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Hearty-har-har

Hi again, and welcome to another newsletter edition. I thought I'd start with a health update, so let's get into it.

I've mentioned in previous newsletters that my heart function has reduced and that my heart doctor wasn't optimistic about my future. However, I was able to do a follow-up and my heart function is about the same as it was six months ago.

While not great news, at least this means things aren't getting worse.

A shift in priorities

With health being on my mind all the time of late, I'm afraid I've been experiencing quite a bit of burnout. Part of me wants to complete or do as much as I can before my time is up, and the other is so overwhelmed with what I want to do that I freeze up and can't do much of anything.

Mentally, I've had to scale back, and that has meant saying goodbye to certain projects, changing goals, and saying no to things I just can't handle.

I hate killing projects just like the next developer, but when you've killed a project and it feels like a weight has been lifted, you know you've made the right decision.

But unlike killling projects, let's introduce a new one.

Introducing Pattern Wrangler - a new free plugin

Like most people, I have a day job, and part of my day job is managing a WordPress site with a TON of patterns. I applied the lessons learned managing patterns in the form of a plugin, which should help "wrangle" your Patterns view in the block editor.

Here's a high-level overview of what Pattern Wrangler can do to help you manage block patterns.

Enhanced Patterns List View

The Patterns post type is built into WordPress, but it's hidden under Appearance for classic themes. With Pattern Wrangler, the Patterns view is front and center, and includes a few additions like:

• Show a pattern preview (if one is added as a featured image).
• Copy a shortcode to display the pattern in a page builder (underrated feature).
• See a live preview of the pattern on the front end of the site.
• See whether a pattern of Synced or Unsynced.

A Pattern Importer block

I brought over the Pattern Importer from GB Hacks and polished up a few things. The importer's gold feature is that if it finds any remote images, it'll download them locally to the site. This means you can finally copy guest posts from site to site with Pattern Wrangler, including all images.

Here's a stress test I did with a post that has over 60 images.

MediaRon @MediaRonLLC Still waiting on .org approval for Pattern Wrangler. In the meantime, I decided to stress test its built-in Pattern Inserter block by copying a post from site to site with 69 post images. #WaitForIt #BuildInPublic 5:6 PM • Apr 12, 2024 0 Retweets 8 Likes

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Wrangle patterns with just a few clicks

With Pattern Wrangler, you can hide Core patterns, remote patterns, and patterns that come with plugins and themes.

I posted a demo of this feature on Twitter:

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MediaRon @MediaRonLLC Here's how quickly Pattern Wrangler can turn a cluttered Pattern Library into something instantly more manageable. 11:8 PM • Apr 10, 2024 1 Retweets 16 Likes Read 2 replies

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Map and rename registered categories

Pattern categories can be registered by a theme or plugin, but also created on the site itself in the database. When you're in the Patterns view in the block editor, these two buckets are merged together as one, which can be quite chaotic.

Pattern Wrangler allows you to map these "registered" categories to the ones created on the site, which are the categories you have control over.

Here's another demo of that feature on Twitter:

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MediaRon @MediaRonLLC Here's another use-case for Pattern Wrangler. Put all the theme patterns in one bucket. Mapping registered categories to term categories is a great organizational tool. 3:0 PM • Apr 11, 2024 2 Retweets 4 Likes

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Find out more about Pattern Wrangler

Those are just a few of the several helpful features Pattern Wrangler has, so please give it a try if you have the time.

Highlight and Share goes mobile

A user emailed me the other day asking about mobile support on Highlight and Share, and I stumbled upon an old share this script that still works extremely well. I ported over the parts that made sense and Highlight and Share works on mobile, yet again.

Comment Edit Pro goes Freemius

I've used Easy Digital Downloads for years, but it severely slows down my site and the checkout experience is super slow, even on a heavily optimized site. When I did a speed test without EDD installed, the difference was mind-blowing.

Add in the fact that EDD prices keep going up, it's time for me to switch to a more affordable solution.

After researching several licensing solutions, I chose Freemius as it offers the closest experience to EDD that you can find in a hosted licensing solution.

I'll issue new licenses for those who have already purchased on this site, but nothing will change as far as the plan or subscription. In the meantime, I'll be releasing updates to Comment Edit Pro on this site and on Freemius in parallel during the switch.

That's all for now. Thank you so much for being a subscriber.

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