In the past 15 years the technology of the web has evolved, enabling exciting new techniques and tools for web developers. WordPress has evolved with it, but some of the newer and more exciting tools are still out of reach… or are they?
This is a developer focused talk about bringing newer technologies into WordPress development through the use (and abuse) of plugins and themes.
The block revolution is undoubtedly here, but not everyone has been able to embrace it yet. If you’ve never used ReactJS before it may seem intimidating, or at the very least time consuming to go all-in on the new editor and create custom blocks for every situation you come across.
Gather round comrades and fear not, this talk is for you.
All are welcome in the Block revolution, and thanks to Advanced Custom Fields’ “ACF Blocks” feature we can quickly and easily get our own custom blocks running in the new editor, with a few lines of code and some basic templating.
Beyond the basics, we’ll look at using the idea of a block or component on the server side, and discuss some patterns for writing and organising our code to take maximum advantage of this new paradigm using modern PHP.
Whatever your reasons for not being able to ‘learn javascript deeply’ yet are, it doesn’t mean that this bright new future of block-based editing isn’t for you.
This talk gets progressively more technical – there should be something for all levels of experience including some minimal-code solutions, however later sections assume familiarity with WordPress concepts like Plugins, Themes and core WordPress APIs along with modern PHP practices and tooling.
“What could I have done to avoid being hacked?” is a question you’ll often hear after a site is hacked. In some cases the answer is complicated, but a lot of the time it’s relatively simple and there are many checklists and guides online outlining the ways sites can be hacked, plus how to secure them. However, a lot of people learn better from seeing and doing than reading (often boring) checklists. So rather than look at checklists on slides for 30 minutes, we’re going to hack into WordPress instead!
We will target a vulnerable installation of WordPress and attack the usual weaknesses to compromise the site. After every attack we perform, we will make the required changes to block the attack, and then attempt to compromise the site again, hopefully unsuccessfully this time! The goal is to think like a hacker, learning what types of vulnerabilities exist and how they are exploited, so we can better protect our sites and block hackers before they get in. By the end of the talk, we should have a secure site and an incredibly frustrated hacker.
At the end of 2018, we launched a custom eLearning platform that is built on the WordPress backend and experienced through our ReactJS frontend. In this talk, I would like to discuss why we chose the hybrid approach and how it’s a viable option for designers/developers looking to modernise their WordPress sites incrementally. I will share the technical challenges we faced throughout the project, including how we overcame them, and what we intend to do next with our web app.
If you already know JavaScript, but don’t have much React experience, you’ll learn what you need get started. You’ll then be able to develop your own blocks and extend Gutenberg.
You’ll see the most important parts of ES6 and JSX to know. Also, you’ll learn the basics of how React works, see a basic build setup, and learn about ES6 modules.
Without getting caught in the details, you’ll see what’s required to start developing in the new paradigm for WordPress. With this, you can build blocks, and you’ll know where to get the rest of the experience you’ll need.
WordCamp Brisbane 2019 is over. Check out the next edition!