Author: Hugh Lashbrooke

I am a long-time community builder and product manager with a focus on open-source and building high-performing, strategic teams. I have extensive experience and a passion for building high-functioning teams with tight strategies, notably in the open-source space.

Where is WordCamp Cape Town 2018?

Posted on by Hugh Lashbrooke

“A change is as good as a holiday.”

Or something like that. Either way – we’re changing things up a bit this year and hosting WordCamp Cape Town at a new venue! We’ve used the same venue for the past three years, so it’s about time for something new and different.

So where is WordCamp?

WordCamp Cape Town 2018 will be held at the White Space venue at Red & Yellow.

The address for the venue is:
97 Durham Avenue
Salt River
Cape Town
7925

What does the venue offer?

The White Space offers two great rooms for our Day 1 Workshop tracks (with the larger of two being available for the Day 2 Sessions) as well as an open and comfortable rooftop area, that will be great for breaks. There is also a bar area adjacent which is where we’re having the After Party.

In addition to that, moving venues has helped us to significantly cut down on many of the superfluous costs that came with our previous venue – this has allowed us to use our budget more responsibly and even have a bit of a surplus that we can donate back to WordCamp Central where it can be used to fund other WordCamps that are unable to cover their costs.

Where can we park?

If you know the area around Durham Road, you will know that there is very little street parking around the building. In order to remedy that issue, the venue has opened up the field down the road for us to use as parking.

Here’s a handy map to show you where the parking is in relation to the venue:

Park in the field and you can walk across the playground to the venue.

What time should we arrive?

You mean you have haven’t checked out the schedule yet? Registration is from 8am each day and we’ll kick things off at 9am.

See you there!

Don’t forget to get your tickets for WordCamp Cape Town 2018.

Preparing for Contributor Day

Posted on by Hugh Lashbrooke

This year, we’re hosting our first ever Contributor Day at WordCamp Cape Town on Saturday, 3 November – the day after WordCamp.

A Contributor Day is a single day, usually connected with a WordCamp, where members of the local WordPress community come together to contribute back to the WordPress project. These contributions range across broad spectrum of areas, all encapsulated in the 18 different contribution teams in the project.

This is not just for developers! At this year’s Contributor Day we’ll work together as a community to help grow WordPress in as many ways as we can – including translating WordPress, writing documentation, writing patches for Core, testing new features, patching WordPress.org itself, helping in the support forums, and many other ways.

Does this sound like something you’d like to do? Sign up here – it’s free and open to all WordCamp attendees.

How do I prepare for Contributor Day?

The preparation you need to do depends on what type of contributions you want to work on, so we’ll include some tailored instructions below. No matter what you plan on doing, however, you will need to join the Making WordPress Slack group.

Join WordPress.org & Slack

All WordPress contributors need to have a WordPress.org profile. If you do not already have one, then you can create one here.

The WordPress project uses Slack as its main real-time communication platform. Everyone involved in contributing to the project is on the Slack group and uses it as the central platform to discuss their work. You can join the Making WordPress Slack group (for free of course) by going to this page and following the quick guide. 

As a bonus, you can also join the local South Africa WordPress community Slack group from the link on this page. This is not required for Contributor Day, but it is a great place to connect with the rest of the WordPress community around the country.

Catch up on Contribution Team News

Each contribution team in the WordPress project, uses their team blog to post updates and keep everyone informed. You can find links to each team’s blog from the central Making WordPress page. Head over there and follow the blogs for the teams that you’re interested in.

Familiarise Yourself with Translations

If you want to help translate WordPress, head over to the Translating WordPress portal and find the locale(s) you would like to contributions translations towards. If you do not see your preferred locale there then follow this guide to request that it be added. You will need to do this at least a few days before the event to make sure that the locale is available for you on the day.

Catch up on the Support Guidelines

If you plan on assisting in the WordPress support forums then it would useful to read up on the Support team’s guide to giving good support.

Read the Documentation

All areas of the WordPress project need good documentation, so if you would like to get involved in improving the documentation for any particular team, then you can review each team’s ‘handbook’ from their site on the Make network. This is also a great way to see what kind of work each team needs done, so that you can get involved in areas where your work will really make a difference.

The Documentation team also has some useful information about how to get involved. Most areas of documentation require you to be given the correct access permission to edit – you can request these permissions in the relevant team’s channel in the Making WordPress Slack group once you have joined there.

Set up a Local Development Environment

For those who plan on contributing with code – whether you will be contributing to WordPress core or WordPress.org (also known as “Meta”) – then you will need a local WordPress development environment. There are a few ways of getting this working depending on your preferred method of local development:

Given how long these installations can take, you will need to get this setup before you arrive for Contributor Day.

