Tips, Expertise, Articles and Advice from the Pro's for Your Website or Blog to Succeed
According to Techcrunch, "Facebook has been testing a feature that allows users to listen to podcasts directly in the Facebook app since 2019." However, it seems that the feature was not widely adopted by users and this is why Facebook decided to axe it.
Instead of having the feature natively on Facebook, the company will now direct users to the podcast apps for iOS and Android if you click on a link.
Quality assurance (QA) is a systematic process of determining whether a product or service meets specific requirements. A QA system is an indispensable part of the R&D process because, as its name suggests, it ensures the quality of the product.
This post introduces the QA framework adopted in developing the Milvus vector database, providing a guideline for contributing developers and users to participate in the process. It will also cover the major test modules in Milvus and methods and tools that can be leveraged to improve the efficiency of QA testings.
Looking for some up-to-date Shopify statistics? Want to know how many people visit Shopify every day? How many live Shopify stores are out there? Or, most importantly, how much money Shopify merchants and Shopify itself are making?
Let’s say you have built an add-on for Google Sheets that adds a new menu item to the sheets UI. You would now like to add an option in the menu that, when clicked, will redirect the user to your website without the user having to click any other button.
For instance, in this demo Google Sheet, we have a parent menu and a sub-menu that opens the underlying website in the new window.
As a first step, we’ll add a custom menu in the Google Sheet and invoke it from the onOpen function so the menu is always available when a user opens your Google Sheet.
const onOpen = () => {
const ui = SpreadsheetApp.getUi();
const parentMenu = ui.createMenu('👩🏻💼 Digital Inspiration');
parentMenu.addItem('Visit our website', 'openWebsite');
parentMenu.addToUi();
};Create a new file url.html in the Apps Script editor and add the following code.
The JavaScript uses the window.open method to open the URL in a new window since we have set the target to _blank.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<a href="<?= url; ?>" target="_blank">Click here</a> to open the webpage.
</body>
<script>
var windowReference = window.open('<?= url; ?>', '_blank');
if (windowReference !== null) {
google.script.host.close();
}
</script>
</html>If you would like to open the website in a fixed size popup, instead of a new window, the function would be written as:
<script>
var windowFeatures = 'popup';
var windowReference = window.open('<?= url; ?>', 'scriptWindow', windowFeatures);
if (windowReference !== null) {
google.script.host.close();
}
</script>The return value of the window.open method will be null if the window has been blocked by the browser’s built-in popup blockers.
The popup can be positioned anywhere on the script and resized to a specific height and width by modifying the windowFeatures variable as below:
// before
var windowFeatures = 'popup';
// after
var windowFeatures = 'left=100,top=100,width=320,height=320';Please see the MDN docs for best practices around solving a few usability problems related to links opening secondary window.
Next, we’ll write the Apps Script function that will be invoked from the menu and launch the website in a new window / tab.
const openWebsite = () => {
const htmlTemplate = HtmlService.createTemplateFromFile('url.html');
htmlTemplate.url = 'https://digitalinspiration.com/';
const htmlOutput = htmlTemplate.evaluate().setHeight(50).setWidth(200);
const ui = SpreadsheetApp.getUi();
ui.showModelessDialog(htmlOutput, 'Open Website');
Utilities.sleep(2000);
};It is necessary to add the sleep function as opening the window may take a second or two. If sleep is omitted, the Spreadsheet dialog will open and instantly close without launching the website.
Ever looked for a comprehensive intro to Maven that is fun and entertaining at the same time? Then have a look at this brand-new episode of the "Marco Codes" YouTube channel: Maven Tutorial - Nice & Easy.
In this video, you'll learn how to use Maven like a professional: installations, using the mvn wrapper, using Maven together with IDEs, and of course the Maven basics. From pom.xml concepts to running commands (clean install) to understanding Maven repositories and multi-module projects, by the end of it, there won't be many questions left when it comes to Maven.
I just released a video where I try out clk.sh.
