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This is the collection of all the WordPress memes I’ve created.

You Should Make Plugins

Is This a PHP File?

But Her Editors

WordPress.com is Not WordPress

WordPress multisite allows plugins and themes to be Network Active. This prevents them from being deactivated on any site in the network.

Instructions

To change a plugin from Network Active on every site to individually active on each site:

1. Manually Network Deactivate the plugin from the network plugins page. The wp network command does not yet support plugin deactivation.

2. Connect to the server via SSH and run this WP CLI command. In this example, superlist-block/superlist-block.php is the plugin basename.

   wp site list --field=url | xargs -n1 -I % wp --url=% plugin activate superlist-block/superlist-block.php

What does the command do?

wp site list --field=url produces a list of URLs for all of the sites on the network.

The | operator passes the results from wp site list to xargs. xargs can take the output from one command and send it to another command as parameters.

The -n1 flag to xargs processes each line of output from the site list command one at a time. -n2 would send two site URLs to the next command.

wp --url=% plugin activate hello.php is the command to which xargs is passing the site URLs. It activates the Hello Dolly plugin on each site specified by URL. The % sign is our replacement character where each URL will populate.

A for loop might be easier to read

If this code is easier to quickly read and comprehend, read Sal Ferrarello’s post, Loop Through WordPress Multisite Blogs with WP CLI.

for URL in $(wp site list --field=url); do 
  wp plugin activate superlist-block/superlist-block.php --url=$URL;
done

WordPress 6.7 is going to support HEIC image conversion. I’m the author of an HEIC image conversion plugin.

WordPress core will soon convert HEIC, or iOS format, photos during uploads.

My free plugin, HEIC Support, just crossed 3,000 active installs.

Does my copy-or-replace switch remain a useful feature? Do I get obsoleted out of the .org plugin repo on November 12th? Does it shrivel and die quietly? I have no idea. I can’t wait to find out.

I’m not even an iOS user. I’ve never had any .heic images to convert! I wrote the plugin because @austinginder told me WordPress doesn’t accept iPhone photos at a meetup.

When it launched, I wrote, “Someday, we will celebrate the death of this plugin.” Will we?

Submit a second language translation to each plugin you list on wordpress.org.

Why?

Once a plugin has a translation, the “Languages:” section appears with a link “Translate into your language.” This link helps strangers using your plugin submit more translations. Plugins with one language do not have this link on their .org directory pages.

If you speak only English like me, you can likely produce an English (UK) translation of your plugin to provide a second language for your plugin.

I also hired a translator

I met someone on twitter who charges four cents per word for English to Spanish translation. WordPress recognizes 14 Spanish language variants. My translator said they would prepare a LATAM (Latin American) Spanish that would also work for other variants. I submitted the translation I bought for all variants, but one or two versions have been approved after 6 months. Many uploaded translation files sit behind tens of thousands of other contributions in queues waiting for review. The WordPress project is in dire need of translation volunteers.

How

1. Export the “all current” file from https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/embed-pdf-gravityforms/stable/en-gb/default/. Replace the plugin slug “embed-pdf-gravityforms” in this URL with your own.
2. Open the file in VS Code, and populate all translated strings with the untranslated strings using regex find replace
   Find: msgid “([^”]+)”\nmsgstr “”
   Replace: msgid “$1″\nmsgstr “$1”
3. Make these replacements manually on the “msgstr” lines:
   1. Color > Colour
   2. Zip, Zip Code > Postcode
   3. Customizer > Customiser
   4. Check > Cheque (if referring to a paper form of payment, not “check this out”)
4. Make sure the .po file is valid with msgcat {filename}
5. Import the file on the same page where you got the Export using the Import link.
6. Wait for someone to approve the translations you’ve submitted (<24 hours, 6 months, or longer depending on the language)

Get word count from .po file

I found this tool helpful when pricing projects with a translator.

https://pofile.net/free-po-editor

How to duplicate a .po file for all Spanish variants

I wrote this PHP script to copy an es_MX/Spanish (Mexico) .po file into the 13 other Spanish variants.

How to test a .po file before publishing on translate.wordpress.org

1. Put the .po file in the /languages folder of your plugin unless a different path is specified in the plugin’s load_plugin_textdomain() call.
2. Use the load_textdomain_mofile filter to load your files https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/internationalization/how-to-internationalize-your-plugin/#plugins-on-wordpress-org‘
3. Call wp_set_script_translations() for each of your script files on the admin_enqueue_scripts hook priority 1000
4. Run the wp-cli command wp i18n make-json languages/
5. Navigate to Settings > General > Site Language and select from the list of available languages the one you’d like to test.

Where to get feedback about translation compatibility and imports

In the core WordPress slack, there are two channels filled with automated messages about plugin translations. Search for your plugin slug in the Making WordPress slack and look for results in these channels:

• #polyglots-warnings logs translation warnings generated on translate.wordpress.org when .po files are imported.
• #meta-language-packs logs language pack notices as plugins are updated.

These channels will tell you if your plugin is not yet compatible with language packs and if anomalies were found while comparing translations.

Sample messages

I found both of these messages to be helpful when working on translations.

• Plugin is not compatible with language packs: Requires WordPress 4.0; wrong text domain in header
• Warning: Lengths of source and translation differ too much.

Why aren’t submitted translations showing up in the plugin directory?

Volunteers must review all translated strings. 90% of a plugin’s strings must be translated before that language pack becomes available in the Plugin Repository. Visit this page to monitor progress: https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/embed-pdf-gravityforms/stable/

This morning, I had to swap out a form builder plugin after some security breach occurred at wordpress.org or at one of its contributors. Page breaks are typically a pro feature in form plugins, with a few exceptions.

I found Forminator, a form builder plugin that allows multi-page forms to be built for free.

I don’t always want to activate my Gravity Forms license

I have licenses to a couple form builders that provide multi-page functionality. Almost every project is Gravity Forms and ACF, though. It’s nice to learn about other systems.

Forminator provides slider controls to specify numbers or a range of numbers, for example. This feature is unavailable with any paid level of Gravity Forms.