Category: Tips

WCAG 2.2 (published 2023) adds nine new success criteria to the existing 2.1 standard, with the most impactful changes for WordPress themes being: 2.4.11 Focus Appearance (focus indicators must be at least 2px thick with 3:1 contrast), 2.4.12 Focus Not Obscured (sticky headers must not completely cover focused elements), and 3.2.6 Consistent Help (help links…

@wordpress/env (wp-env) is the official Docker-based local WordPress environment from the Gutenberg team. It spins up a fully configured WordPress instance in under a minute — no XAMPP, MAMP, or manual Docker Compose files required. It supports custom plugins, themes, mapped directories, multiple PHP versions, and test environments alongside development environments, all from a single…

WP-CLI’s scaffold command generates boilerplate for plugins, child themes, post types, taxonomies, unit tests, and — with the @wordpress/create-block scaffolder — complete Gutenberg blocks. Using scaffolding instead of copy-pasting ensures consistent file structure, correct headers, and ready-to-run PHPUnit configurations from the first commit.

WordPress 6.4 formalised the admin notices system with a proper WP_Admin_Notice class and a filter-based API that replaces the old pattern of echoing raw HTML inside admin_notices callbacks. The new API supports notice type, dismissibility, and per-cap targeting, and persisting dismissed state in user meta ensures a notice shown once is never shown again.

A proper WordPress debugging workflow goes beyond enabling WP_DEBUG — it involves structured logging, query monitoring, tracking slow hooks, and making debug output accessible only to developers without exposing it to users. Getting this right speeds up plugin development and catches bugs before they reach production.

WP-CLI custom commands let you expose any plugin functionality as a command-line operation — useful for batch migrations, database repairs, scheduled tasks, and deployment scripts. A well-written WP-CLI command is faster, more scriptable, and more testable than a WordPress admin page.

Query Monitor is the most powerful free debugging plugin for WordPress — it shows every database query with its execution time, the PHP call stack that triggered it, HTTP API calls, hooks, and block render times. Knowing how to read its output is essential for diagnosing slow pages.

A WordPress performance audit is a systematic review of every layer of the performance stack — server configuration, database queries, PHP execution, asset delivery, and third-party integrations — to identify and prioritize the changes that will have the largest measurable impact on Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) and Time to First Byte (TTFB). Unlike…

WordPress admin customization allows plugins and themes to tailor the backend experience for content editors — removing irrelevant menu items, adding custom dashboard widgets, modifying the columns displayed in post list tables, and controlling which screen options are available — reducing cognitive load for non-technical clients who should not see 40 menu items they will…