Joseph Dickson

I’m a Web Developer.

I have over ten years of experience designing WordPress themes and plugins for multisite deployments in higher education.

KEEP IN TOUCH

Joseph Dickson portrait

Recent Posts

  • Restrict post to WordPress user

    Over the that weekend I had been using WordPress to take notes at WordCamp Orange County and realized that WordPress’ block editor is useful as a note taking environment. But what If I don’t want these notes to be public?

  • Creating a custom attachment loop for images and other files in WordPress

    While building an attachment.php template for a project I opted to customize the loop to properly display an image within a figure tag and the caption within figcaption to aid accessibility. Additionally if the file is not an image it will provide a button that can be styled along with a mime type. The following […]

  • Twenty Nineteen Child Theme

    This theme was created by Joseph Dickson to add additional features for use on my personal websites. Feel free to learn from this code, reuse it. Even make fun of how poorly written it may be. Features Version 1.0.1 Added Open Graph support. Theme will use the custom logo set in the customizer. Theme will […]

Web Development Projects

  • Block Child Theme

    The Challenge WordPress 6.1 included the new Twenty Twenty Three theme which features new Full Site Editor Block Theme methodology. However, it doesn’t include Open Graph support, Post Types and remove taxonomy labels from archive pages. The Solution Added practical features to a Child Theme improving user experience.

  • Open Graph Protocol

    A simple function running conditional checks delivering relevant information to social media platforms using the Open Graph Protocol.

  • Homepage Redesign

    The Challenge The College wanted to use the full-width capabilities of the WordPress Block Editor. The Solution I created a custom Child Theme breaking the rigid grid of the college’s other landing pages.

  • Pathway Forward

    The Challenge As the COVID-19 pandemic began to normalize the community updates section needed to be replaced with an evergreen landing page leading to news updates and policies in advance of return to campus. The Solution Using the WordPress Block Editor a simple landing page was created featuring call to action cards and buttons for […]

  • COVID-19 Community Updates

    The Challenge With the move to remote learning the campus community needed an at a glance archive to contain all public messages posted during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Solution Using WP_Query I created an accordion system organized by date. This simplified email notifications by providing a common URL for all updates where […]

  • Staff Directory

    The Challenge Human Resources required a simple workflow for adding and removing staff from a public directory. Previously this was accomplished by pasting a shared document into a WordPress page. The Solution I created a no code solution for human resources by creating a Staff Directory Plugin using Custom Post Types and Custom Fields. Each […]