Author Archives: Michael Tighe

WordCamp Calgary 2015 Slide / Presentation Decks

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Thank you to all the attendees from WordCamp organizers, volunteers, and speakers. We will be continually adding slide decks as they are sent into us:

Special Thanks to PetroTech Printing

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For 2 years now, PetroTech printing have been helping the ‘digital-focused’ organizing team here at WordCamp with all the printed materials we need for the conference, including:

  • Standing Banners
  • Directional Signs
  • Lanyard Badges
  • Printed Conference Schedule

So to our attendees & sponsors. If you are ever looking for a great printer who gets things done. Check them out: http://www.petro-tech.ca/

Earlybird Question: Building courseware in WordPress

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Question

I have just created a website from the Divi Themes from Elegant Themes. I do not have any programming experience and I am just learning WP.

I have an online program with lessons that include video instruction, MP3’s, and worksheets. The programs will be a one-time purchase, and I would like a 6 month access window to them.

I am looking for a plugin that will enable me to:
use Woo Commerce – (I currently have Paypal, but will be moving to Stripe),
give timed access to the lessons,
have an expiry date to access to the lessons.

I don’t want a membership type of access, if this is possible. this would create a conflict if they purchased more than one program and at different times.

I have looked at Sensei, Scholar Press, Simple Course, LFE, and Namaste (which has come to the closest to what I am looking for).
I don’t want the commerce portion to go through the plugin because I will be selling products from the site as well.

I have even considered having a link to the page and have it automatically expire.

Answer

Thank you for your question Melissa. This is a pretty big one and we’ll answer what we can, but we encourage you to talk with conference attendees and find some experts to discuss this with.

The 3 primary features that you are looking for include:
– Learning management system (lms)
– Courseware
– e-Learning

The biggest thing that we would bring to your attention is that to execute this at a high level is a pretty advanced setup. At some point, it might require some advanced configuration and/or development if you want all the separate parts interacting with one another smoothly.

We have included some resources below, some of which you are already indicated researching.

With that said, without some form of custom development, you are basically going to need a all-in-one solution that is a pre-built theme or service.

Sometimes avoiding the bigger price tag of custom development means you need to make compromises with how things function an interact with one another.

Resources:
– http://chrislema.com/elearning-on-wordpress-wp-courseware-learndash/
– https://flyplugins.com/wp-courseware/

We wish you the best of luck, and again – talk to people at the conference, there are tons of experts there.

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Earlybird Question: Determining Theme Quality & WP Site Deployment Tips

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Question

When browsing themes in say, Themeforest, how do you know if a theme is coded well or not prior to purchasing?

Also, say you have an exisiting website and you are replacing it with a WP site. Is there a way to install it on the main directory yet still have old site displaying? That way you don’t have to mess with transferring directories. If there is no way to do that, is there a plugin/program that will help with the transfer of the site from staging to live? I found this, anyone ever try these? http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/8-plugins-for-safely-moving-wordpress/

Answer 1: Determining Theme Quality & Performance

You have just found one of the biggest risks when buying a theme, and it’s not just about code quality, but rather how the backend of the WordPress site itself is setup. Many times complex template modifications systems are put in place, which while they sound incredible end up being poorly supported and leaving customers frustrated.

Here are a few suggestions for weeding through themes:

  • Run Google Page Speed on the theme. While I wouldn’t expect an incredible score, you can at least see if there are any red flags
  • Don’t just base a template on the homepage, look at the other template types and shortcodes that are available to you
  • Look over the comment & support history on theme forest, or on the developers private forum. See if there are any complaints or issues, also check the response time. An active developer shows that they care and take things seriously.</li

Answer 2: Tips for Deploying a WP site

I highly recommend making use of a local development environment. For tips on how to set this up ChikGeek puts on a great course called “Intro to WordPress development”, you can contact them here. Otherwise just google “local wordpress development environment setup” there will be quite a few results.

Having a local environment will allow you to do and test everything you want, after which you can just move things over to your live environment or where the site is hosted.

There are several plugins to do this as well. At Solid, we have tried several, but nothing was as reliable as we wanted and most require intermediate knowledge (incase something goes wrong). Try asking around at WordCamp too, or read reviews for various plugins online.

Also, if you are a web design company, don’t forget to set aside a few hours or more in your project budget. Hosting & servers can be complicated and sometimes be unpredictable.

The best method for moving a site is detailed on Smashing Magazine here:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/04/08/moving-wordpress-website/

Earlybird Question: Amazon Affiliate Links for Multiple Countries

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Question

My question is: How is the best way to set up an Amazon affiliate link on a WP website? We are Canadian, but most sales come from outside Canada. With all the eBooks and products on Amazon, how do we set up an International Amazon account and maintain it?

Answer

In short, there is no international amazon account. Unfortunately it does not exist. Amazon, while connected, runs compartmentalized on a per country basis. Because of this you have to have affiliate accounts in each country that you wish to have an account for.

In terms of a solution, after you have multiple affiliate accounts, the next step is to develop a plugin that detects the origin country of a user and swaps the correct affiliate ID. Imagine it like this:

  • If: a users country = Canada
  • Then: insert “Canada Affiliate Variable” into the code

The only way it won’t work if a visitor is blocking a browser from detecting that information, for example by using a proxy server.

There are a number of ways to program this, but we do recommend investing in a developer to create a custom plugin for you.

There are a few plugin services popping up that do this, but use caution. All it would take is some creative programming to hijack your affiliate ID, allowing a plugin developer to take your commissions. While not all plugins are bad, nor their developers – always use caution.

Finally, keep an eye on Amazon affiliate news – this could always change in the future.