Month: January 2019

Migrating to ClassicPress: Using Migration Plugin With Unsupported WordPress Version

Ian Grieve3 minute read0 comment

ClassicPressThis post is part of a series on migrating to ClassicPress from WordPress.

ClassicPress provide a migration plugin which you can use to migrate from WordPress to ClassicPress. The developers working on ClassicPress are also keeping the plugin updated for new releases of WordPress, but will lag a little behind as they need to wait for WordPress to release the new version before they can update the migration plugin.

I’ve been doing testing on ClassicPress and this has also included testing the plugin. Sometimes I’ve wanted to upgrade from an version not supported by the plugin.

The easiest way, in my experience, to use the plugin on a new version of WordPress before it is officially supported, is to amend the plugin to change the value to which the $wp_version_max parameter is being set:

admin-page.php showing line 318

Changing the value from 5.0.2 to 5.0.3 will allow the migration plugin to be run against the latest version of WordPress.

Instead of updating the plugin, you can also add the following line to your theme’s functions.php:

add_filter( 'classicpress_ignore_wp_version', '__return_true' );

I’ve tended to go with updating the plugin code, rather than adding the code to my functions file as I prefer to only have code in my theme that is for the benefit of the theme itself.

Local by Flywheel: Disable Other Hypervisors Before Installing Local by Flywheel

Ian Grieve2 minute read0 comment

Local By FlywheelThis post is part of the series on Local by Flywheel.

Local by Flywheel works by installing VirtualBox; if you are running any other visrtualsiation software, you need to make sure that it, and the related hypervisor, is disabled.

In my case, I am using Hyper-V so will need to use bcdedit to stop the hypervisor via an elevated command prompt.

The command to use is:

Adminstrator: Command Prompt showing hypervisor successful disabled

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

Once the command has successfully completed, the machine will need to be rebooted; if a reboot is done performed, then the hypervisor will not be fully disabled and will cause problems.

Once you’ve finished installing and shutdown Local by Flywheel, you can restart the Hyper-V hypervisor using the following command (again a reboot will be required):

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto

Local by Flywheel: What is Local by Flywheel?

Ian Grieve3 minute read0 comment

Local By FlywheelThis post is part of the series on Local by Flywheel.

Local by Flywheel is a development tool for WordPress which provides a very easy way of creating a definable environment hosting a WordPress instance. As well as deploying an OS, it also deploys a web server, PHP and everything else required to develop or test a WordPress site, including WordPress itself.

Key features listed on the Local by Flywheel site are:

  • Speed and simplicity – Flywheel is fast and functional and those features make this the slickest local WordPress development application in the world.
  • One-click WordPress installation – Simple creation of a local WordPress site, so you don’t have to bother with setting it up yourself.
  • Simple demo URLs – Create shareable URLs to demo your local WordPress sites to clients, collaborators or friends.
  • Hassle-free local SSL support – Any site created via Local by Flywheel will automatically have a self-signed certificate created.
  • SSH + WP-CLI Access – Simple root SSH access to individual sites, so you can tinker around if your heart desires.
  • Flexible environment options – Hot-swap between NGINX or Apache 2.4, or switch between PHP versions. Everything will stay up and running.

The extensive set of features can be read here.

The Community edition of Local by Flywheel is free, but there are additional versions coming soon which provide more functionality; details are here.

In the next few posts, I’m going to cover the download, installation and use of Local by Flywheel.

Local by Flywheel: Who Are Flywheel?

Ian Grieve2 minute read0 comment

FlywheelThis post is part of the series on Local by Flywheel.

Before I start delving into Local by Flywheel itself, I thought it would be appropriate to do a post on who Flywheel themselves are. Flywheel are a managed WordPress hosting provider aimed at developers and agencies who create sites for others. The aim is to remove the hassle of hosting and allow you to focus on streamlining your processes and work for clients.

Full details on the services available from Flywheel are available from here.

The Flywheel site also has additional resources available in the form of ebooks aiming to help you create fast, secure sites on WordPress.

