One minute you’re sitting in your lounge room watching Peppa Pig with your three-year-old daughter while trying to manage 20 or so support staff from your laptop, the next minute you’re eating bacon-avocado ice cream somewhere in Arizona. When you work with WordPress in a distributed team, this is how you roll.
For the past three years, I’ve headed up the support team here at WPMU DEV, working out of my living room in UK where my daughters (I also have twin two-year-old girls) and my wife (who watches cheesy soap operas) keep me company. Working in a distributed team is awesome – it can be diverse and enables you to connect with all kinds of people around the globe online. The downside is the isolation. If you’re a remote worker, you know what I mean.
It can be lonely, even when you’re surrounded by your family every day. Talking shop with family just doesn’t feel right.
So this year I decided to shake up how I work, or should I say where I work. For years, I told people my job allowed me to work from anywhere I wanted, but rarely did. I suppose you could say I became a prisoner in my own home, which is awesome… for a hermit! My solutions: random workcations.
Me with Michelle Shull and Michael Bissett from our support team in the US.
Back in JuneI joined some other WPMU DEVers at WordCamp Europe in Seville, Spain. It was a brilliant trip and I met so many great people, and since then I’ve migrated from working in my living room couch to working in coffee shops, McDonalds – pretty much anywhere with wifi or a decent 3G signal to tether on.
While these random work locations allowed me to socialize with people I’d never met before, I longed for a little more, and that’s what pushed me to start attending more than one or two WordCamps each year. Just this year so far, there have been more than 70 WordCamps held around the world, with another 5 or so to go, including the inaugural WordCamp US in Philadelphia.
To cut a long story short, this post is about how I got off the couch for a road trip across the south of America, hit up three WordCamps and met a whole lotta amazing and smart WordPress folks.
Hitting the US
On September 9, I loaded my bags into my car and was both excited and a little sad to leave my family for a three-week trip, taking in WordCamp Dallas/Fort Worth, WordCamp Las Vegas, and WordCamp Tampa.
WordCamp Dallas/Fort Worth
Dallas (#WCDFW) was my first stop on the tour. Touching down, the first thing I noticed, apart from the pointless automated machines in passport control!) was the heat – it was a scorcher!
I had the pleasure of meeting up with Michael Bissett, one of our support guys, for the first time in real life (IRL?). We spent the next few days working out of Starbucks and the Airbnb apartment we had rented. We also shared some great conversation whilst eating awesome BBQ, naturally.
On the morning of WordCamp Dallas/Fort Worth, I found a familiar and friendly face, Mendel Kurland from GoDaddy who mixes with WordPress folks as one of the company’s Evangelists. He quickly thrust a box of WordCamp swag into my arms, not for me, just to carry so he didn’t have to juggle or make multiple trips. Apparently he’s lazy like that! But seriously, Mendel is awesome. Not only did he give me a free drone at WordCamp Europe, he also single-handedly converted my opinion of GoDaddy. I know, crazy, right?
Our CTO Aaron Edwards and Michael Bissett from our support team.
We also met up with Aaron Edwards, our CTO, at the WordCamp. It’s funny meeting Aaron. For many new staff members at WPMU DEV, their first impression of Aaron is that he’s a little scary, when the truth is he’s like a big, soft, cuddly teddy, whom, may I add, I didn’t cuddle for fear of making things weird.
We signed in, grabbed our t-shirts, chatted with a bunch of great folks and then hit some of the sessions to listen to the speakers.
One thing I often find with WordCamps is that they don’t go technical enough, the presentations often cater to beginners. Where they shine for me is networking and just getting to know people. I like to find out how other companies manage support, how people perceive companies like ours, and how they like their call for help handled. Sometimes, I also bump into WPMU DEV members, which is both thrilling and kind of scary!
WordCamp Dallas/Fort Worth was only one day, which was slightly disappointing. It was too quick! I chatted briefly with Corey Miller from iThemes and only just managed to say hi to Lisa Sabin-Wilson from WebDevStudios. I had hoped for more time to chat with both of them, to try and pick their brains and pull from their experiences. Sometimes when talking to people of this caliber, you can get a fresh perspective on how to handle certain issues and experiences and get ideas of what might or maybe might not work better. I also love telling people about what we’ve done and are doing at WPMU DEV. For example, our support area looks like a forum, but behind the scenes it’s much more!