First, I wanted to see if the service was indexed in Google. I just pick a bunch of link shortening services from a list, one by one, and leverage the reputation of each one. People are looking to know more about them and to see if they are trustworthy.
In some cases, these lists that I use are pretty old, and because of how some of these services work, they will get a bad reputation after a while. Yes, the current video shows you a service that may force you to install programs in order to open up the destination page.
A bad reputation may eventually lead to a deindexed or penalized website. This is why I don't recommend people using services like this. You go against the natural flow.
After that, I checked the reputation on TrustPilot. You can't trust the 5 star reviews on TrustPilot, but the one star ratings definitely have some merit to them in my opinion.
Then I went to BHW and did a quick search. Someone got banned for trying to sneak in a link. Another example of going against the natural flow. Following a natural flow would mean spending effort to create real value, like I try to do in my video.
Then I found another sneaky method to post clk.sh links and similar. To my surprise, I couldn't find anyone getting banned, so I guess the moderator didn't understand the trick. Still, I don't recommend doing it.
Do you know about clk.sh?
Have you ever tried it?
Do they pay out?
Before they pay out, I believe they require a $5 or $10 earn. Because of the rep, I would expect them to not honor a pay out at all, but I don't know really.
I don't think I can post a link here, sorry about that.
Image classification can have many practical, valuable and life-saving benefits. The "Hello World" of image classification is often considered MNIST and, more recently, Fashion MNIST. This article will use Fashion MNIST and store the images in a SingleStore DB database. We'll also build an image classification model using Keras and Tensorflow and store the prediction results in SingleStore DB. Finally, we'll build a quick visual front-end to our database system using Streamlit that enables us to retrieve an image and determine if the model correctly identified it.
The SQL scripts, Python code and notebook files used in this article are available on GitHub. The notebook files are available in DBC, HTML and iPython formats.
Bob, the software architect, and Alice, the SecDevOps engineer are part of a growing software development start-up company. Here is the conversation between them on developing a new set of microservices.
Bob: Did you hear the announcement? The client deal was finalized; we can begin the development of an analytics app for their financial services on the cloud.
Although many enterprises have deployed Kubernetes and containers, most also operate virtual machines. As a result, the two environments will likely co-exist for years, creating operational complexity and adding cost in time and infrastructure.
Without going into the pros and cons of one versus the other, it’s helpful to remember that each virtual machine or VM contains its instance of a full operating system and is intended to operate as if it were a standalone server—hence the name. By contrast, in a containerized environment, multiple containers share one instance of an operating system, almost always some flavor of Linux.
Are you looking for the best block themes for full site editing in WordPress?
Block themes allow you to use the Full Site Editing (FSE) feature in WordPress, which gives you more control over your website design. Full site editing offers custom blocks for styling your website’s header, footer, sidebar, and other sections.
In this article, we will share some of the best block themes that you can use for the full site editing experience in WordPress.
Full Site Editing (FSE) is a set of modern features for the default WordPress Block Editor. It was first released in WordPress 5.9.
Previously, the WordPress block editor allowed you to add and customize the content layout within your pages and blog posts. The rest of your website’s layout and design was determined by your WordPress theme.
Now, WordPress full site editing lets you completely change the theme layout and add new sections to your website without writing any code.
You can also add site-wide global styles that apply to your entire website or individual styles for specific WordPress pages or posts.
The styling options include color schemes, font settings, layout spacing, image borders, and more.
However, in order to use full site editing experience, you will need a block theme. These are WordPress themes that are made specifically for full site editing.
The full site editor or block editor lets you customize your WordPress theme, including the header, footer, sidebar, and more.
It also comes with custom blocks to add a website logo, navigation menu, and other features to your WordPress website.
You will need specific WordPress themes that support the default block editor. And if you change your WordPress theme at any point, the settings will disappear automatically. It’s a limitation with the full site editing option.
Related: Common Block Editor Problems and How to Fix Them
On the other hand, WordPress page builders are more powerful and flexible. They come with the drag and drop feature to create custom pages for your website.
