June 30, 2022 – Fuel Your Blog

June 30, 2022September 9, 2024

WordPress Themes Team Releases New Plugin for Creating Block Themes

Two weeks ago, WordPress theme author Rich Tabor tweeted, “Even with my theme developer hat on, I’m finding it easier and easier to create block themes ~ within ~ WordPress. I’m positive one day (soon) this will be the norm.”

It looks like that day has arrived sooner than expected, as Automattic has had a team working on this capability for awhile. Today, a group of eight full-time sponsored Themes Team contributors released a plugin called Create Block Theme that can create standalone block themes and child themes inside the WordPress admin.

The idea is that users can design their own themes using full-site editing features and then export their finished creation as a theme that can be installed on any other WordPress site. Ben Dwyer shared a video called Designing a theme in the WordPress Editor where designer Beatriz Fialho demonstrated the possibilities. She created a unique new theme using full-site editing features in just a couple of hours.

The plugin offers a variety of exports for different use cases. Users can export their work in the following ways:

Export the active theme with user changes included
Export a child theme with the active theme as the parent theme
Export a clone a new theme based on the active theme with user changes
Overwrite the theme files to include the user changes as part of the theme
Export a blank theme into the site’s themes directory

All of these export options are available under Appearance >> Create Block Theme.

“This plugin is aimed at theme builders – both designers and developers,” Dwyer said in the announcement. “It is useful for sharing your designs between multiple sites or users. If you’re just building a site for yourself you probably don’t need it.”

I tested the plugin with the child theme option and it worked as expected. I was able to install it on another site with its unique name and template changes instantly applied. The export screen allows users to give the theme a name, description, and author information, which is saved to the new theme’s style.css file.

“At the moment the UI of this plugin is totally separate from Gutenberg,” Dwyer said. “In time we expect more integration with the Site Editor UI, to make it easier to access these features.

It would be helpful if the theme creation options allowed users to upload a unique screenshot that would be packaged with the theme download. I added this as an issue on the plugin’s GitHub repository, where anyone is welcome to contribute.

The Create Block Theme plugin makes designing and authoring a WordPress theme more approachable than ever before. It has the potential to rapidly increase the number of block themes available, if designers understand how to use it and submit their works to the Themes Directory. The Training Team is currently working on a course for Learn WordPress that will teach people how to create block themes using this plugin.

Create Block Theme was released under the WordPress.org plugins account and can be installed by searching for the plugin’s name in quotes.

June 30, 2022

5 Benefits of Electronic Data Interchange

The world of corporations can be difficult if you are not moving with the pace of the industry. Having a solid communication channel while aligning with other organizations is one of the crucial Aspects of the business today. While there was a time when maintaining accurate records and keeping the communication fast was a challenge for many organizations, today, EDI solutions have made it super easy for them.

Electronic data interchange has been one of the most required technologies that have simplified the basic data transfer and communication among two partnered organizations. You see, companies can't handle everything on their own. There are operations that companies prefer to keep in-house, while there are tasks that need to be outsourced. Partnering with other niche organizations is a great way to maintain quality in the operations. However, the basics of such collaborations depend majorly on the quality of communication that these two have.

June 30, 2022

Quantum Computers Explained

Human technology, for the majority of our history, was limited to our brains, fire, and sharp objects. The biggest advancement has been made to human brains, while fire and sharp objects evolved into power plants and nuclear weapons.

Since the 1960s, the power of our brain machines has continued to increase dramatically, enabling computers to become smaller while also becoming more potent. But the physical boundaries of this process are about to be reached. Computer components are getting closer to atom size. We must establish certain fundamentals in order to comprehend why this is an issue.

June 30, 2022September 8, 2024

Windward Launches API Insights Lab to Empower the Maritime Industry

Windward, a company that leverages artificial intelligence to provide advanced analytics to the maritime industry, has announced a new API Insights Lab that is intended to provide its partners with streamlined access to its API products. This new product utilized GraphQL and is available immediately.

June 30, 2022September 8, 2024

How to Add an Author’s Photo in WordPress

Do you want to add an author’s photo in WordPress?

