building a Real Estate site where you will allow registered Real Estate agents list their properties on the front end, have an Advanced search engine for the site visitors to find listings easily, display the data in any way and in any layout that you want, and do EVERYTHING with either no coding or very little coding, in other words, and let's not forget to make your own Custom Post Types, and relate them automatically if you wanted too, create custom taxonomies, all with a GUI, then export the code and package them in a theme/plugin for easy distribution/sale. ALL done easily with ACF Pro... Have your own version of ASPRunner in a way, but in a more professional looking site if you will.

The real fun begins when you reach step 4 !!! And ask about what plugins for what etc... there are so many to talk about... For example there is the Simply Static plugin that exports your WP site into a datbase-less straight up html site, and there is one called Freeze, where when activated, it closes all the doors to log in. The only way to unfreeze the site is to use FTP and delete the plugin folder, perfect for demo sites where you b uild it, and forget about it for ever, no hacking worries, Wp updates, plugin updates, etc... time freezes !

Keep 'em coming...
Pieter says: (22/08/2024 08:55:59)
To export any site to a set of offline html/css/js/images, I use https://www.httrack.com/ for two decades. It mirrors/copies any website to your local PC. This freeze thing sounds like something ... cool

I am in Amsterdam for the moment, getting stoned by just walking the streets and smoking the weed others are smoking. Weird and stinky city.

I reinstalled Getwid and it seems to be stable now. But the AI assistant won't fire off... Maybe it only works in the US?

I keep on trying...
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (22/08/2024 09:47:01)
Maybe the AI Assistant is working but you are too stoned to realize it !!! Seriously though, the US thing must be it. Also try Getwid without any other plugins activated, in case there is a conflict somewhere. Could it be a missing server component? Who knows. Try it at https://instawp.com/ , it has a cool free version, and setting up a site takes 3 seconds. Getwid give no info, about their AI, which actual service they use etc...

To be honest Pieter, for better results and accuracy use perplexity, they even list their actual sources, so you can manually dive in and further devise your content. Then it will be a simple copy/paste.

It's been a while since I looked at Nicepage, but from day one they rubbed me the wrong way. They were advertising it as an AI product, years before AI was a thing. I am guessing even today, there is nothing AI about it, it has some clever algorithms, but I bet it learns nothing from you about your likes and hates, and it's not trainable to your taste for future project suggestions. It has prebuild sections which cleverly randomizes the layouts from what I remember. Remember during the Artisteer days they were telling us that they had 250,000 customers. Who would abandon such a business?

Anyway enjoy Amsterdam, I've been there 3 times, long time ago, it was nice and clean, I'm afraid to ask now...

Have you decided on the most important plugins yet? Backup, Cache, Security. Everything else are secondary... also it's good to know how to transform a WP site into a multisite, and how to use it properly...

Final note, and I don't think there is such a plugin, about 7 years ago, I copied one QS feature and took me a few weeks to perfect it, is the ability for each user to only see their own uploaded files in the media, except for Admins and Editors which can see everybody's media files. Unlike QS though, it does not use folders, but things get filtered. Today, in the AI days, it would probably take me a few hours, since AI is still pretty bad at coding. In 20 years, people will probably say, what's coding?
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (22/08/2024 20:11:56)
As a coincidence this came up today, as we were talking about security the other day:

https://wptavern.com/record-bounty-awarded-as-critical-privilege-escalation-vulnerability-patched-in-litespeed-cache-plugin
Pieter says: (22/08/2024 21:04:52)
"This vulnerability does not affect Windows-based WordPress instances but poses a risk to those running on other operating systems, such as Linux."

Haaaaa!!!!
Pieter says: (23/08/2024 22:49:45)
Nick, I attach the scope of the Webdesign lessons.
Scope of the web design lessons (45 kB)
Pieter says: (25/08/2024 10:05:11)
My first lesson starts the 30th of September.

As you can see in the scope, backups, migrations, security, etc are not in. SEO is. But I'm not sure it makes sense. A lot has been written about SEO, whether it still makes sense or not.

AI is going to be another important tool to master and integrate in the website building classes. As is the hosting-chapter. Where to find decent hosting? How to locally host WP?

I plan to dedicate at least one lesson to flat html/css/js/image builders and hosting platforms like Github Pages. I use them for many years for some static sites. It's a 100% (ad-)free hosting solution for static websites.

I really need a dirt cheap WP hosting solution for about 150 WP sites. Any idea?

Your help is needed. Please sign the petition!

Support for Classic ASP/VBScript is scheduled to be removed on future Windows releases.

This makes no sense at all. Therefore, please sign the petition to stop this madness!

Sign the petition

18/06/2024 10:58:44 | Pieter | Login | Reply | Replies (0)

My ebook is being very well received

My ebook about aspLite has been read over 1000 times meantime. Happy to share some of the comments so far:

Ilkertr:
I remembered my old Classic ASP programming days. I couldn't learn new asp.net. When I saw your page, I found the excitement of developing something with Classic ASP again. Thank you.

David:
A good read Pieter. Really enjoyed reading about the history of classic ASP and particularly your work in the early years.