Some of the most popular WordPress page builders include SeedProd, Thrive Themes, Beaver Builder, Divi, Elementor, and so on.
So if you create landing pages using a page builder like SeedProd, then these pages will stay the same even when you change your WordPress theme.
Another key difference between the full site editor and page builder is that the drag and drop page builders work with most WordPress themes without any limitations.
For a complete understanding, you should check out our guide on the WordPress block editor vs. page builders.
Now if you want to try and grow your full site editing experience, here are some of the best block themes for full site editing in WordPress.
Neve FSE is a fantastic WordPress theme for any kind of website. It’s fast and lightweight and comes with flexible full site editing options, including custom blocks and layout options.
It has a drag and drop header and footer builder to add, remove, and move elements easily. Also, the layout options allow you to choose from a full-width or sidebar layout.
The theme supports WordPress page builders out of the box. And Neve has hundreds of starter templates you can import to your site and customize with your favorite page builder plugin to launch a website.
Bricksy Pro is a premium-style but free WordPress theme. It has a modern and stylish homepage layout, including eye-catching font styles and image choices in the top section.
It fully supports the block editor and has drag and drop features for you to design your website pages. You can use the full site editing options to manage global website styles or individual page settings.
Felt LT is a premium-quality WordPress magazine theme. It comes with widget-ready areas on the homepage and multiple useful widgets to add content to the front page.
The theme has full site editing support with a built-in style manager. It lets you customize global styles for your WordPress site, including colors, borders, buttons, and layouts, with a few clicks.
Raft is a stylish WordPress block theme. It comes with a few ready-made templates for landing pages that you can quickly import to launch your site.
It lets you change the color and look of your website with global styling options. You can also change the header style to add a custom background text or image slider. And you can apply this option to your entire site or limit it to the homepage.
Inspiro Blocks Pro is a premium WordPress full site editor theme built specifically for portfolio, photography, and videography sites. It has an eye-catching full-width layout on the homepage with a custom animation and video background.
Moreover, the theme comes with built-in page templates for individual pages. It also includes custom block patterns, color styles, and more.
Julia is an attractive and beautiful WordPress food blog theme. It comes with a magazine-style layout for food bloggers, chefs, restaurants, and cafes.
The theme is perfect to start your food blog. It fully supports the modern WordPress block editor and full site editing options to customize the theme design in real time.
Jaxon is a beautiful and bold WordPress block theme for eCommerce stores. It comes with a crisp layout, including highly-engaging block patterns, style options, and page templates.
You can fully customize the colors and design of the theme using the full site editor. The Jaxon theme has everything you need to set up an online store.
Naledi is a free WordPress and WooCommerce full site editing theme. It has a beautiful homepage layout with a full-width header background image, welcome text, and a call-to-action button.
The theme lets you make changes to the global styles to control the look and design of your site. And the style options also appear on your WooCommerce shop pages without any extra work.
EduBlock Pro is a fantastic WordPress full site editor theme for educational blogs and university and college websites. The default theme template is fully ready to launch your educational website, but it also comes with multiple color schemes and custom block patterns for further customization.
The most notable features include a custom logo, dual navigation menu, call-to-action buttons, a welcome banner, and more. The theme has a responsive layout that looks great on any screen size or device.
Riverbank is a simple WordPress theme built for the full site editor. It has a minimalist layout that you can use to create a website for organic food, plants, animal welfare, and non-profit organizations.
It comes with multiple color choices for the theme background, font, headings, and images. Moreover, it has custom templates for the featured blog page, single posts, and pages.
Blockpress is a free WordPress block theme. It supports full site editing options with global styles, custom blocks, and a site manager.
The theme works with eCommerce plugins so that you can start an online store. It’s also translation-ready and supports RTL languages to create a multilingual website.
Archeo is a free WordPress theme built specifically for archeology, history, and cultural websites. It comes with a classic vintage font style on the homepage and other landing pages.
There’s a fullscreen background image that you can change with the block editor. The Archeo theme supports full site editing with site-wide blocks and global style options.