You’ll also need to review the general guide to contributing to Core, in particular the Introduction to Trac, the WordPress Core bug tracker.

Test the New Core Editor

Gutenberg, the upcoming editor for WordPress Core, is in rapid development. You can help out by installing the plugin and logging issues on the GitHub repo. You can install this plugin on any WordPress website  – whether it’s a local installation or on a server hosted elsewhere. This editor will be officially launched in WordPress Core in v5.0, which is scheduled for release in November. 

Test the Latest Core Features

If you would like to help build WordPress Core, but don’t know how to contribute code (or would rather not do so), then you can help out by testing the upcoming and in development features of WordPress. The Beta Testing guide will show you how to install the Beta Testing plugin. You can do this on any WordPress site – whether it’s a local installation or on a server hosted elsewhere.

Help Build WordPress.org

‘Meta’ is the name given to the WordPress.org website itself, along with its related sites (such as WordCamp.org where you’re reading this). If you have set your WordPress development environment up using the Vagrant method mentioned above, then you can install the complete WordPress.org Meta environment (including SVN repos) from this GitHub repo.

Organise Local Events

We already have an active WordPress community in Cape Town (this event is evidence of that), but we’re always looking for more people to help make our community more exciting and tailored the unique needs of those who attend. If you would like to assist with organising local meetups, hackathons, or even the next WordCamp, then this is a great day to put your hand up and get started with helping to build our local WordPress community.

When & Where is Contributor Day Happening?

Our Contributor Day will be taking place on Saturday, 3 November 2018 – the day after WordCamp. It will not be at the WordCamp venue, but will be held at the offices of NONA, a digital agency who have graciously sponsored their space to us for the day.

The address for the venue is:

Office G3A
The Old Castle Brewery
6 Beach Road
Woodstock

Here it is on Google Maps. Secure parking is available in the complex.

The planned schedule for the day is as follows:

We will kick off at 10am and work on contributions for the day through to 4pm, generally keeping things pretty flexible while we’re working. If you can only make it for part of the day, then that’s not a problem – any time you can give to help improve WordPress is always appreciated.

Over the course of the day you can work on any of the areas of contribution that you like – you do not have to stick with one area and you are welcome to switch to different teams throughout the day. We will have people to help guide you in contributing, so if this is your first time doing so then come along and we’ll help you get started!

Some Useful Links

Related to the above information, here are a few handy links (some already mentioned) that are useful for everyone involved in contributing to WordPress:

Second round of WordCamp speakers!

Posted on by Hugh Lashbrooke

We’ve already announced the first half of speakers for this year’s WordCamp Cape Town, and we’re excited to let you know who will be joining them.

So, without further ado, here are the rest of the speakers that you’ll be learning from this year:

Oduor Ken Jagero

Oduor Jagero is the founder and Lead at CMS Africa and CMS Africa Summit. He is the CEO of Koamedia, a company that specializes in web development, domains, and web consultancies. When he is not in tech, he writes. He has written two novels, True Citizen and Ghosts of 1894.

Chido Warambwa

I am a software developer based in Cape Town passionate about the I.T industry and it’s potential to bring about a positive impact on the world.

I also really enjoy making developer’s lives easier by thinking through current software development standards, and how to best utilize them to allow developers to focus on what they really want to do.

I am a bit of a programming nerd:)

Matt Bush

CTO and Co-founder of Trust My Travel.
Freelance web developer living in Cape Town for the last 13 years and working almost entirely with WordPress.

Jonathan Bossenger

I’m an open source advocate who believes in sustainable business building by equipping my clients with tools that work for their business goals. As a lifelong learner, I’m always finding new projects and skills to refine. I have spoken about several topics at WordCamps, Meetups, and in podcasting including how to contribute to open source and understanding the GPL. I’m also one of co-organisers of the WordPress Cape Town Meetup, work on the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin, and am an expert at Codeable. When I’m not performing code reviews, you can find me spending time with my children, training Gracie Jiu Jitsu, and mentoring others in the WordPress community.

Claire Nieuwoudt

Hates writing bios. Loves cats, picnics and her husband. Is happiest when all three loves coincide. Been entrepreneuring since 2012. Delights customers for a living through the making and selling of ties, bow ties and suspenders online. Website: bowtiesandbraces.co.za

Pascal Birchler

Pascal is a software engineer and WordPress core developer based in Zurich, Switzerland. He’s been working with WordPress for half of his life and is an avid member of the community. Living in a multilingual country, Pascal is passionate about internationalisation and improving this area in WordPress to make the web a better place.

Trisha Cornelius

Trisha Cornelius has been playing with WordPress since she ran away to Costa Rica with her husband at the end of 2009. She has an interest in HTML and CSS, and has written a WordPress plugin, “The Turtle Moves” for her own amusement. Trisha loves the WordPress community and thinks that WordPress is a wonderful way to help people find their voice and share it with the world.

