Being a software integrator and working by myself means spending a lot of time with Dr Google trying to solve the knotty problems I inevitably meet. I am very thankful to the generous developers who have shared their knowledge on forums and blogs with others. This part of my site is an attempt to “pay it forward”.
Magento – Product not showing in frontend search/category view
May 2020: This solution is for an old version of Magento. I have had comments that it no longer works on the current version. You may want to try anyway. If you have a [...]
Magento :: Images showing on frontend but not backend
In a Magento project, I bulk deleted all images to start again. I thought I accomplished this by deleting all images from /media/catalog/product, and all records from tables catalog_product_entity_media_gallery and catalog_product_entity_media_gallery_value. However there was one step I [...]
Magento :: JPG Images Looking Blurry In Category View
This solution worked for me on Magento 1.9.0.1. To cut down file upload time and file size, I first suggested my client try uploading JPGs of quality 80, and see if that looked okay. For [...]
Magento :: Installing Magmi to Bulk Import Products
Acknowledgement - I have to say I wouldn't have even installed Magmi without the contribution of Raymond from Blinkdata. I couldn't find any other helpful documentation online. I'm adding my $0.02 now to fill in [...]
Magento :: Changing the Default Product Quantity
When you look at a product page, you don't want your customer to have to change the quantity from 0 to 1 before adding the product to cart. To find the setting that makes the [...]
Magento :: Configurable Products – Remove ‘Choose an Option…’ without touching Javascript
If you have configurable products for Magento, and one of the super product attributes only has one option, the default "Choose an Option..." is a big fat negative for useability, and guaranteed to tick off [...]
Magento :: Configurable Products – Bulk Change Order of Attributes/Options
After you've made your configurable product with more than one option, changing the order is simple. 1. Navigate to Catalog > Manage Products > 2. Select your configurable product record. 3. Associated Products tab. 4. [...]
MAMP – MySQL won’t restart after Windows crash
My Windows crashed (blue screen) one day while I was updating a WordPress website on MAMP. When the computer rebooted, MySQL would not restart, and I spent the next 4 hours sweating, trying to [...]
HTTP error when uploading images to WordPress on MAMP/XAMP
If you're not using WordPress on MAMP/XAMP, you should look at this article instead: 13 (other) ways to fix HTTP error on WordPress When you get HTTP error when uploading images to WordPress on [...]
WordPress – get_posts with a custom post type and taxonomy or category page
This is a complete example of how you would set up a custom post type for books with category of genre, and a special page template for the category (genre). I find that getting the [...]
WordPress – SQL query to output post_title, categories and tags
I needed to export a table of all posts with their categories and tags for the team to update ready to import back into WordPress with WP All Import. This is the query I used. [...]
JavaScript – tracking a button click or download event with Google Analytics and Avada
Under normal circumstances, you can code your link so that it includes an onclick Javascript event that can fire a Google Analytics function. WordPress page builder plugins tend not to play nicely with this in my [...]
WordPress – Customise BACS display for WooCommerce on Thankyou Page and emails
The default BACS display for WooCommerce wasn't working for me, based in Australia where the end user expects to see Bank name: ING BSB: 923-100 Account name: Melissa Freeman Account number: 12345678 I discovered that to change/customise [...]
WordPress – remove additional intermediate media sizes
I have been using the Avada theme quite happily for a few of my sites, up until I noticed what it was doing to the uploads folder! I kid you not, the theme was creating [...]
WordPress – Bulk remove WooCommerce products or attributes with SQL commands
Here are two handy SQL commands that are probably most helpful if you are doing bulk imports. I am using WP All Import, and sometimes I find that my Layered Nav disappears after an import. [...]
WordPress – can’t fix or remove -2 in pretty permalink or slug for a post
I wasted several hours today on a crazy problem where I was using pretty permalinks in WordPress 4.0. The website is a car dealership, and I needed to create a page with the title as "86". [...]
WordPress – image upload not working – HTTP error on WordPress 4.0
I came across this problem for the first time today. Between one day and the next, image upload started giving an error. The files were still uploading, but not being crunched (resized into different [...]
WordPress – adding drop-shadow to the Bootstrap nav-menu
Sometimes, I come across free coding tools that are brilliant. CSSMatic has a box-shadow tool that lets you play with different CSS settings to find the perfect drop-shadow, then spits out the CSS for you. Fiddling [...]
WordPress – Bootstrap + WordPress settings API
Lately I've been getting my hands dirty with Bootstrap, in particular with a Bootstrap starter framework at Bootswatch. The number of built-in elements is impressive. No wonder the WordPress themes I've used recently have proudly declared [...]
WordPress – Fix poor image display quality with Regenerate Thumbnails
If you find that your images are showing up as blurry on your blog, you need the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin. The usual cause is that you or your template is using different sizes to your [...]
WordPress – What to do if Contact Form 7 isn’t working
Contact Form 7 is a popular plugin for WordPress for making contact forms. But it is absolutely essential to test that it works after you install it. If you find that it isn't working and [...]
Developer tools
Installing Behat 3 / Mink / Selenium for Browser Testing – Windows – Part 2
Did you miss Part 1? Behat is a tool you can use to automate testing of your website with behaviour driven tests. Sample FeatureContext.php The FeatureContext.php is the file holding your custom test commands. In [...]
Installing Behat 3 / Mink / Selenium for Browser Testing – Windows – Part 1
Introduction This post stands on the shoulders of this helpful post by Gnaritas which got me almost all of the way there. I found the opposite to Gnaritas in terms of which browser driver worked. I [...]
Tips :: Removing malware, adware, unwanted pop ups for free
If you have problems with your browser opening up to a home page that is not of your choosing, or defaulting to a search engine which isn't quite right that you have never heard of, [...]
Chrome :: Add-Ons For Developers
These are the most helpful extensions I have found for Google Chrome. They are all free. They are also available for Firefox. In Chrome, extensions are added via the Tools menu > Extensions. 1. ColorZilla - [...]