By default, most WordPress themes show the author’s gravatar as their profile picture. However, authors may want to replace this gravatar with another image.

In this article, we will show you how to add an author’s photo in WordPress.

When Do You Need to Add an Author’s Photo in WordPress?

If you run a multi-author WordPress site, then you may decide to add an author info box in WordPress posts. These author bio boxes typically show the author’s profile photo, a brief bio, and link to their website or social profiles.

By default, most WordPress themes use the person’s gravatar as their author photo. However, sometimes you may prefer to use a different image for the author photo.

As a WordPress website owner you may even have rules about the kind of photos you want to show in your author bio boxes. For example, maybe you require your authors to use a professional headshot.

If the author’s gravatar doesn’t meet your rules, then you may want to edit their profile and upload an image that better suits your WordPress blog.

With that in mind, let’s see how you can add an author’s photo in WordPress.

How to Add an Author’s Photo in WordPress

The easiest way to add an author photo in WordPress is by using the PublishPress Authors plugin. This plugin lets authors edit their own profile and author photo by adding a new ‘Author Profile’ area to their WordPress dashboard.

It also gives site admins the power to edit the author’s profile including changing their photo.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the PublishPress Authors plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, head over to Authors » Settings. You can then go ahead and click on the ‘Display’ tab.

Once you’ve done that, open the ‘Layouts’ dropdown and choose a layout that includes an author photo.

Let’s look at your options.

The default layout is ‘Boxed.’ This shows the author’s information in a box, complete with their author photo.

The ‘Centered’ layout is similar to the boxed layout, but with all of the author’s information centered inside the author bio box.

‘Inline with avatar’ and ‘Simple List’ are both layouts that includes space for an author photo. Here’s an example of the Simple List layout.

Just be aware that those two layouts don’t have space for a bio. Even if the author has added a bio, it won’t be shown on your website.

After choosing your layout, click on the ‘Save Changes’ button. You can now visit your website to see the author photos on your WordPress posts and pages.

Anyone who has registered on your site with the Author role will now be able to upload a photo using the ‘Author Profile’s settings in their WordPress dashboard.

How To Change an Author’s Photo in WordPress

As admin, you can also use PublishPress Authors to change any of the individual author photos that appear on your website. This is useful if an author chooses a photo that isn’t a good fit for your site.

To change an author’s photo, simply go to Authors » Authors.

You will now see a list of all the authors who are registered with your WordPress blog.

From here, you can click on an author’s ‘Edit Author Profile’ link.

Then, just click the ‘Image’ tab.

By default, PublishPress will try to find a gravatar that’s linked to the author’s email address. To use a different author photo, click on the ‘Custom image’ radio button.

Once you’ve done that, click on ‘Select Image.’ You can now choose any image from your WordPress media library, or upload a new image.

Then, just click on the ‘Update’ button.

Your website will now use this new image as the author’s photo.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add an author’s photo in WordPress. You can also go through our comparison of the best WordPress membership plugins, or see our expert guide on how to install Google analytics 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.

The post How to Add an Author’s Photo in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

June 30, 2022

A Complete Guide to Generated Columns in MySQL

MySQL generated columns pose as a powerful, easy-to-use, and advanced tool for anyone who wants to add automatically generated data to their tables - in this blog, we will learn everything you need to know to master them.

Generated columns allow you to store automatically generated data in a table without using the INSERT and UPDATE clauses. This useful feature has been part of MySQL since version 5.7, and it represents an alternative approach to triggers when it comes to generating data. Also, generated columns can help you make your query easier and more efficient.

June 30, 2022

Purpose-Driven Microservice Design

Buzzwords aren’t something I expected when I started my career. In those days, most of the technology news arrived in paper-based weekly publications like InformationWeek and Network World. I remember thinking to myself, “Man, they are using these same words over and over again each week.”

That translated to people using buzzwords … all the time. Back then, my two favorite buzzwords were references to the internet as the “world wide web” and the “information superhighway.” I always wondered if there would be a super-duper-highway at some point.