Blog - Cameron Jones

From useful code snippets to developer tutorials and presentations, here’s where you’ll find my regular ramblings about WordPress, web development, Human Resources and tech. I usually publish a new post every month.

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How Do You Manage A Declining Plugin?

January 1, 2024

Cameron Jones

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Facebook Page Plugin, WordPress

In April 2015 I took my first step into the WordPress ecosystem by releasing the Mongoose Page Plugin. It took off very quickly, and grew to more than 30,000 installs within the first 3 years. The other day I noticed that the active install count had dropped to 10,000+. From the peak of more than…

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Save Time Creating Content With Block Templates – Page Builder Summit 6.0

September 20, 2023

Cameron Jones

1 Comment

Gutenberg, Speaking Engagements, WordPress

I recently presented Save Time Creating Content With Block Templates at the Page Builder Summit 6.0, and you can find the resources from my talk here.

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Catch Me At The Page Builder Summit 6.0!

September 6, 2023

Cameron Jones

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Gutenberg, Speaking Engagements, WordPress

I’m excited to announce that I’m speaking at the Page Builder Summit 6.0. The summit is running from September 18th to 22nd, and there’s a ton of awesome talks scheduled. Best of all, it’s free to attend! I’ll be presenting Save Time Creating Content With Block Templates. Some of the key takeaways you’ll get from…

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WordCamp Europe 2023 Wrapup

July 3, 2023

Cameron Jones

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WordCamp, WordPress

I recently spent a whirlwind weekend in Athens for WordCamp Europe 2023. For much of the last 3-4 years I wasn’t sure if I would even get to attend a WordCamp again. The WordPress community in Australia has been very slow to recover from COVID, so this was not only my first WordCamp outside of…

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Adding A Custom Icon To The Social Links Block Should Not Be This Hard

October 12, 2022

Cameron Jones

5 Comments

Gutenberg, WordPress

I recently came across the need to add a custom icon to the Social Links block in WordPress. The icon I needed to add was for a platform called PlayHQ, a sports league management platform for many major sports in Australia. While it’s not exactly a social media platform, it’s pretty important to have quick…

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Why I’m Not Sold On ‘Five For The Future’

August 11, 2022

Cameron Jones

2 Comments

WordPress

There has been a concerted effort to promote WordPress’ “Five For The Future” initiative in recent times. According to WordPress.org: Five for the Future encourages organizations to contribute five percent of their resources to WordPress development. Lately however, it’s been less “encouraging” and more “demanding” and slander campaigns against those who don’t hit that mark….

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Why WordPress’ Diminishing Market Share Shouldn’t Come As A Surprise

May 12, 2022

Cameron Jones

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WordPress

As highlighted by Joost de Valk and WP Tavern, WordPress’ market share has first stagnated and now fallen since the start of the year. Considering how long WordPress has enjoyed consistent growth, some people will be rightly surprised and/or concerned about what that means for WordPress. Here’s my hot take on why it shouldn’t be…

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How To Prevent var_dump From Being Truncated When Using Local By Flywheel

April 8, 2022

Cameron Jones

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Local by Flywheel, WordPress

PHP’s var_dump is one of the most handy functions around, allowing you to see any sort of data in a practically human readable format. If you’re like me and do a lot of work with external APIs, it’s indispensable when it comes to figuring out the type of data your responses are. Unfortunately if you…

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How To Get The Excerpt By Post ID

October 25, 2021

Cameron Jones

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WordPress

Most WordPress templating functions are available in two formats, one to echo and one to return. These are normally in the form of the_xxx() to display, and get_the_xxx() to return. Some examples of this are: Post title: the_title() and get_the_title() Post thumbnail: the_post_thumbnail() and get_the_post_thumbnail() Aside from differing in returning or displaying the response, the…

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