UniBlock Pro is a black-and-white WordPress multipurpose theme. It’s beautifully crafted with a full-width website layout, including a custom logo, navigation menu, welcome text, call-to-action, and social icons.
The theme has a bold look with single and multi-column sections on the homepage. It also supports page builders to add new landing pages and customize global elements in the theme.
Stewart is a free and minimalist WordPress theme for bloggers, writers, and authors. It comes with a two-column layout with a sidebar on the left and your content on the right side of the screen.
It comes with a default color scheme for the WordPress blog theme. However, you can also use the full site editing features to customize global color styles, font styles, and background options.
Clove is a free and beautiful WordPress full site editing theme. It comes with an elegant layout that features an eye-catching homepage design, natural colors, and a minimalistic design.
The theme offers ready-made block templates and design options. It’s easy to manage these settings with global styles and the WordPress block editor.
Tove is a multi-color free WordPress theme with support for modern full site editing features. It’s specifically built for cafes, restaurants, and coffee shops.
The theme comes with dozens of block patterns for the header, footer, and site-wide layout. These custom blocks are easy-to-use on your entire site globally or to customize specific pages and posts.
Fork is a minimalist WordPress full site editing theme (block theme) for small businesses, startups, digital agencies, eCommerce stores, and portfolio websites. By default, it has a white background, but you can use their global styles to add a color combination easily.
The top section includes a custom logo, navigation menu, welcome title and description, call-to-actions, and a featured image. You can also include custom patterns to add sections on the homepage and landing pages.
Hansen is a simple and free WordPress blog theme. It offers a fully custom block theme template and supports full site editing out of the box.
The theme features include a full-width layout, a beautiful color scheme, custom background, and more. It comes with global styles and block patterns to customize your site without editing code.
Aino is an advanced WordPress theme with bold colors and classic font styles. It comes with a block plugin to create custom page layouts with built-in block patterns and a site manager.
The theme is easy to customize with full site editing features. You can use a single-column, two-column, or three-column layout on the entire site or individual pages as per your requirements.
Kemet is a fast and reliable WordPress theme. It’s designed specifically for personal blogs, portfolio sites, and small online business stores.
The default theme’s color and font styles are highly attractive. Kemet provides built-in theme templates, template parts, and custom blocks to edit your website’s header, footer, and site-wide settings easily.
Rosa is a premium WordPress food blog and restaurant theme. It comes with a powerful visual editor and custom blocks built for restaurants and cafes.
The theme has an eye-catching design with a fullscreen homepage header layout. It gives you the flexibility to customize colors and fonts to match your global website layout.
We hope this article has helped you find the best WordPress full site editing themes. You may also want to check out our guide on how to create a free business email address or our expert picks for the best auto-dialer software for small businesses.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post 21 Best Block Themes for Full Site Editing in WordPress (2023) first appeared on WPBeginner.
We need more good feedback in our world, and I don’t just mean the type of feedback that celebrates your good work. I’m talking about feedback that is actionable, specific, and kind; feedback that does not set us on edge or make us fall into an anxious spiral; feedback that helps us collaborate more effectively. The kind of feedback that is actually really hard to do when working remotely.
In this article, I’ll discuss a few ways to get around that difficulty. We’ll start by learning what causes feedback sessions to get off track, how to prevent this from happening, and what to do when this happens.
This article is targeted toward designers and developers who are currently working remotely or are planning to switch to remote work.
Imagine...You’re part of a remote design team in a small company that is currently having you focus on revising their to-do app’s design based on some customer feedback and some ideas that the company wants to validate. During your presentation to the company, someone interrupts you. With their camera off, they say: “Wait, why are we wasting time doing this? The existing page is fine. The older colors and layout were better and this new thing feels clunky. Just put the sign-up call to action at the top and be done with it.”
You’ve been doing this for a few years, so this isn’t new to, you but you still feel like you got the wind knocked out of you. You get flushed and a little angry, because this person hasn’t always been so unfriendly to you before, and you don’t want to look bad in front of the leadership. You start to stumble over your words, which you think makes you look bad. Now you’re in a downward spiral.
