Wheres the PANIC! Button

I immediately contacted Pippin via Twitter and iMessage (interrupting his valentines evening and showed him what I discovered. He couldn’t quite believe it either and with help from Samuel Wood aka (Otto) was able to patch the issue within 30mins of finding the bug and submitted the patch to the WordPress repository which then fixed the issue.

I just thank Pippin for being so responsive and being able to address critical security issues in a very timely manner.

Make Sure You Update!

In some of our themes we’ve integrated Easy Digital Downloads within the theme for example the “Photostore” theme. If you’re using this theme with the plugin I’d recommend upgrading the plugin to fix the issue. Having a site that hasn’t got the latest versions of plugins installed, or even WordPress, is a sure way to get your site compromised.

Security Code Audit

Last night we chatted with Dre Armed over at Sucuri Security regarding the issue with the plugin and he was able to provide some great advice. Both myself and Pippin think it would be very beneficial that the plugin gets a full security code audit by their team. Hopefully in the very near future we can see that happen.

1.4.4.2 Now Available For Download

Get the latest update of the plugin via your WordPress dashboard in the Updates Tab, or download it directly from the WordPress repository.

The post Got EDD? Time To Upgrade! Critical Security Flaw appeared first on Mint Themes.

Today I just wanted to go over some of the details of how we bug test our themes and do quality assurance testing. I find the best way to bug test a theme is to set it up as if you were going to use the theme yourself for a project. This way you can spot all the difficulties customers could run into and iron out all the kinks.

The number one lesson I’ve learnt over the years is to ask yourself continually the question: “Could this feature be in a plugin?”. We believe the theme should just be the appearance and not the functionality. We have, ourselves, included features in our themes that should have been apart of a plugin and saw how adding the functionality into the theme has caused issues with updates, support, and overall has cost us money. So if you’re a theme developer, ask yourself  “Could this feature be in a plugin?”.

On that note: We have some great upcoming themes in the near future that use our new plugin “Framework” for the functionality and the theme just is, for the most part, a CSS file. We hope that this will help us develop themes much faster as updates can be done to the theme without changing the customizations the customer may have done to the theme.

My top 5 plugins I use when bug testing our themes are:

1. Monster Widget – this plugin consolidates all of 13 core widgets into one single widget meaning I don’t have to drag all the widgets into the side bar, I can just move the one Monster Widget into the sidebar area, this saves a ton of time and helps us see all the issues that need to be addressed via CSS in the theme.
2. VIP Scanner - which is very much like the Theme Check plugin but if you’re thinking of submitting your themes to the WordPress.com marketplace then you need to run this plugin against your theme. It has a few different checks built into the plugin i.e. WordPress.com and WordPress.org theme review checks. It allows you to run the checks against themes, plugins, directories, single files etc.
3. Deprecation Checker - along with running the WP_Debug mode in your WordPress setup, I use this plugin to see any deprecated functions that may be in the theme. It allows you to view all the deprecated functions with the path to the file, which line number the deprecated function is on, and the new recommended function to use.
4. JetPack – It can cause a ton of issues with the theme so I extensively test our themes with all of the features that JetPack offers. Each time theres a new feature in JetPack I have to test it with the theme
5. WordPress Beta Tester – testing with future releases of WordPress is something that I haven’t done much of.  But now that I’ve found a plugin that makes it easier, I will be checking our themes with the nightly builds when the WordPress version is close to being released.

So what are some plugins or ways you like to bug test your themes/plugins? If you have any suggestions, I’m all ears!

The post Learn From Our Mistakes, Bug Testing Theme Tips appeared first on Mint Themes.

We think the only way to do that is to monthly report on how our support response time is and our satisfaction rating and over time we can set goals on improving the numbers that we disclose.

There are two main metrics that we can use to show how we are doing on our report card, first the time it takes us to respond to customer inquiries and the satisfaction rating that our customers give us on each support request.

Our Time To Respond

We are committed to responding to customer inquiries within 24 hours of getting a message sent into our support system. We are doing that but we really want to improve this number over the next month. As you can see from the graph below 31% of all support requests get answered within 1 – 8 hours which is pretty good, but overall we need to improve this number.

Our Satisfaction Rating

Using the analytics within ZenDesk we can gage how we are doing overall and how happy our customers are with us. The satisfaction rating shows how we are doing within our industry which is web applications, and as you can see from this graph we are doing better than our peers but theres always room for improvement.

The post Our Customer Support Report Card (Jan 2013) appeared first on Mint Themes.

Update: Thanks everyone for entering the Christmas Giveaway we have now emailed all of the winners there prizes!

