My New Plugin

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You can now download my new plugin EASILY Add Google Analytics Tracking Code. It's the first plugin in the EASILY plugins family. EASILY plugins is a new concept of software products I'm developing. EASILY plugins come from the realization: people are busy, people have a life, people have enough problems already without also having to deal with the overcomplicated software that most software companies put out there. Yes, people want things that "just work." And they are extremely grateful when somebody makes their life a bit less complicated. But unfortunately, this is rarely the case with software in general and with WordPress plugins in particular. Why "easy" plugins are rarely truly easy Over the years I've noticed that one of the biggest problems in Tech is that most people working in the creation of software are 'too geeky.' And one of the problems that most geeks have (although there are notable exceptions, of course) is that they struggle to put themselves in the shoes of non-geeky people. They know so much about Tech and they enjoy so much dealing with complex software filled with uncountable settings, that they can't anymore think like people who are not as familiar with computers as they are. That's why most software products, apps, or plugins labeled as "EASY" or as "SIMPLE" are very rarely easy or simple enough. Because they are created by geeks. Those "easy" plugins are the idea of what a geek, that is, a person who is highly-technically-minded, thinks is easy. Yes, these so-called "easy" plugins tend to have somewhat fewer options, screens, and settings. But never as few as normal users really need. Also, their user interfaces are maybe a bit less cluttered, but they are never truly straightforward. There's still too much noise, too much learning curve. Maybe for the geek who created the plugin, that learning curve is nothing. But for the busy non-technical person who just wants to do one specific task quickly and go on with their lives, those 15 minutes of fumbling around till they make the "easy" plugin work are a burden. Those minutes add up to all the other small nuisances and small learning curves that make their fully-packed lives so stressful. My TRULY easy plugins Fortunately, I was once a non-technically-minded person myself. I was even a technically-clumsy person, I could say. Now, after years in Tech, despite having become a web developer and making a great living out of it, my innermost nature isn't still truly technical. There's still a clumsy, information-overloaded guy in me who pops up in the least expected times. Why, I'm the type of person that is capable of puzzling for a few minutes over the instructions of how to heat a pre-made meal! So when I create plugins, I really know what a non-technical, information-overloaded person feels when having to deal with Tech. Every feature I create, every design decision I make is tailored to their needs, to making their lives … Read More

Create a WordPress plugin in 1 minute

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You are not gonna believe me but in one-minute's time, you will have become the creator of a real WordPress plugin.  It’s gonna be a simple plugin, but it doesn’t matter how simple it is because it is ESSENTIAL that you create your first plugin ASAP. Creating your first plugin will help you breach the psychological barrier that so many newbie WordPress developer have. That ‘Oh, no plugins are just on a whole different level of complexity, I’m just a newbie. I'll tackle it one day’ state of mind. I know that state of mind well because I once was there too. It took me years after I created my first WordPress website till I thought I was ready to tackle it. And I'm sure I wouldn't have waited that long if I had known how simple a WordPress plugin can be. After you have created this simple plugin. You will see how a plugin is nothing different to what you already do when tweaking WordPress themes. Creating this fist plugin will make you lose your fear and reverence to that other side of WordPress. Perhaps, creating it, will even motivate to create a more complex plugin or, go crazy and build your first plugin to be publicly released on the WordPress directory. So let’s start NOW. Let’s do it without further ado. I'll be gentle with you. It won't hurt I promise. You just need to have your computer ready and a text editing app, and the rest is really just one minute. So get yourself ready because we are counting down. Three, two, one… GO! 1Open a new document in a plain text editor like TextEdit or Notepad 2Paste in the following code This is all the code you need to create a plugin The top part of the code tells WordPress your plugin details like plugin name, plugin author, plugin version, etc. The bottom contains the functional part of your plugin (the code that does something). In our case what our plugin does is to add a signature at the bottom of any post or page that says: This entry was written by Matias. 3But this is YOUR first plugin NOT my first plugin! So you need to personalize it. To personalize it you need to replace my name with yours in two places: For example, if your name is Mary Smith, in the 6th line of your code replace Matias Garrido with Mary Smith. And in the 14th line replace replace Matias with Mary 4Save your document as 1-minute-wordpress-plugin.php 5Create a folder and call it 1-minute-wordpress-plugin  As you can see the WordPress convention for plugins is to use the same name for plugin .php file and for the plugin folder. 6Put your  1-minute-wordpress-plugin.php file inside your  1-minute-wordpress-plugin folder. 7Compress your  1-minute-wordpress-plugin folder. For example, to compress a folder on a Mac you just need to right-click on that folder and on the menu that comes up select the option: Compress “1-minute-wordpress-plugin” THAT’S IT!!!! The resulting zip file 1-minute-wordpress-plugi.zip is your first … Read More