Local by Flywheel is one of the tools they’ve created to help develop new sites or features for sites. In the next post, I’ll take a more detailed look at what Local by Flywheel is and how it works.

Local by Flywheel: Series Index

Ian Grieve2 minute read17 Comments

Local By FlywheelI’ve recently started taking a look at ClassicPress, a fork of WordPress 4.9.8 (the one without the Gutenberg block editor). In order to test the migration from WordPress to ClassicPress, I needed a website which had PHP 7 (and due to my web host being crap; arvixe to those interested) I needed another way.

I was looking for a free webhost when I stumbled across Local by Flywheel which described itself as:

The #1 local WordPress development tool

This sounded like it would be very useful for the testing requirement that I had. In this series of posts, I’m going to be taking a look at the installation and use of Local by Flywheel. This post is the series index and will automatically update as each post goes live.

Continue reading “Local by Flywheel: Series Index”

GitHub Announces New Unlimited Repos & Unitifed Enterprise Offering

Ian Grieve3 minute read1 Comment

GitHubI’ve recently been taking a look at ClassicPress and one of the subjects that came up was that it might, for the plugin directory, use GutHub instead of SVN like WordPress.

I create an account and started looking into creating repositories for my plugins. Hot all of my plugins are on that site however, as not all have been released to the public. Some of them are only going to be usable to me (for example plugins drive both the GP Table Reference and my distilleries website) and you were limited on GitHub to a certain number of private repositories.

However, GitHub yesterday announced the following:

  • GitHub Free now includes unlimited private repositories. For the first time, developers can use GitHub for their private projects with up to three collaborators per repository for free. Many developers want to use private repos to apply for a job, work on a side project, or try something out in private before releasing it publicly. Starting today, those scenarios, and many more, are possible on GitHub at no cost. Public repositories are still free (of course–no changes there) and include unlimited collaborators.
  • GitHub Enterprise is the new unified product for Enterprise Cloud (formerly GitHub Business Cloud) and Enterprise Server (formerly GitHub Enterprise). Organizations that want the flexibility to use GitHub in a cloud or self-hosted configuration can now access both at one per-seat price. And with GitHub Connect, these products can be securely linked, providing a hybrid option so developers can work seamlessly across both environments.

The second point isn’t relevant to me, but the first might be useful as it will allow me to store both my public and private plugins in the same place.

More details are available from the GitHub blog.

Hands On With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 New Features: Skip Displaying New POs When Generating a PO

Ian Grieve3 minute read0 comment

Microsoft Dynamics GPThis post is part of the Hands On With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 New Features series in which I am going hands on with the new features introduced in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 (which was released on the 2nd October). I reblogged the new features as Microsoft announced them along with some commentary of how I thought they would be received by both my clients and I. In this series, I will be hands on with them giving feedback of how well they work in reality.

This hands on new feature is, as far as I am aware, an unannounced one which I stumbled across when testing the partial purchase a purchase requisition new feature. When you click the Generate button on the Purchase Order Preview from Purchase Requisition Entry window, a prompt Skip displaying the new purchase orders? will be displayed:

Microsoft Dynamics GP - Skip displaying the new purchase orders?

This is a change of behaviour from the new functionality introduced in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 RTM; the purpose of this original new feature was to improve visibility of the created purchase orders.

This was, and remains, a laudable goal, but unfortunately the implementation was somewhat lacking. The new purchase orders were displayed by opening a navigation list, which could be ver slow to open (especially if the Reporting Services Reports had been deployed and the fact pane visible.

The 2018 R2 new feature, to hide Business Analyser for all users would go some way to mitigate this issue, by hiding the fact pane, but this new feature of prompting the user to decide if they want to see the navigation list will go the majority of the remaining way (a global option to disable would have gone all the way).

Click to show/hide the Hands On With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 New Features Series Index

Hands On With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 New Features
Repurposing the Intelligent Edge page
Monthly Recurring Batches
Duplicate Check Numbers Option Extended
Checkbook ID Defaults on Check Batch
Option To Not Display Inactive Checkbooks in Lookup
SmartList Designer Favourites in Navigation List
Mass Update Master Records from Navigation List
Sales Transaction Approval Workflow
New Sort Options in Sales Order Processing Item Inquiry Window
Ship To Address Retained by Customer Combiner
Purchase Requisition Partial Purchase
Email POP PO Other Form
Display Vendor Hold Status
Option to Hide Business Analyzer for All Users
Print and E-mail Sales Order Processing Documents
Print Invoices in Functional Currency from SOP Navigation List
Transaction Level Post Through General Ledger
Vendor Document Number Added to Purchasing All-in-One View
New SmartList for Deposits on Unposted Sales Transactions Has Been Created
Exclude Items on HITB Report With Zero Quantity or Value
Increase Dynamics GP Password Maximum Length
Email Customer Statements
Letter Writing Assistant in Web Client

Hands On With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 New Features: Email POP PO Other Form

Ian Grieve3 minute read0 comment

Microsoft Dynamics GPThis post is part of the Hands On With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 New Features series in which I am going hands on with the new features introduced in Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 (which was released on the 2nd October). I reblogged the new features as Microsoft announced them along with some commentary of how I thought they would be received by both my clients and I. In this series, I will be hands on with them giving feedback of how well they work in reality.

The twenty-third new feature is Email POP PO Other Form. This feature makes the Purhcase Order Other Form available for email.

My hands on with the feature was somewhat abbreviated when I discovered that there was no default Word Template available. While technically allowing a PO to be emailed using the Other Form, the lack of a default Word Templates means that there is a large amount of effort involved to make it available.

To create a new Word Template, you need to use the Word Template Generator to create a Word Template from the Report Writer XML and then format the resulting template; this is a long, complex and difficult to process to do in order not to break the template so email, or even the Word Template itself, doesn’t get broken.

Click to show/hide the Hands On With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 New Features Series Index

Hands On With Microsoft Dynamics GP 2018 R2 New Features
Repurposing the Intelligent Edge page
Monthly Recurring Batches
Duplicate Check Numbers Option Extended
Checkbook ID Defaults on Check Batch
Option To Not Display Inactive Checkbooks in Lookup
SmartList Designer Favourites in Navigation List
Mass Update Master Records from Navigation List
Sales Transaction Approval Workflow
New Sort Options in Sales Order Processing Item Inquiry Window
Ship To Address Retained by Customer Combiner
Purchase Requisition Partial Purchase
Email POP PO Other Form
Display Vendor Hold Status
Option to Hide Business Analyzer for All Users
Print and E-mail Sales Order Processing Documents
Print Invoices in Functional Currency from SOP Navigation List
Transaction Level Post Through General Ledger
Vendor Document Number Added to Purchasing All-in-One View
New SmartList for Deposits on Unposted Sales Transactions Has Been Created
Exclude Items on HITB Report With Zero Quantity or Value
Increase Dynamics GP Password Maximum Length
Email Customer Statements
Letter Writing Assistant in Web Client

Migrating to ClassicPress: What About The Plugins and Themes I Use?

Ian Grieve2 minute read0 comment

ClassicPressThis post is part of a series on migrating to ClassicPress from WordPress.

As ClassicPress is based off WordPress 4.9.8, all current, non-Gutenberg, WordPress plugins and themes will be compatible with ClassicPress.

A growing number of plugins are stating that they are and will continue to be compatible with ClassicPress. There is a < forum post listing plugins confirmed as working with ClassicPress v1 on the ClassicPress forums; this is not to say that other plugins won’t work, but they haven’t been confirmed yet. This thread will be maintained for v2 of ClassicPress as well, which is when potentially breaking changes could be introduced.

If you think you might migrate to ClassicPress and want to confirm if the plugins you use will be supported with it, reach out to the authors of your favourite plugins and ask them to support ClassicPress. There is even a sample email message you can adapt and use.