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Torque
Since
October 24, 2013

Josh Pollock

Josh is a WordPress developer and educator. He is the founder of CalderaWP, makers of awesome WordPress tools including Caldera Forms — a drag and drop, responsive WordPress form builder.

How Creating Apps With WordPress Changes Perspective And Standards In WordPress Development

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July 23, 2015

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In my last article for Torque on thinking like an app I intentionally did not address how mobilization of WordPress changes the way we approach development in terms of deciding what to build. In this post I will discuss my thoughts on the technical changes that occur when we are doing the actual development. Keep in mind that, for now, when we are talking about developing WordPress apps, we are actually talking about building a specific app for a specific purpose, not building a reusable app to be repurposed by others, similar to the way we write plugins and themes. Reusable […]

Think Like An App

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July 15, 2015

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Imagine a client asks you to build them a website and a mobile application so that they can easily sell shoes online. If you’re like me, a nerdy web developer, you’d probably start planning how to get data on every single shoe that’s going to be on the site—there must be some JSON or XML APIs provided by manufacturers, or at least some regularly-updated CSV files, right? This would prompt you think about how to properly import this data into eCommerce platforms that you might use to build the site. Then you’d probably start thinking about how to mass process, validate, […]

Adding Custom Routes to the WordPress REST API

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June 25, 2015

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Most of the discussion around the WordPress REST API has been about querying the default routes. In that sense, we’re treating it as a monolithic API—like the Twitter API, for example. The truth is, however, that the WordPress REST API is not one API, but millions of highly customizable APIs, which can also be leveraged as a tool for making APIs. Yes, it comes with default routes, but, by necessity, those routes are a compromise between tens of millions of sites, including many that haven’t been made yet. Just like WordPress isn’t just the global WP_Query object, the REST API isn’t just the default […]

So You Want To Use WordPress To Make An App?

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June 11, 2015

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At WordCamp Miami, which I attended recently, one of the most popular topics of discussion was leveraging WordPress to power mobile applications. At this point, I think everyone is an agreement that you can, in fact, use WordPress to power both web and mobile applications. Now it’s time to answer the questions “Should I use it?” and, if so, “how do I do it?” These questions don’t have one simple answer. In fact, they are highly contingent on the project, budget, requirements, and competencies of those involved. Like every other type of project, how well you plan it is going […]

Interview with Patrick Rauland and Matt Medeiros on Product Shipping, Scaling, and Validation

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Community

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June 3, 2015

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For today’s article on validating and scaling WordPress products, I asked two seemingly simple questions of two people whose opinions I respect on the matter. While I’m really proud of the resulting article and how I used their words to make my point, I feel like you, the reader, are missing out on the incredibly detailed and well thought out responses they gave to my questions. So, we are sharing the complete transcripts of those interviews below. Patrick Rauland on Product Release Patrick Rauland is the Product Manager for WooCommerce. You can find him on Twitter @BFTrick. Q: What steps does your […]

Validation, Shipping, and Scaling WordPress Products

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Published

June 3, 2015

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In my last article for Torque, I talked about marketing automation for Easy Digital Downloads. The idea for that article grew out of the work that I’m currently doing to scale my own business—which has been going pretty well so far, but has not yet reached enough people to have the kind of success that we are shooting for long term. Marketing automation is one of many tools to grow a business. As the WordPress ecosystem matures, more and more developers are making the leap from freelancing or agency work to creating and selling products. These products range from WordPress plugins […]

Marketing Automation for Easy Digital Downloads

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Published

May 28, 2015

2 Comments

One of the many things that WordPress excels at is eCommerce. There are lots of really great eCommerce plugins out there that not only make it easy to set up an online store, but can also be easily extended and customized in a lot of interesting ways. One of the most important ways to extend your eCommerce plugin is through marketing automation. Marketing automation is a powerful strategy that companies like Amazon have perfected to increase sales. This strategy encompasses everything from upsales and recommended products, to emails with bonus deals, additional information, and more product recommendations. While this may sound complicated, […]

Using the Visibility API to Optimize Dynamic WordPress Development

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May 22, 2015

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It isn’t uncommon for people to have multiple windows open (each with multiple tabs) while browsing the Internet. In fact, they may even have multiple browsers running. As web developers, we tend to do a lot of things when a page first loads—animations, starting videos, opening modals, starting slide shows, etc. We know that when a page loads, and when it is actually viewed are not often the same event. For example, if a link to your site is opened to a new tab it could be minutes, hours, or even days until it is actually viewed. This creates two problems. […]

Plugin Distribution on WordPress.org in a New Generation of WordPress

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Community, Featured

Published

May 14, 2015

8 Comments

A few weeks ago there was a lot of drama around the WordPress Theme Review team’s decision to require all themes in the WordPress.org theme repository to use the customizer for theme options. Personally I think this is great, and I’ve actually been looking forward to it since last year, when the idea was first presented. It’s a great example of how the leadership in the WordPress project have used their influential positions to help improve the platform. WordPress.org fills a lot of roles, one of the biggest is distributing code in the form of plugins, themes, and even WordPress itself. Any change […]

Adding a Microblog within Your WordPress Blog

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Published

May 6, 2015

4 Comments

I take blogging pretty seriously. When I write a post it has a very specific purpose and tends to be pretty long. I think this strategy has a lot to do with my success; but it has also raised the stakes on blogging to the point where I no longer have a container for a few hundred words I’d like to share. By container I mean a place to publish content longer and more permanent than a Facebook post but less high stakes than a blog post. With that in mind, I decided that I needed a microblog. For a while, I thought […]

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