Why Does Negative Feedback Elicit Such Strong Responses?Mostly for two reasons:
Understanding how we route around this problem requires a brief discussion on how our brains perceive conflict. So, let’s dive into some neuroscience!
We’ll first discuss the three main levels of our brain:
When we are threatened, something called the amygdala (which is our brain’s “smoke detector”) sounds the alarm and does two things: it produces cortisol (a stress hormone) and diverts the blood flow from the neocortex to the lower levels of our brain. This means at this moment the part of our brain that thinks and reasons isn’t getting enough blood, so we become the real-life equivalent of the Incredible Hulk: just pure fight, flight, or freeze (only without the torn clothes and green skin). In his book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman calls this “amygdala hijacking.” It’s responsible for almost all of our conflicts going awry.
“An amygdala hijack is an emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus, because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat. The term was coined by Daniel Goleman in his 1996 book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.”
— Wikipedia
You want the receiver of the feedback to feel comfortable enough to hear what you have to say without triggering their amygdala response, and you need to feel comfortable enough to say it. This is called psychological safety, and it is defined like this:
“Psychological safety is being able to show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status or career (Kahn 1990, p. 708). It can be defined as a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. In psychologically safe teams, team members feel accepted and respected. It is also the most studied enabling condition in group dynamics and team learning research.”
— Wikipedia
The tools that follow will help build and maintain psychological safety by signaling that it’s not a harmful situation. Remember, when you lose safety, it’s because someone’s survival circuits kicked in. Better put, psychological safety is the underpinning of all good conversations.
When there isn’t safety, resentment builds, feedback gets conveniently ignored, and people tend to clam up and not give real, helpful feedback.
How Can We Avoid It Going Sideways?We’ll learn how to give high-fidelity feedback, share actionable and specific insights, as well as how to give a little conversational “first aid” by making refocusing statements.
Having a conflict when collaborating remotely causes us to lose what I call “high fidelity conversation,” leaving everyone at a disadvantage. Here’s my definition:
High fidelity conversation
It is a conversation in which all participants have access to the full range of human communication, including tone of voice as well as non-verbal cues, such as body language and tone.
As more and more teams work remotely, we lose out on vital conversational cues, such as body language and tone of voice, leaving us in the dark about what someone truly means when they speak. Let’s dig into why this is difficult so that we can frame up an appropriate response.
To start, let’s go over the different levels of conversational fidelity we can have and discuss what we lose in remote work communications:
The goal for these tough conversations is to have them in as high a fidelity as you possibly can. While email and Slack have dramatically reduced the friction for communication, it’s come at the expense of clarity and thoughtfulness. It’s far easier to send a half-baked email that leaves too much open to interpretation (remember the last email — or email thread — you got that was a forwarded email with just “thoughts?” included on a single line?). Plus, you’re at the mercy of the reader’s mood, state of mind, or distractions they experience, which could contribute to the missing key parts of your message.
When we lose conversational fidelity, our brain’s survival circuits activate and fill in all the gaps in the communication with negative assumptions, leaving us prone to misinterpret someone’s message.
There are times, however, when real-time communication isn’t an option, especially for fully remote companies with people spread all across the world. In that case, consider using a tool like Loom to give your feedback, or you could even record an audio message on your phone and upload that. In doing so, you still retain your tone and give them some body language to work off of.
Failing that, you’ll need to work a little harder to ensure things are taken well. Remember, you’re losing a lot of fidelity here, so you’ll need to compensate. Here are two of the best tips:
When we start projects, we establish objectives and goals we want to achieve. Feedback sessions have exactly the same needs. So, when you gather people for feedback, be specific. Here’s a helpful guide:
We often mistake a client’s, a manager’s, or a stakeholder’s desire to contribute to your discussion for direction. But it’s not always so — generally, these people just want to help you solve the user experience or user interface design problems.
I’ve found Asana’s method to be particularly helpful here — you need to bucket the feedback into three buckets: do, try, and consider.
