Permanent Tourist

by Mark Howells-Mead

Posts about code

  • WordPress expert Mark Howells-Mead

    Easier alternative string translation using Advanced Custom Fields

    There are several translation plugins in the WordPress ecosystem, each of which has its strengths and weaknesses when it comes to translating and managing multilingual content. There is also the brilliant plugin Loco Translate, which I’ve been using for a very long time to translate English strings in plugins and themes. (Usually German, French and…

  • Making a legible date string from two dates in PHP

    The user experience nicety of a legible date string.

  • Reusability thanks to modular coding

    My erstwhile mentor in Brienz taught me throughout our years working together that if a website functionality is worth creating, it’s worth creating so that it can be used in more than one project. Programme once, install many times. This is a credo I’ve maintained since I started programming for content management systems and one…

  • Percentage-based CSS column layouts

    Laying out a page using percentage-based columns seems to be pretty easy. However, in responsive layouts, you’ll quickly run into problems if you don’t take legibility into account. The most obvious case is when the columns are predominantly text-based, where a suitable gutter between the columns is essential for the sake of legibility. (If you…

  • Include timestamp as readable date using SQL (no PHP)

    Code snippet for SQL use, to include a formatted version of a timestamp field in database query results.

  • WordPress function: getting attachment and thumbnail captions for a post

    It’s rare that I post anything heavily internet-related or even extremely code-geeky, so please skip this entry if it’s of no interest! I was asked today if I knew how to get the captions of Post attachments in WordPress and so I knocked up the following two functions; one which returns an array of all…

  • getURL and target “_self” not working?

    If you’re a Flash or web developer, then you may come across a security-invoked problem whereby links inside your Flash movie don’t react, when you try and open a link within the current browser window. Crazy, I know, but bear with me. I have no idea why this should be so – I’m sure someone…