I thought, never mind, I’ll catch them later at the afterparty for a chat. The problem was, the afterparty was loud, as most are, and people get drunk, so whilst the conversation is free-flowing, it’s not always the right kind. Plus, time ran far too quickly and it was all over before I knew it. I’m off to Philly for WordCamp US in December so hopefully I’ll get another chance to pick their brains then if they are going along.
Me and developer David Morefield.
I also love finding out how people who work remotely balance their work life, homelife, and social life, especially the workaholics.
There were lots of people from 10up, iThemes and Crowd Favorite at WordCamp Dallas/Fort Worth. I’ve noticed lots of 10up employees at other WordCamps and it’s great to see companies getting out there and socializing – it shows business confidence in WordPress and the future it holds.
WCDFW came and went far too quickly and during the Uber ride back to our apartment after the afterparty, we made friends with the driver. I like to talk, apparently! Over the next few days, I continued to hang out with Michael, Aaron and his lovely wife Keisha. Oh, and the Uber driver a couple of times, too! Those few days basically involved working and eating lots more BBQ.
I uploaded many, many photos to Instagram of delicious BBQ goodness.
WordCamp Las Vegas
WordCamp Vegas, aka #WCLV, was the second stop on the road trip for Michael and me. This is also where we met up with Michelle Shull, another support star at WPMU DEV. Again, the next few days involved work and BBQ, often at the same time. Are you starting to see a pattern here?
WordCamp Vegas was one of my most favorite WordCamps – it just felt easier to meet people and have a chat. The event was held at The Innevation Center and the location was awesome. Well, the tables were. I want one, no, I need one!
I met a whole bunch of people in Vegas, including Shayda Torabi (WP Engine), Ben Fox (Sidekick.pro, FlowPress and WP University), Michael Tieso (Woo), Clancy (GoDaddy) and Kari Leigh Marucchi (Found Art Photography). Like WCDFW, WordCamp Vegas didn’t have a contributor day, but there was a second day of presentations, which was awesome. Shayda’s talk on the first day was about biting the bullet and socializing with people and making lasting relationships. Maybe it was this talk that set up an environment to foster interpersonal relationships.
I hate to say that WordCamps are cliquey, but WordCamps do feel cliquey, especially when you’re on your own. After chatting with attendees at a few WordCamps I’ve been to, many people feel the same way and I can see why – you’re essentially meeting lots of new faces and sometimes the odd WordPress celebrity. When people are stood together, it almost feels like school again, ya know – you don’t want to approach the popular kids while they’re in a group.
My words of advice are to break free, just go stand with them (in a non-creepy way!) and say hello, smile and when the opportunity arises jump in and join the conversation, just don’t hijack it! It’s tougher than it sounds, I know, and you can feel socially awkward at times, but just remember that it’s not a dream and you are still wearing all your own clothes – I hope!
My favorite thing about WordCamp Vegas was getting to know people – forget the talks, make it your aim to connect with other WordPress people, other real life human beings who you might otherwise never normally meet. Okay, don’t completely neglect the talks, they’re important, too! I guess what I’m saying is that WordCamps are more than just the sessions you can attend and what you can learn about WordPress – they’re also about the people and the community, which we all thrive upon, and it’s important for everyone to take part in that, even if it’s just a small part or just at WordCamps.
With WordCamp Vegas done and dusted, Michael, Michelle and I set out for the long drive to Tampa, all 2320 miles of it.
Of course, we stopped along the way. One of our first pitstops was in Phoenix where we met up with another WPMU DEVer, Joshua Dailey from our video team. Josh introduced me to bacon and avocado ice cream. Yes, you read that right. It was… erm… different. I kind of enjoyed it in a weird way.
A long and tiring journey then ensued. We hit El Paso and camped out there for a while, journeyed on to Austin and hung with Ronnie Burt from our sister site Edublogs, chatted about life, politics and the usual, work. We also indulged in some tacos for breakfast. I really enjoyed the long hours of driving – it was so relaxing, especially at night when everyone in the car was asleep and I could simply think and occasionally sing – it was a road trip after all! That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the company of the others, but it’s nice to be alone with one’s thoughts.
