My WP Blog

In Part 4, we learned how to use Postman to make request for data on the Fitbit API. Now it’s finally time to take off the training wheels and use PHP and phpMyAdmin to bring that data into WordPress. Luckily, Postman can provide the PHP code that you can use with only a few small … Read more

In Part 3, I showed you how to get new access and refresh tokens with Postman. Since the access tokens expire after 8 hours, the first step is usually to get new tokens. So do that and keep the new access token handy. The authorization part of requesting data is actually quite simple. All you … Read more

As you learned in Part 2, the access token expires in 8 hours but can easily be exchanged for a new one using the refresh token that was generated at the same time as the access token. Parameters KEY grant_type The refresh token from Step 2 refresh_token refresh_token Headers Authorization Basic Base64 Authorization from Step … Read more

In Part 1 you got four critical pieces of data: Client ID, Client Secret, a temporary authorization code and a Base64 Authorization header. Now we switch to Postman to access the Fitbit API. Postman is an application that you can download for free. It’s great way to test APIs and it can generate code we’ll … Read more

Fitbit is serious about security. (Or at least is complicated about security.) If your users have data on Fitbit that you want to bring into your WordPress MySQL database, there are a few non-intuitive hoops you need to jump through. I’ve broken this down into three parts. It is a convoluted process but once you … Read more

Ta paraphrase the WPML web site: this plugin is not free, that is why it is so cheap. Having used Polylang free version on a few sites I didn’t hate it but I also found it a bit clunky to use. (Just my opinion.) But when I was faced with the challenge of doing a … Read more

The user profile page is an easy, built-in way to add user information for a given user. The default details are pretty limited but you can add new fields to the page with the PODS plugin. Pods can extend other content types like posts and pages. Or even create new custom content types, but I’ll … Read more

This will be a longer post and still such introduce usermeta. One of the things I like about WordPress is the builtin user management features. Using phpMyAdmin, if you look at the wp_users table there’s not a lot there. Name, ID, email, the basics. But if you have the wp_usermeta you can see something special: … Read more

You have an associative array of data you want to save in MySQL. Can’t you just save it as is? You could. But there are a some good reasonsu want to save in MySQL. Can’t you just save it as is? You could. But there are a some good reasonsu want to save in MySQL. … Read more

Functions.php sits there in your theme folder beckoning you like the sirens of ancient Greece, luring you to a rocky shore and a watery grave. Ok that may be a bit dramatic but if you want to resist the temptation of Link to using User profile update to add usermeta

If you ever want to see what cookies a 3rd party web site is setting, Firefox makes it ridiculously easy.

You’ve created a template for a the WordPress theme you are using. Maybe it processes a special form or display data from MySQL. If you ever need to change themes however

You have a comma separated values file and you need to bring that data into your WordPress database. Here’s how I would do it. Let’s say this is our csv. It’s a list of users with some basic metadata including their phone number. In this scenario each of the users is already an existing WordPress … Read more