With the release of WordPress 4.7, developers have a lot to be thankful for. Many have already covered post type templates, and the addition of the REST API in the core is a game changer. There's a few more features that came along with the release, but I'd like to cover one that I've been looking forward to as a developer: custom bulk actions.
One reason I love working for myself is the flexibility it provides in my personal life, especially around the holidays. I'm a very festive person, so I get heavily involved in Christmas traditions. Christmas lights. Cheesy movies on the Hallmark Channel. The list goes on. Fortunately, I'm in a position to go all Griswold between November and January.
Data import scripts are some of the most important, common, and challenging tasks I perform. Time-outs, memory limits, and boredom are just the most common of frustrations. Once a development project enters its final stages, the conversations invariably begin to shift from functionality to data. Most clients have a lot of existing content and data that needs to be incorporated into their brand new site. The information may reside in an old database, large volumes of text files, spreadsheets, or something else entirely. Regardless of the method of storage, any transfer of a large amount of data will require some automation in the form of a script. After you've written a few of these types of processes, you'll undoubtedly encounter the same issues for each one.
As promised, I'm releasing a new plugin for Advanced Custom Fields(ACF) named "ACF Post Object Add-On". This is a relatively small plugin that appends text data to post titles in the "post object" field type within ACF. The plugin is based on my previous tutorial with a few more bells and whistles to give users more flexibility without having to edit functions.php.
Working on a WordPress project gives the the opportunity to tinker and learn. On a project I completed recently, we used a few custom fields, courtesy of Advanced Custom Fields PRO. Although I loathe the "do it with a plugin"-first mentality, ACF is a mu-plugin for nearly every site I work on. It grants the user a ton of content flexibility when setup properly, but it also offers me, the developer, ways to easily alter its function without editing the plugin itself. That's exactly what I did when I received a common ACF request while working on the aforementioned project. I want to share the experience(and the code) to both illustrate my point and, hopefully, save someone else a little time.
Seriously. Who else dreads giving estimates or quotes for development work? I know I can't possibly be alone because new clients always request them. Anytime I am asked for an estimate, it's always an exercise in futility. I've been in web development for a long time now, and I can never seem to nail down accurate estimates. As time has gone on, it's gotten worse.