“A while back at Asana we noticed teams were laser-focused on shipping and would carefully ask if each piece of feedback was “launch blocking” at our launch reviews. Often non-blocking feedback would be brushed aside even if it was relatively cheap and would really improve the quality of the product. We reflected on what was happening and realized that we didn’t have clear language or norms on how to give or respond to feedback. And so, the Do, Try, Consider framework was born.”
— “Do, Try, Consider — How we give product feedback at Asana” by Jackie Bavaro
When giving feedback, you should give the person something to explore or try. For example, instead of “Put the sign-up call to action here,” try “What other layouts might help us achieve our goal?”
Every piece of feedback should also be directly related to a goal, whether that’s the design being on-brand, responding to someone’s feedback, and so on. And if you aren’t seeing a way to be more specific, consider asking the other person to ask what specific type of feedback they’re looking for.
Here’s how a feedback session could work:
Invite people to have several minutes of quiet ideation, adding sticky notes to a virtual board. Once the solo time expires, group the similar sticky notes and then discuss each group individually, bucketing them accordingly.
Here’s a little template that I made:
And here’s how this could look like in action:
Person A: “Hey Person B, here’s the latest prototype. I’d like to get feedback on the navigation structure for this app because I’m feeling a little tension with where the account settings are currently located. I’m also not sure about whether or not this design iteration is fully in line with the new brand look that we’re rolling out next quarter.”
Person B: “The account settings should definitely be not so front-and-center, I think we have to put them under ‘Profile’ to match the website UX. Also, I expected to see the buttons in our brand’s shade of blue and not the shade that you have used. Can we change the color?”
Person A: “Okay, let’s talk about the blue first. We didn’t have a matching shade that was also accessible (not enough color contrast), so I made a new one that was. Is this comment a must-do, try, or consider? Also, it sounds like repositioning the account settings is a must-do, is that right?”
Before we continue, let’s discuss what I mean by being kind. I don’t mean that you should go around giving empty compliments to people or avoiding telling them things that aren’t quite right — both of these are ultimately harmful. What I intend by saying “be kind” is that you are direct with the other person. You have hard, direct conversations because you care. That’s true kindness. (And of course, be polite.)
More people need to learn that a polite suggestion as feedback is far more likely to get action than a snarky or unprofessional comment. And don't insult the people you're giving feedback to. We're all human.
— Tim Misiak (@timmisiak) March 11, 2022
How you frame the feedback has a direct influence on how it will be received. For example, which do you think is the better type of feedback?
I hope you chose the second option. 😄
Despite our best efforts, conversations will still go sideways sometimes. Here, we’ll discuss the best way to perform some conversational “first aid” when things feel a little dicey. Enter what I call refocusing statements.
A refocusing statement is a statement that addresses the misinterpretation, reestablishes focus on your goal, and asks open-ended questions to ensure clarity.
Here’s what they look like:
Here are a few refocusing statements in action:
“I don’t intend to imply you’re not a skillful enough designer, I’m saying that this isn’t up to our team’s standards. We can &mdash, and we want — to help you get there though.”
“I’m not saying you have to do it my way. I know that you’ve got a lot more expertise in designing interfaces than I do. I just wanted to say that we need to consult with one another before sending the prototypes to the stakeholders because I’m responsible for doing the accessibility audits and don’t want any unnecessary back and forth to happen.”
“It’s not that you aren’t welcome to contribute to the user interviews or you aren’t a part of our team, your expertise in this is essential. Rather I would say that the type of questions you asked could taint our user research. Can we talk about how to reframe those questions?”
By framing the statements like in these examples, we actively address someone’s humanity and experience, and at the same time, we shift the conversation in a way that overcomes the objection or misunderstanding.
Note: Please, avoid ending these with “does this make sense?” These non-questions only serve to open the door for condescension.
And of course, give credit where credit is due — the inspiration for the refocusing technique came from Crucial Learning’s excellent “contrasting statement”, but I shaped it further to better fit my own practice.
ConclusionIn closing, let’s briefly recap some of the key points that I made in the article: