DEV Community: Sorin Marta

The easiest way to do migrations in WordPress

Sorin Marta — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 19:01:34 +0000

I did lots of plugin migrations between WordPress plugins.

WooCommerce to MemberPress, and vice-versa.

LearnDash to LifterLMS, and vice-versa.

And many others.

In that process I was often faced with the issue of having to write scripts that would import data from custom CSVs to the WordPress database.

Not anymore!

I built a plugin that allows anyone to map data from CSVFiles to the WordPress database. The plugin is called CSVMapper. You can use it completely free from the WordPress repository. 🎇

It allows you to add data as post meta, user meta, posts, or even custom tables.

Please let me know if you guys have any feedback!

How Do We Structure Our Admin Pages in WordPress

Sorin Marta — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 23:26:07 +0000

Over the years, I've built lots of plugins, and every time, I had to code the structure of the administration pages from the WordPress dashboard.

Most of the time, the plugins were 'client plugins', meaning I was hired to build them based on a brief.

In that case, I didn't really have the freedom to design them how I see fit.

But since I started publishing my own plugins through Tadamus I'm finally free to design and structure the pages as I see fit. It all started with WP Fusion Slack.

And here comes the problem that I want to discuss here. How do I prevent the repetitive task of implementing the same design structure for all the pages?

First steps

The thought that came to mind was to use a front-end framework or library like React or Svelte.

And since the block editor is based on React, I went for React. Although, my geek spirit still thinks I should have used Svelte 😅.

At some point, I'll write a follow-up article on how I configured React, Babel, and Webpack to be able to create and render pages in the dashboard.

Introducing the WP UI

Now, after choosing React, I had to refactor the components I created for the first admin page into a small library, which eventually got turned into an NPM package called WP UI.

It can also be found in the Github repo.

In it, I added everything I used on the first page, and since then, I have kept adding components that I thought I'd be using going forward.

I did my best to keep the components as extendable as possible, so please feel free to check them out and let me know if you have any suggestions.

Suggestions

Currently, the package is in an initial phase. So, I'm open to any kind of feedback from you guys. So please let me know in the comments section or our contact form.

Also, if any of you guys think it would help you if I document the process of creating this library, please let me know. 🙂

A special case of Impostor Syndrome

Sorin Marta — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 22:26:16 +0000

Being a programmer isn't as easy as they say on the internet. And probably everyone here can approve that.

Even if we love what we do as programmers, sometimes we are not as happy as we should be. A good reason for that is the Impostor Syndrome, that's a common problem for the developers who just started their way into the industry.

But first, what's up with this syndrome? Is it a mental problem or something?

Basically not, it's just a bad impression that we develop about ourselves. We under-estimate ourselves and we think that this isn't our place and we are not a good fit for this job.

Usually, that's just in our mind, and we have to get over it in order to be a good programmer. But still, it might be a huge problem in our process of learning.

Ok, in an another way of speaking let's see what Wikipedia says about it:

"Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud"."

Ok, what's the special case?

Well... in my case, it doesn't really go away. I already have a few years of coding already, but still... I have moments when I feel like an impostor.

And that's probably not just me, probably a lot of people got the same problem as I do but they don't talk about it.

Probably in my case it became more intensive since we started Tadamus.

Those moments are really hard to pass, and if you are not a strong one it might make you stop.

What can be done?

Nothing, ignore it. Keep on your track, work for your passion and for your future. Keep building awesome things or start building even more awesome things.

Keep in mind that you are unique in your own way and whatever happens with your life, it was meant to happen and it will bring progress in one way or another.

Keep your head up and be prepared for that opportunity that's going to come!