We’ll let this news sink in for a few days and announce the complete WordCamp schedule soon!

Don’t forget to get your tickets for WordCamp Cape Town 2018.

First Round of Speakers!

Posted on by Hugh Lashbrooke

We’re very pleased to announce the first round of our speakers for this year’s WordCamp Cape Town!

We have some really great speakers with interesting topics this year, and we can’t wait to share it with everyone. To whet your appetite for what’s in store, here’s a sneak peak at a few of this year’s speakers and workshop instructors:

Anchen le Roux

Anchen le Roux is the CEO and lead developer of Simply Digital Design a boutique studio in Pretoria specialising in working with photographers or creatives and the experience around creating a website.

She has a passion for everything WordPress and loves being part and contributing to the WP community.

Anchen is passionate about green, simple and nomadic living and occasionally find time to play the bass guitar.

Hanna Partridge

I am part Entrepreneur, part executive,part content manager and part designer and editor and part amateur coder, and a keen WooCommerce and WordPress supporter and challenger. I am the Managing Director, and Editor&Developer of the International Horze brand in South-Africa which sells both wholesale, and retail. This is an equestrian brand. I am passionate about how our amazing website horze.co.za. I love implementing and working on new features and doing the impossible on these platforms, coming up with new ideas for plugins to develop through developers and we have some unique amazing plugins which shows what WordPress and WooCommerce is capable of doing. Twitter: @Hanna_117

Lindeni Mahlalela

Lindeni Mahlalela is a dedicated WordPress developer with focus on custom business oriented WordPress plugins and solutions with much love for WordPress and open source projects. Currently, Lindeni is maintaining one of the leading WooCommerce extensions and building awesome business tools for businesses.

When he is not coding WordPress plugins, Lindeni burns his fingers trying to build cool things using micro controllers.

Job Thomas

I’m the only Belgian in the WooCommerce team at Automattic. I lead one of the WooCommerce support teams. I’ve been working with WordPress for about 10 years, and mostly enjoy just breaking things in order to learn. In 2013, I moved to South Africa for the best reason in the book: love.

Thabo Tswana

Thabo Tswana joined Automattic as a Happiness Engineer in February 2018. He is also an open source junkie, WordPress fanboy, and professional GIF sharer. Thabo was the primary organizer for the very first WordCamp Harare and is a co-organizer for Harare WordPress Meetup.

Bruce Lunnis

Startup Grind Global Community Manager, Co-Organiser of WordPress Cape Town & WordCamp Cape Town, WordPress development agency owner, and digital nomad.

Daine Mawer

A Front-end Engineer at 10up, Daine has been a committed (no Git pun intended) and passionate open source follower for over 6 years now. Completely self-taught from the ground up, Daine has managed to grab the attention of many award-winning agencies and media houses in South Africa, not to mention international brands such as Women’s Health, Men’s Health and award-winning author, Ken Follett.

Daine’s roots truly began in education. Having trained some of South Africa’s biggest corporates in digital technologies, he found himself contributing not only to the business sector but to tertiary education as well. Daine has planned, developed, lectured and implemented web courses for students, professionals and newcomers; covering everything from UX, HTML5, CSS3, Javascript and WordPress Development. He is also an Envato Tuts+ Author and contributes regularly to the site.
He’s currently focusing his attention on delving deeper into Javascript, specifically React and NodeJS.

Daine gravitated to WordPress early on in his career, learning the ins and outs of theme and plugin development. He regularly contributes to the WordPress.org support forums, speaks at WordPress South Africa MeetUps and WordCamp Cape Town

When the laptop closes, Daine fills his time travelling, running and spending most of his disposable income on coffee in and around Cape Town’s hip food and restaurant culture. The laptop tends to open again to mess around with electronic music production and synthesis.

We’ll announce the second round of speakers soon followed shortly by the final schedule for the event!

Don’t forget to get your tickets for WordCamp Cape Town 2018.

What do you want to hear about at WordCamp this year?

Posted on by Hugh Lashbrooke

Before we open speaker submissions, we thought it would be a good idea to see what you, the Cape Town WordPress community, would like to hear about at this year’s WordCamp.

So, if you have an idea of any kind of topic you would like to see featured at WordCamp Cape Town 2018, please complete the poll below. You can select any amount of the suggested topics, but please also add your own ideas too! These topics are suggestions to help speakers apply with talks that are relevant to everyone attending, so all we need are general ideas from you.

We will close this poll on 8 August 2018 before opening speaker applications.

For anyone who is keen to apply to speak, you can use these topics as inspiration for your talk or workshop content – we will publish the poll results along with the call for speakers.