IEWP Monthly Meetup - July 2016 Edition - Inland Empire WordPress Community

Recap of the July Meetup.

July was an amazing month for the WordPress Community in Southern California. The Inland Empire WordPress Group came together and discussed pertinent topics for growing as a WordPress Developer and moving their career forward with the WordPress technology.

Pre Meetup Dinner

For pre-meetup dinner we went to Heroes restaurant in Riverside. Aside from the great camaraderie and conversation this restaurant was an absolute jewel. We kind of mutually decided that this would be the location for future pre-meetup dinners. The three benefits of Heroes restaurant include the fact that:

The Location is close to the meetup.
The Portions are huge and not incredibly expensive.
They have BBQ!

At The Meetup

This was the first meetup where @jessboctor actually did the announcements. Jess graciously offered to take over these announcements for each month.

Some of the usual things covered in the announcements included

Upcoming WordCamps
Online Resources
Previous WordCamp Recap
Personal Introductions

Topics Covered & Resource Links

Presentation: WP Site Sync

After the announcements were covered we had a short presentation by @greggfranklin on the new DesktopServer Plugin that was released at WordCamp San Diego Called WP SiteSync . This plugin enables you to transfer content in WordPress like single pages & posts at the press of a button! It really is like magic and will enable you to create an awesome Workflow with your projects and clients that is a bit easier. It is free to download from the WordPress Repository or directly from their website https://wpsitesync.com.

Open Floor Topics & Links

After Gregg’s presentation we proceeded with an open floor format to ask and answer questions of members of the meetup group. If you have not come to our meetups with your website questions please do so in the future because this is the perfect place to get those questions answered.

The topics we covered Included:

The WordPress Settings API – I ( @verioussmith) created a plugin using a tutorial from YouTube. The tutorial playlist on YouTube has unfortunately since been deleted. However this API is well documented in the codex. This topic was a bit more on the advanced side but if you would like to visit the documentation on the Codex, here is the link: https://codex.wordpress.org/Settings_API
Creating a Custom WordPress Theme – One of the members named Kia is actually attempting to go the custom theme route and we talked a bit about his efforts and the direction he should go. We actually shared a playlist from youtube that he could follow. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLriKzYyLb28kpEnFFi9_vJWPf5-_7d3rX
Template Hierarchy – Thise is one of those keys to understanding how WordPress works. We went over this document from the Code: https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/basics/template-hierarchy/ & https://developer.wordpress.org/files/2014/10/template-hierarchy.png
Video Tutorial By Chris Coyier – Here is the link to a tutorial by Chris Coyier that was referenced amidst the other conversations. https://css-tricks.com/lodge/artists-website/
Foundation & Heisenberg – These were two frameworks mentioned to Kia in the midst of talking about starter themes to build what he wanted to build and Frameworks. Links: http://foundation.zurb.com/develop/getting-started.html & https://github.com/ZeekInteractive/heisenberg
Steve Zehngut’s Talk – This talk was mentioned while chatting about starter themes & frameworks . Steve Zehngut is the organizer of the Orange County WordPress Meetup group and the founder of Zeek Interactive. His company created the previously mentioned Heisenberg framework & he gave a talk on this at WordCamp Orange County in 2014. Here is the link: http://wordpress.tv/2014/06/11/steve-zehngut-build-a-wordpress-theme-with-foundation-and-underscores/