Brian:
It's a great read and good that there is still support for this underrated programming language.

Ömer:
I read your ebook until 4:00 AM last night without skipping a line, and I was very impressed. Each sentence made me feel as though I had discovered a long-lost companion with whom I had been wandering the same forest for almost 30 years, yet never knew existed.

Tony:
It made interesting reading especially as, like you, I was left out in the dry as a Classic ASP developer and what made it worse for me was that I had worked for Microsoft for 6 years prior to 1999! Talk about slap in the face, I couldn’t believe it at the time and felt very annoyed that I had dedicated so much time and effort to learn a development language that I had thought would keep me going for years to come!

This is what I'm doing it all for. I just hope this ebook somehow helps people to get on the road again with their Classic ASP skills.

03/06/2024 11:10:25 | Pieter | Login | Reply | Replies (0)

Clock is ticking for Classic ASP/VBScript

I've been quite busy these last few weeks. After the release of Setlistplanner.com, I developed some apps for my wife's dental practice. I made her a waiting list app and an app to manage her stock. I reused the application template I also developed Setlistplanner on. It's a very promising template, making use of aspLite.

Right after, I was so excited that I decided to write a book about how I used aspLite in Setlistplanner.com and how aspLite led to asplForms, an AJAX-first developer framework for Classic ASP developers. It's a wrap, my ebook is done. It ended up as a highly opinionated MicroSoft bash on its 6 first pages. The rest should be OK.

Lately I have also become a big fan of Google Search Console. It appears that both url-redirection and missing canonical urls are two of the most common issues reported for QuickerSites and my hosted websites in general. My one-codebase solution for all my hosted QuickerSites is under pressure. I once made sure that https://quickersite.com/downloadsection and https://quickersite.com/r/downloadsection are both serving the same page. The "/r" is the name of the virtual directory in IIS. But that is a problem for Google Search. It's marked as duplicate content. I need to look into that someday soon.

I also looked into a new robots.txt file for all my hosted sites. So far, I'm using one of the available suggestions I found on GitHub. It should block many unwanted bots, for what it's worth. Bad bots do not respect robots.txt files anyway.

But what ate most of my energy these past few days, was MicroSoft's recent announcement to retire (and eventually remove) VBScript in future Windows versions. I kind of take it that Classic ASP is in palliative care. Clock is ticking. This announcement is very bad news for us, isn't it? After VBScript gets removed from Windows, it's totally gone. It's no longer available in IIS either. Even though it's not going to be for tomorrow, MicroSoft is clearly up to completely removing Classic ASP-support. I can only advise NOT to use Classic ASP anymore. This day was coming for a while now. But still it's very bad and sad news.

23/04/2024 23:10:54 | Pieter | Login | Reply | Replies (0)

Setlist Planner

Nick and I, we finally started developing our so called Setlist Planner. As a performing artist I have all kinds of playlists, for all kinds of situations and occasions. It started to drive me crazy. So I decided to come up with a little tool. It may help others.

I uploaded Setlist Planner to Github. Check it out!

In short:
-create an unlimited number of songs and playlists
-sort songs in the playlist manager (drag and drop)
-open the lyrics for a song directly from the playlist manager
-easily copy playlists
-export the playlist to csx, xlsx, pdf or print

Developing this was fun but very hard, as the way this template works, it requires a very good knowledge of JavaScript, jQuery and AJAX. It took me 2 days to finalize. Probably one more day to tweak and complete. Without a very good manual, this new template (and the new ASP/VBScript approach) will never make a chance. There are also some major challenges when it comes to error-catching. But I keep on trying to make this work, that's for sure.

Happy ASP/VBScript coding!

15/04/2024 14:20:08 | Pieter | Login | Reply | Replies (0)

Template for modern Classic ASP/VBScript development

Few months ago Nick and I had a brainstorm about this idea for a new app to organize setlists. Instead of diving into that straight away I came up with a template that could serve this and potentially many other similar application-ideas. I uploaded my work so far to https://github.com/PieterCooreman/Setlist-Planner

This template could be a starting point for any new Classic ASP/VBScript development. "Template" (forgive me the boring name) takes care of basically all standard "stuff" any modern application would need today:

User registration / signin / forgot password / confirmation email / my account / signout
Multilingual application
Templating (Bootstrap 5)
System settings / Mail setup
Compress/Backup database / Recycle application
Create custom applications on top of Template
Error handling

It would be great if someone would be able to install this thing and play around with it. It's quite easy to understand I hope. Make sure to check out the various sample apps that I added already.

To make this work I need to document all the methods you can use. There are quite a few, both Classic ASP/VBScript and JavaScript. I hope to find some time to get this done sooner or later.

16/04/2024 18:07:18 | Pieter | Login | Reply | Replies (3)

nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/02/2024 21:37:07)
I am definitely not promoting anything here, except for Pieter if he wants to privately see and play with what I have done with another CMS. That original post by Pieter gave me a challenge for my next project, and it took me a total of about 4 hours of work. I started without putting too much thought, that's why it took so song. If I had to do from scratch again, it would probably take less than half the time...