New Orleans was the next stop on our journey, a place is famous for its food and I love food! I tried fried alligator for the first time and enjoyed it. It has a texture like squid but tasted almost like chicken with a hint of the typical fish experience.
WordCamp Tampa
Our final stop was Florida for WordCamp Tampa. The first thing I’ll say about Tampa is OMG… I didn’t mind the heat so much, but the humidity!
Me with contributor Richard Tape and CalderaWP developer Josh Pollock.
After making some good connections at WordCamp Vegas, and based on the fact I enjoy talking to people, I decided to make this WordCamp about getting to know the other attendees and letting them know more about WPMU DEV and me. We’ve shared our successes and failures as a company and how we dealt with them.
The WP Engine team were like paparazzi at both WordCamp Vegas and WordCamp Tampa! It felt like around nearly every corner I turned there was a camera – I have no idea how much footage they caught of me, hopefully little! In retaliation, I stalked them with my camera and the result was a few embarrassing photos and some funky dance moves.
After WordCamp Tampa ended, Michelle went home and Michael and I just hung out. We even went to Bush Gardens and spent a day having pure fun, no work. I love rides and he does too, now!
Coming Up: WordCamp US
The next WordCamp for me will be in December when I hit up the first ever WordCamp US in Philadelphia on December 4-6. Our CTO Aaron will be one of the speakers at the event. Can’t wait!
If you’re in Philly, come chat to me! Let’s hang out and talk about WordPress. In fact, if you’re there before and after the event, you might even want to join some of us to work, or maybe just grab a bite to eat – I’ll be updating my Twitter account to publicly invite people to come meet up. We (read: I) love to talk!
See you at WordCamp US!
Many WPMU DEV staff members go along to WordCamps around the world. If you see us in a WPMU DEV t-shirt, say hello! If you work remotely and have a similar experience to mine, share your story in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you.
Have you ever wanted to add an event timeline on your site? Recently, one of our users wanted to display a vertical timeline of events that has an interactive experience. In this article, we will show you how to add beautiful event timeline in WordPress without changing your theme.
When and Who Needs Timeline Posts in WordPress
As the name suggests, a timeline is a visual representation of time as a line.
In web design, it is often used to display a timeline of events with images, text, video and other form of content to provide a visually appealing and highly interactive user experience.
Companies use timeline to display their historical information. Personal site owners can use it on their about pages or even for their blog page. If you run a travel or photography website, then you can display your photographs in a nice vertical timeline that shows your journey.
If you run an event website, then you can use the timeline to live blog your event or add posts about past events.
How To Add a Timeline in WordPress
First thing you need to do is install and activate the Timeline Express plugin. Upon activation, you need to visit Timeline Express » Add New Announcement to add your first announcement or event.
Simply provide a title for the announcement or event, then select color, date and icon. Timeline express comes with beautiful Font Awesome icon font built-in.
Next, you can provide an announcement image which will be used as the banner. This image should be at least 650px wide or larger. Below that you will find the post editor where you can enter further details about the announcement. You can add images and videos as well.
Once you finish adding your announcement, you can publish it. Repeat the process to add a few more announcements.
Displaying Timeline on Your Website
After you have created a few announcements, it is time to display them on your website. Simply create a new page in WordPress and give it a suitable title. Add the shortcode [timeline-express] in the post editor and click on the publish button.
That’s all you can now visit the page to see the timeline in action.
We hope this article helped you add events timeline in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to add Google calendar in WordPress.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Does your business require your clients to make appointments or book services ahead of time? Managing appointments and bookings on paper or through emails can become time consuming and inefficient over time – especially when your business starts to take off.
Whether you’re operating a hair salon, a consultancy or a bed and breakfast, you’ll need an appointments management system sooner or later.
We recently caught up with Ryan Procter of Tech City UK to talk about his organisation and how it uses WP Engine. Here’s part of that conversation.
Hi Ryan, thanks for taking the time to speak with us! Can you start with a quick introduction to yourself and your company?
My name is Ryan Procter; I work on Digital Communications for Tech City UK. We’re a government-funded organisation that aims to make the UK the best place to start and grow a digital business. We do this in three ways:
Policy convening and providing the digital business community with a feedback loop to the heart of government
Promotion of the UK digital ecosystem both in the UK and abroad through events, partnerships, and Tech Nation
Can you tell us about the types of challenges you faced when you first set-up your website?
When I joined Tech City UK a London-based development agency managed our website under our guidance, and we hosted our site via a US-based cloud computing company. Due to the speed at which the tech industry moves, we needed to be much more agile with the information we provide for the tech community and with the usability of the site.
We decided to migrate our site to WordPress to allow for constant iteration. When WP Engine got in touch it made a lot of sense to work with them –they have an EMEA presence and a team of experts that can provide 24/7 support. In addition, WP Engine’s platform allows for more customisation and makes the development, testing, and deployment quick, simple, and cost-effective.
Has this change lived up to your expectations, and what benefits has it brought to your company?
The change has definitely lived up to our expectations, and we’re now much more agile in our approach to site development. Using WP Engine also ensures that when new programmes are launched, we’ve got much more synchronisation across each of the respective websites.
WP Engine provides a staging site for pre-launch development, which makes it simple for feedback and iteration without affecting anything that is already live. Once the development is finalised, the WP Engine team is always on hand to assist. WP Engine also offers a number of easy-to-use guides, which makes it simple for digital entrepreneurs to launch their new products.
Would you recommend WP Engine to others in your industry?
For digital businesses that use WordPress, WP Engine really is tailored to make their lives as easy as possible. We’ve now got an array of programmes designed to help UK tech companies at every stage. For the programmes which have a website on WP Engine, the platform makes it very simple for us to develop and synchronise the organisation as a whole.
Want to read more stories from WP Engine customers? Each weekday in November we’ll unveil a new customer story as part of our WP Engine Customer Spotlight series.
First-time visitors to your site don’t necessarily need to see the same stuff in your navigation as regular – or logged in – visitors. The solution? Personalized navigation tailored to your users.
In this scenario, when members of your site log in, custom links would appear in the navigation to take them to special pages, like their profile or account page, a forum, or even a member’s area. Meanwhile, new users who aren’t logged in would see your primary set of navigation links and not pages intended for members eyes only.
With our Membership 2 Pro and Custom Sidebars Pro plugins, you can create a membership site with ease and add custom navigation tailored to your users and what you want them to see – or not see.
In this post, I’ll walk you through how to set up both plugins and show you how you can create custom sidebar navigation that automatically updates based on the pages users visit on your site or if they’re logged in.
Easily create and dynamically display custom sidebars on posts and pages to supercharge your widgets.
Before You Get Started
It’s important to backup your entire site before making any changes to your site so if something goes wrong you can easily restore it.
Now that you have the basics of Membership 2 Pro set up, it’s time to add your content to pages and posts, then make them available only to members.
For example, in addition to the actual content pages you would like only your members to see, you can also create the following kinds of navigation pages in Membership 2:
Members’ homepage – Where you have your welcome message and an explanation of the member’s area
Account page – Membership 2 Pro automatically creates an Account page where users can edit their member details.
Contact page – A custom page with details on how members can contact you if they have specific issues relating to their membership.
Registration page – Membership 2 Pro includes an add-on that enables you to allow members to register for multiple memberships at one time. You could create a page for additional memberships, courses or whatever else you would like to create.
You’re only limited by your imagination so you can create any other pages that are relevant to your membership site. It’s important to first create the content you would like to have available to members and protect them as you go.
Once you’ve created your membership content, you can add any relevant links to your member navigation.
If you would like to limit certain categories or posts to members only, start by going to Membership 2 > Add-ons in your dashboard. Next, click on the sliding button to turn on the Category Protection or Individual Posts add-ons depending on your needs.
Choose the additional content you need protected on the Add-ons page.
You can also choose to enable media, shortcodes, specific URL protection and more on this page. Enable all the add-ons you need, then start creating your membership content.
If you want to enable category protection, you can configure the settings under Membership 2 > Protection Rules > Categories.
You can choose to protect any category you have already set up and make it available to specific memberships.
The interface is similar to your All Posts page in the admin where all your categories are listed. You can select them and apply bulk actions, or set options for them individually. To do this, hover over one of the category titles and click on the Modify Access link that appears.
You can set individual membership access by enabling protection on the post or page you’re working on.
If you have the Individual Posts add-on enabled, you should see the same option on the top right in the post editor as you would for new pages.
Clicking the button to Enable Protection reveals the list of your current membership levels. Click the slide button to limit content to the memberships of your choice.
Once you’re done creating your page or post, schedule or publish it as you normally would and your content will become available to the users you chose.
When you’ve finished creating all the pages that you want to make available to your members, you’re ready to create your navigation menu.
Create Your Custom Navigation
Go to Appearance > Widgets in your admin dashboard to start creating new sidebars for your custom navigation. At the top right-hand side of the page, click on the Create a new sidebar button.
An inline pop-up will appear where you can enter the name and description of your new sidebar.
The new sidebar’s name and description isn’t displayed publicly.
You can also click the Advanced checkbox to enter custom HTML wrapper code if you would like, but it’s optional.
Once you’re done, click the Create Sidebar button at the bottom. Your new sidebar should now be displayed on the page. You can now drag widgets across as you normally would.
Just drag and drop your desired widgets into your new sidebar area.
Place the Pages widget in your new sidebar and go ahead and configure it. Even better, create a custom menu through Appearance > Menus, then add the Custom Menu widget to your sidebar.
You could also use the Text widget to further customize your links with HTML and even add images to appear as your links.
No matter which widget you choose, be sure to click the Save button in the widget options after you place them in your sidebar to ensure all your customizations are kept.
Finally, add the [Membership2] Login widget to your sidebar. It will display a login form to regular visitors and a log out button to members who are logged in.
You can customize the pages that users are directed to when they log in and out.
Choose the title you would like to display in your sidebar and then enter the URLs of the pages you want your users to be directed to when they log in and out. You can also enter shortcode options if you like.
You can choose where your new sidebar should appear on your site.
Add Your Navigation and Custom Content
When you’re done entering everything in, click the Save button at the bottom of the widget options.
Next, click the Sidebar Location link displayed at the bottom of the sidebar area. This is where you can choose where your sidebar appears.
On the inline pop-up that appears, select the checkbox for the option called As Widget Area for selected Post Types.
Choose a type of area where your sidebar should appear like posts or pages.
Next, select the Membership2 Memberships option to display your sidebar on all pages that are protected, as well as the Membership2 Invoices option for displaying the sidebar on invoices. You can also select the Posts and Pages options if you would like your sidebar to be displayed on all posts and pages.
You can select multiple options from the list by pressing the command key and clicking on the options for Mac OS X or pressing down the control key and left clicking on the list items for PCs.
You can set the sidebar for specific posts or pages.
Make the selections that best fit your or you can choose the individual pages and posts where you want your sidebar to appear by selecting them in the editor.
To add a sidebar to an individual page, go to Pages > All Pages, then click the Edit button on one of the items listed.
In the Sidebars section, you can select your sidebar from the drop down box. Click Update or Publish to save the post or page and you’re done.
Your new sidebar is now ready for your members to use as a user-friendly navigation area.
Creating a custom sidebar with navigation links only logged in users can see is easy.
Custom Navigation
If you’ve ever wanted to add custom navigation to your website, Membership 2 Pro and Custom Sidebars Pro can help you get it done.
Once set up, your members will see links specific to them, while first-time and logged out visitors will see your primary navigation bar without all the members-only content.
Would you use this kind of custom navigation on your site? What kind of navigation do you currently use? Feel free to share your experience in the comments below.
Today we teamed up with BizzThemes to let you participate in this great giveaway. You have a chance to win 1 of 3 licenses of WooCommerce Appointments plugin.
Here we provide a weekly recap of the biggest stories from torquemag.io. Dedicated to informing new and advanced WordPress users about the industry, Torque is a hub for WordPress news, business, and community. Here are some of last week’s top stories from Torque:
WordPress Multisite is a powerful feature that enables users to run a network of websites from one WordPress install. Read this in-depth guide to learn about the advantages of Multisite, best (and worst) use cases, as well as how to set it up.
Join us Wednesday, November 18 at 11 a.m. CST for a free webinar on how you can kickstart your WordPress site with the help of the dynamic tool that is the WordPress REST API. Read more about it and register here. (Even if you can’t attend, by signing up you’ll still receive a link via email to view the recorded session once over.)
Web developers come in all types — they have different attitudes and take different approaches to accomplishing tasks. Check out this fun article to read about the five types of developers and the superhero that they’d most likely be.
