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

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Recent Posts

  • Upgrading a classic theme for Gutenberg

    With the release of WordPress 5.0 in early December 2018 web developers were forced to make a decision, install the Classic Editor plugin and continue to enjoy the post editor we’ve used for years or jump the new block editor experience. However, I quickly found a few of my themes were not ready.

  • Disable URL Guessing in WordPress

    Placing the following PHP code snippet below in your theme’s funtions.php file will disable a WordPress feature that attempts to automatically redirect a bad url to an actual post or page with a similar url. Please note, if there are any broken links to your website or it’s pages that benefit from this feature it […]

  • Adding alt text to a post thumbnail

    While working on a custom navigation using WP_Query and has_post_thumbnail for an icon I ran into an accessibility concern. By default, the_post_thumbnail will not display an alt tag when rendered in the browser. In the following code snippet I add an alt tag using the image file’s title. In short the code above starts with […]

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 […]