This Week In WordPress: Jul 16, 2012

Making WordPress Events
Jane Wells posted this week that there is a new home for all you WordPress evangelists. “Making WordPress Events” will be a resource for all sorts of WordPress organizers, from WordCamps to hackathons. Past and present organizers will be writing posts in the coming months to give you info on how to better organize your own WordPress events. This is a very cool update in the WordPress community and will hopefully strengthen the bond between fellow WordPressers.

How to Publish To WordPress Remotely Using Windows Live Writer
If you use Windows Live Writer to write blog posts, take out the extra steps in between writing and moving to WordPress. This nice quick tutorial from WPBeginner shows you how to publish directly from Windows Live Writer. We’re all busy, so why not make things easier on yourself. The post also covers some common problems and a short FAQ.

Writing Plugins: Is It Always Worth It?
There’s a big discussion between how much users should be relying on custom options in themes compared to using a plugin. If you inject functions into the functions.php file of a theme, that functionality is lost when a user switches themes. So is it better to write a small plugin to add that same functionality? WP Realm discusses and gives their reasons for why a plugin might be better.

Dear Jetpack: I Really Want To Love You, But You Make It So Hard
Brian Krogsgard wrote a great post this week about a popular plugin Jetpack, from Automattic, and why he has trouble loving all of its functionality. It’s not that he dislikes Jetpack, he notes that there are many great aspects, just some things that leave him wondering why they are breaking away from the typical Automattic modus operandi. Have you had a similar experience with Jetpack?

Test Responsive Design With Firefox
WPMU gives a nice look at the latest version of Firefox which has many extra developer tools. The main focus in their post is the Responsive Design view, which allows you to change the width of the site window without actually resizing the browser window. It sounds like browser-inception, but it’s actually a nifty little tool to help when testing your new theme or site out. If you don’t mind resizing the browser itself then you may not care, but it’s a cool tool nonetheless.