The winners are:

Livia

Daniel DeHart

Katie Davis

Here at Mint Themes we are getting in the festive mood and to celebrate we want to share Christmas joy a little early! so we’re giving away over $400 in free WordPress prizes.

Each grand prize includes:

• 1 Mint Themes theme of your choosing
• 1 Mint Themes t-shirt (medium and large sizes available)
• 1 Backup Buddy Licence from iThemes.com

Backup Buddy is an amazing plugin that can potentially save you hours of work in backing up your WordPress. Go check it out here:
http://ithemes.com/purchase/backupbuddy/

How do you win it?

All you have to do is enter the raffle at the bottom of this post. Once you have, you can put your name in the raffle more times by following the steps it gives you after joining. This increases your chances of winning.

When is the draw?

The draw will be on December 24th so get your name in asap!

The post Mint Themes Christmas Giveaway! appeared first on Mint Themes.

We’ve noticed a warning popping up in a few of our themes with the newest WordPress update (version 3.5). This is caused by a change in WordPress’s functionality to make it more secure.

What’s the error?

The error will look like this:
“Warning: Missing argument 2 for wpdb::prepare()”

How do I fix it?

If you are seeing an error after upgrading to WordPress 3.5 that says something like this, you need to upgrade your theme.

We have fixed this with all of our themes and they are ready to download and re-install from your account page.

What if I have customized my theme’s code and don’t want to upgrade?

For those of you who have customized your theme’s code and don’t want to do a full upgrade, you’ll need to take a look at the warning message.

Here’s a sample error we have fixed from the Biznify Theme:

Warning: Missing argument 2 for wpdb::prepare(), called in /home/mintthem/public_html/demo/wp-content/themes/Biznify/products-pagetemplate.php on line 39 and defined in /home/mintthem/public_html/demo/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 990

Step 1: Open the file it tells you to open. In this case, it is products-pagetemplate.php and Go to the line it refers to. In this case it is line 39

Step 2: Find the code that looks like this: $wpdb->prepare(“SELECT price FROM $table_name WHERE item_number = ‘$item_number’;”)

Step 3: Replace $item_number with %d

Step 4: Add $item_number after the last quotation mark. Also, make sure to put a comma before it. (notice the comma before $item_number below)

Example: $wpdb->prepare(“SELECT price FROM $table_name WHERE item_number = ‘%d‘;”, $item_number)

Completed Example Code:

Here is an example of the complete line of code after it has been fixed:

$price = $wpdb->get_var($wpdb->prepare(“SELECT price FROM $table_name WHERE item_number = ‘%d‘;”, $item_number));

Need Support?

Again the easiest way to fix this problem is by upgrading the theme. To do this, log into your account with us and download the latest version.

As always, we are ready to help at any time. Give us a shout if you run into trouble and we can walk you through it.

The post WordPress 3.5 And WPDB Prepare appeared first on Mint Themes.

You can easily set this up for your own website project using the Isotopes for WordPress plugin I referred to above. Simply download it here, install it in your WordPress account, and then place the following template tag just above “The Loop” on any WordPress archive-based theme page. Most likely you’ll be looking for  archive.php, tag.php, or category.php.

Here’s the code you’ll need to add:

<?php moveplugins_isotopes(); ?>

We even coded in support for the Easy Digital Downloads and WooCommerce plugins so that you can use this to filter products if you’re using either of those shopping cart plugins on your website. I had some help from Pippin from Easy Digital Downloads on this one so go show him some love too

P.S. Keep in mind that while my plugin is free to use as much as you want, the Isotope JS script (which we don’t own) is free to use for personal and/or non-commercial projects only. If you need it for commercial projects you should pick up a licence from David DeSandro and Metafizzy (the creators of the JS script).

So go ahead and try it out!

Get The Plugin

What if it doesn’t work for me?

The first thing to check is that your theme is using the WordPress standard post_class on it’s loop items. This plugin uses that to identify which items belong to which tag or category.

The second thing would be to check if you are trying to make this work for a Custom Post Type. if so, that custom post type would need to be coded into the plugin – which I am willing to do if it would be helpful to enough people. So let me know if there is a Custom Post Type you’d like to see added to the plugin!

The post Isotopes for WordPress appeared first on Mint Themes.

These icons would look lovely along side the girly eCommerce theme that we have created called “Compra”

The social media icons were designed by Adam Pickering, one of the founders of Mint Themes & lead designer.

Download Icons

The post Design Freebie: Watercolor Social Media Icons appeared first on Mint Themes.

Go check it out!

The post Why we chose Easy Digital Downloads appeared first on Mint Themes.

There are some advantages to doing a “Hard Launch”, like gathering excitement and getting your product out to a large number of people right away. The idea is that you start to drop hints about what is coming, whether on Twitter or Facebook or whatever, and then let everybody know EXACTLY when it will be released: EG “Thursday at Midnight!!”. You might even do a countdown clock on your website.

