Maybe it’s just me, but @webdevstudios is one of the few companies that often shares their Five for the Future work https://t.co/AVvnDeLkYY
— Jeff (@jeffr0) June 5, 2017
While giving back to the WordPress community isn’t something that WebDevStudios (WDS) does for the glory and accolades (or the glamour, for that matter), actively and consistently participating in Five for the Future is something we do with a great amount of pride. Last year, WDS contributed 1,500 hours to the WordPress community, and we are on track to complete the same this year.
Our team’s contributions are varied and diverse. They include volunteering or speaking at WordCamp events, building plugins and adding them to the WordPress repo, transcribing talks for video caption, replying to tickets submitted at the WordPress support forum, and much, much more. Below are some examples of those contributions. And after the first of the new year, we’ll tally up all the hours contributed and report back to you. Keep up with our team’s Five for the Future contributions by following the hashtag #5ftf on Twitter.
Eric Fuller, Senior Frontend Developer
“Over the past couple of Five for the Futures, I’ve been working on creating a Todo plugin for WordPress. You might be thinking, another todo plugin? And yes, I would agree in most cases but this one is actually going to have a pretty nice feature set!” says Eric.
“My approach to this plugin is to create a fully functional frontend prototype before actually wiring it up to the WordPress backend. This is an effort to practice separation of concerns when it comes to FED/BED,” he explains. Check out the prototype branch here.
Jay Wood, Lead Backend Developer
In addition to actively working on an open ticket in GitHub, Jay has also been developing a robust random post generator for WP CLI, which supports multisite, post types, post counts, taxonomies, terms, term counts, and featured images. Plus, it comes complete with a cleanup command to undo it all! Neat, huh? Get all the details here.
And, because it’s October, after all, Jay is also participating in Hacktoberfest! And if all of that is not enough to qualify as a considerable amount of Five for the Future contribution (it is!), Jay is using his free time to learn Jenkins more deeply, which is a Continuous Integration and Deployment system that’s pretty configurable.
Ben Lobaugh, Backend Developer
Ben has been building out a standard WDS Docker development instance and combining that with automated testing capabilities that can be plugged into Jay’s Jenkins server.
Greg Rickaby, Lead Frontend Developer
“TeamJBW spent our Five for the Future testing wd_s as we revert from Neat 2.0 to Neat 1.9,” reports Greg. “The three of us tried to build a website using the /revert-neat branch of wd_s. We identified only one issue and fixed it. We also updated some documentation. We believe this branch is ready to be merged into master.” Learn more about the history of the WDS internal starter theme wd_s here.
Jeremy Ward, Backend Developer
“I’ve been working on my Dudley Patterns Framework plugin, which allows developers to quickly pull in reusable components powered by the meta fields plugin of their choosing (it defaults to Advanced Custom Fields),” Jeremy says. He has also been working on setting up a unit testing suite for the plugin and getting started on some initial tests so he can ensure that the code is rock solid.
Learn more about the Dudley Patterns Framework plugin here. Installable packages can be found on Packagist. Search for “Dudley.”
Aubrey Portwood, Senior Backend Developer
Aubrey has been working on getting out an internal Single Sign On plugin for WebDevStudios. He’s also contributing to WDS’s own coding standards. You can view that here.
Justin Foell, Senior Backend Developer
Justin is killing it at Five for the Future. He presented a metadata talk called “Too Meta” at WordCamp Portland, assisted Aubrey by updating the WDS Coding Standards, and has also been contributing to the internal Single Sign On plugin project for WDS.
Additionally, Justin has worked with other developers on the WP Strava plugin, which is designed to use the Strava V3 API to embed maps and activity for athletes and clubs on a WordPress site. Check out the plugin here.
John Hawkins, Business Development Manager
John recently donated his time and expertise by giving the talk “The Part You Play in Your Company’s Website Security” at WordCamp Salt Lake City.
Corey Collins, Lead Frontend Developer
Corey is our expert transcriber, having provided the captions for two WordPress.tv videos: Don’t Fear the Command Line and Diversity and the Design Team. He also did some work in wd_s, updating the header to an out-of-the-box, three-column header with Customizer support for an additional button/search form trigger.
Kellen Mace, Frontend Developer
Just recently, Kellen shared his knowledge at WordCamp Ann Arbor by speaking on “Build a Simple Frontend App Using the WP REST API + React.” He demonstrated an interactive React app he built for WDS to manage internal training, and he showed how he turned that project into a general starter plugin that anyone can use to get started building WP REST API-powered React apps. His WordPress React App Starter plugin is available here.
Cameron Campbell, Creative Lead
Cameron has been working on the design screens for an upcoming plugin called WDS Checklist Plugin, which is designed to provide developers with a thorough checklist for website launches. As full columns are completed, the user will even receive words of encouragement, such as, “Keep up the good work, champ!”
Will Schmierer, Lead Frontend Developer & Jo Murgel, Frontend Developer & Designer
Seeing as how teamwork makes the dream work, Will and Jo have worked together to develop and design a WordPress theme for student athletes looking to be recruited for college sports. Custom post types include events (so the athletes can feature their upcoming games) and videos. This project remains in development. We’ll keep you updated.