So these are the features:

1. Each band needs to apply for membership. The memberships can be free or for a fee, paid with PayPal, depending how the site Admin decides how to run things.

2. Once approved, a registration code will be send to the band, so with it, they can register to the site, with a custom user role as "Artist".

3. Once registered (allowed only once), they can create their custom:

a. Band/Artist page, and have their information set, location, website, email, images, music type, detail info about them, images, video, etc..., and

b. Submit their songs in mp3 format. It's up to the site Admin to determine how many songs a band can submit.

4. All the submissions (Band page, and Songs) are submitted from the front end, and only registered and logged in users can do so.

5. Since the people who submit anything to the site are already approved, the site Admin can setup if the submissions would be automatically published, or show up on the front end after approval. Each band/artist of course can only edit their own pages, and only see their own submitted songs, of course for security reasons.

6. The songs of all bands are automatically displayed using DataTables, and/or in a traditional blog archive way.

7. Finally, automatically each song is linked to the band's page, and in each band's page, automatically all the bands songs are displayed with a link for each song's detailed page, where an artist can include lyrics, any info about the productions process, images, videos, etc...

It's been a while since I created this, and I'm sure I am forgetting some details. The most important things are that the whole project is done with Security in mind, and professional looking website, with easy navigation and super easy for visitors and bands/artists to understand how everything works. It took me some years to create my workflow/framework, but now that's it's here, I can create anything I want, Real Estate sites, with third party Agents listing their properties, Auto Market sites, Software marketplaces, etc. And all with NO CODING.
nick6352683@yahoo.com says: (20/02/2024 21:44:36)
I ran out of characters to type...

I no longer have access to Windows servers anymore, it would be great Pieter if you would maybe (please) create a short video.

Also, through third party plugins, I have automated backups either on localhost or on a number of cloud storages, like OneDrive, Google Drive, Amazon, FTP, etc... and another for extra security. My hosting company provides me with free SSL, free emails, free firewall and free CDN, and free caching among other things. I have their Cloud hosting, and the speed is excellent, and their prices are more than fair.
Pieter says: (20/02/2024 22:03:26)
hi Nick this sounds great. I didn't know you were busy doing that.

Can it manage playlists? Can the band have multiple playlists with their songs each time in a different sort order? I would love to see that in action actually. Please send me login via pm.

My script can easily be installed localy on any Windows with IIS installed.

ChatGPT can code Classic ASP

So I asked ChatGPT if it could code Classic ASP. Few seconds later, it came up with an application to "manage contacts". Click here for a dump of my 2 minute chat.

I followed the instructions and guess what... this works! It does 100% what I asked for. Amazing. I attach the "full application" to this message, but guys, DO NOT USE THIS ON A LIVE SERVER... because...

.. having a closer look at the code, I realised that:

No HTML5 standards were used. No doctype.
The code is not UTF-8-proof. It'ill only work fine for ASCII characters. Any other character will be saved in encoded HTML. This ends up in a data-nightmare. To fix this, you need only 2 things: <meta charset="utf-8"> in the front-html and <%@LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT" CODEPAGE="65001"%> as the very first line in your ASP code.
As ChatGPT indicates itself, the generated code is prone to SQL Injection (SQLI), Cross-site request forgery (CSRF), HTML Injection and XSS. Good luck with that.

Why is ChatGPT generating such very poor and weak code anyway? Are these the standards for AI to take over our lives as developers? I don't think so.

I don't want to be too severe though. Having AI at your fingertips to learn to code classic ASP is an amazing thing. I wonder how far I can take this.

I think "communication" will become a key element. So far developers had to be good with code. The developers of tomorrow will have to be able to communicate and organise their way through the AI opportunites they'll face. And AI needs to be able to learn from developers by asking for help and feedback in order to optimize its code. And that will then end up with even better AI and better development.

ChatGPT Classic ASP Development (13 kB)

18/02/2024 11:54:29 | Pieter | Login | Reply | Replies (0)

Some serious thinking

GitHub cut me off last week. I no longer had access to the QuickerSite codebase or any other repository. I once forgot to download some recovery codes. I was no longer able to login using 2FA. My login was sort of disabled.

Meantime all is fine again. I had to request to disable 2FA for my account. It took 2 days before they got that sorted. After I restored the 2FA-login requirements I was able to login again. Pfjeeeeuw.

I now get why Facebook is absolutely not making a priority of 2FA whatsoever. They'd lose 90% of their users in no time.

But that made me think. If Google shuts down my account, I'm dead. My Gmail account holds a history of over 10 years. Google Photos holds my whole life in video and pictures. As I use my Gmail address for all sorts of logins, I'll be unable to restore passwords for basically all online services I have been using over the past two decades.

And if Amazon shuts down my server, I loose my business, my income actually. And they can do that without even warning me. And I would never be able to tell why exactly or even defend myself.

I couldn't care less about MicroSoft though. I don't even use a MicroSoft account. I don't need a MicroSoft account to develop classic ASP. That's something at least.

Anyway. It's all good now. Learned my lesson.

17/01/2024 16:45:07 | Pieter | Login | Reply | Replies (0)

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