This post walks through my process of creating the Juxtapose Block for the WordPress block editor. The block implements the JuxtaposeJS library by Knight Lab which allows you to place two images side-by-side and use a slider to reveal the difference between them. Here’s an example: Breaking down the problem When creating a block, I […]
Articles
Block Rocking WordPress
WordPress 5.0 introduces a new editor based around blocks. The editor is the first phase of a larger project developed under the Gutenberg name. This post is part three in my unplanned series: Part I – Creating a Gutenberg Block from October 2017 covers how to extend Gutenberg with a basic block. I wrote a […]
Gutenberg blocks without the build step
You can create Gutenberg blocks in ES6 code without the build step, this makes it easier to maintain and develop. I switched over my Code Syntax Highlighting block and am much happier for it. All of the Gutenberg examples by default use ES5 code, which already does not require transpiling with webpack, but they also include […]
My Debugging Process
Here is the process I go through when trying to debug a tricky coding problem. First, I run a private personal blog which I use for debugging and taking coding notes. You can consider this your coding journal, and whatever tool works for you. I find something digital works better, since you can use HTML […]
Summer Sabbatical
My company, Automattic, has the wonderful perk of a 3-month sabbatical every 5 years. Amazingly enough, I’m already an old-timer and been there over 5-years, so this summer I took my sabbatical. I timed it to be off the same time as the kids for summer, so I didn’t work for June, July, and August. […]
Ubuntu Guide for Mac Converts
Here are some tips and tricks to help Mac users adjust to Ubuntu and Linux. I was a die hard Mac user ever since OS X was released in 2001. The combination of a Unix core and real desktop apps was a perfect match for desktop and development. However times change, with Apple’s focus on […]
Ethernet, FTW!
I’ve been interested in running a caching DNS server off my Raspberry Pi for awhile, and with the recent Cloudflare announcement of their new DNS service and discussion around it, seemed like a good time to set it up. Pi-hole I setup my device with Pi-hole a great bit of software which was easy to […]
Terminal Heatmap Chart
Awhile ago I created a simple script to create bar charts on the command-line for when I published my running year in review, 2017 example here. I published the script on Github and surprisingly have received a few contributors over the years, recently a couple of students from Greece did a nice upgrade to numerous […]
Automate deleting your tweets with a Raspberry Pi
I’m a tweet deleter. I do not think of Twitter as a great archive of knowledge but more a mere feed and notification system. It is basically an internet wide RSS feed, so no need to treat anything in it too preciously. Delete away everyone. I’ve written a couple of one off scripts previously to […]
Gutenberg can do that!
A new editor is coming to WordPress, the project code name is Gutenberg but at some point it will be just the WordPress editor, for now it is referred to as Gutenberg or the Gutenberg editor. The focus of this article is on some of the new features you can do with Gutenberg. If you […]
Code Syntax Highlighting in Gutenberg
I’ve developed a WordPress plugin which extends the core Gutenberg code block adding color syntax highlighting. If you are using Gutenberg to display code and want some color, install and check it out. It is available at github.com/mkaz/code-syntax-block. I initially started to build as a separate block, but that introduced the issue of converting existing […]
Beyond Ad Blocking
Ad blockers are one way to make the internet a slightly nicer place. However, more can be done, especially when it comes to helping yourself from making bad decisions, like reading the comments. First, you need a browser extension which allows you to run your own CSS. The most popular is probably Stylish which has […]