Movies do this a lot. You’ll see the trailers and movie posters all over the place for months ahead of it’s release. And then on the first night of the movie release, tons of people go and watch it because the excitement has been built up so much.

But there’s a couple differences between movies and most small businesses.

1. Most small businesses do not have the budget, manpower, or resources to properly execute a “Hard Launch”, where movies do.
2. Movies are here and then gone. They are only in the theatre for a few weeks (maybe months) and thats it. Small businesses need staying power.

Like I said before, I’ve done the hard launch – and failed miserably at it. With my band we released an album with a TON of build up. Months in fact! There were a lot of people waiting for us to release it at the exact moment we said we would (12:00 midnight). But the problem was that there was SO much to get ready that we just didn’t have the manpower to finish every little detail. And so midnight came and midnight went – by 6am the next morning we had released it but everyone had since gone to bed.

The people eventually came back and listened to our music and many loved it. But we didn’t deliver on the promise we made to release it when we said we would – and that wrecked the magic a little bit.

That brings me to my main point about why I am a fan of the “Soft Launch”. Less Stress.

It is pretty stressful to arrive at the eleventh hour and find out there is a bug in your system, or your server has gone down, or any number of other things that could go wrong. And even though you might have prepared, and bug tested, and planned everything to the nines, Murphy’s Law always kicks in and you’re gonna get stressed out.

Not only that, but there are some major advantages to doing a “Soft Launch”.

1. If your product does have a problem, only a small number of your users will have received it, found it, and will likely have reported it back to you. This allows you to fix it before thousands of people come to you reporting the problem – and the chaos that ensues.
2. It allows a grassroots movement to spread your product – which is the best form of advertising. Nothing beats word-of-mouth. And allowing your product to be used/heard/experienced and spread by your small base of users gives it that staying power and lays a better foundation than sensationalism would.
3. Your stress levels will be much lower – which really is a nice thing.

So that’s my advice to you if you are a small business/company/band. Work within your means and be awesome at what you do. Realize what will and won’t work for you and your company. 9 times out of 10 I would say that a “Soft Launch” makes more sense.

The post Why I am a huge fan of the “Soft Launch” appeared first on Mint Themes.

Around last Christmas Adam came to me with the idea to re-design our entire website. Admittedly, I was a little but shy to the idea at first because I knew what a large undertaking it would be.  To completely re-design, re-create, and move everything and everyone over to a new design and code base was a huge learning experience, for sure. And it has helped us grow as not only as business owners and partners, but also as WordPresser’s in general by leaps and bounds.

A few of our goals with the new website were to make it faster, easier to navigate for users, and easier for us to manage/update. Most of all, we wanted to help our clients get to know us better. If you take a gander around the site I think you’ll get a pretty good idea of who we are and what we do as a company. Adam took care of the design and everything you see here from a design perspective is his handiwork. Spencer Finnell took care of our CSS and I did the WordPress integration.

The bulk of what makes this version so great is its foundation – which consists of two main parts. The first is the cart system – which is running on the Easy Digital Downloads plugin by Pippin Williamson. It handles everything from the cart, to the checkout, to the delivery of files, to the new Members Lounge – which we think you will appreciate very much! Easy Digital Downloads is the most solid plugin I have ever had the privilege of using and I highly recommend trying it if you are creating a digital download related website. That and Pippin is one of the most helpful dudes around! I’ll be doing a full blog about Easy Digital Downloads soon.

The second part would be WordPress – which truly is the most amazing content management system out there today. We are really thankful to be a part of such an awesome community. And if you aren’t using WordPress for your website – I definitely recommend you put it in your plans because it gets better with every release.

I also want to highlight some of the harder parts about doing this re-launch. Probably the hardest was trying to keep consistently releasing content and themes that were useful to our customers while simultaneously working on our own website – and all the while answering support tickets as well. It can also feel like it is taking a very long time to complete – almost like it may never happen. If you’re in the middle of a project like that, I would say keep going even when you feel like you’ll never finish, cause if you stop – well that’s the only way you won’t finish. Haha. Eventually if you keep working hard when you can find the time, it does come to a point where you feel like you’re ready to launch. And it’s a pretty good feeling that gets better knowing we’ll be able to help more people get their own projects off the ground.

We are excited to get back to making themes and plugins full-steam – because that’s really what we’re here to do. And we feel good about the fact that our website has the ability to facilitate that much better as well.

As always, if you have any questions or need help you can contact us at support@mintthemes.com – or leave us some thoughts in the comments below.

The post New Website Launch! appeared first on Mint Themes.

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