iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 03/12/2025

WordPress 6.9 includes a killer new feature for WooCommerce stores: Term Query Loop. Showcase your product categories&brands on your landing pages or mega menus. And thanks to Block Bindings API I spun up a "Product Category Image" block with minimal code: www.briancoords.com/building-a-w...

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 30/11/2025

I built an RSS Reader that sits in your WordPress dashboard. It uses the DataViews for a modern WP look and feel. It's still in beta but try it out! github.com/bacoords/feeds

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 17/11/2025

Thanks to the help of many smarter devs at Woo, our "create-woo-extension" tool is finally working again. There's still a bunch of scaffolding work to do, but getting the dependencies updated and the install & build running was a huge milestone here.

npx @wordpress/create-block -t @woocommerce/create-woo-extension my-woo-extension

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 31/10/2025

Yesterday I chatted with @ianmisner.com about what makes a checkout page convert and what to think about ahead of Black Friday. He gave a lot of good advice, including this one about maximizing those new customer relationships:

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 22/09/2025

Took some prompt engineering but Telex was able to make me an animated bouncing-DVD screensaver WordPress block. For.. you know.. reasons.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 04/09/2025

My thoughts on how AI is going to affect WordPress agencies - A short excerpt from an upcoming conversation with @ryanwelcher.com @bph.social and @jonathanbossenger.com

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 06/08/2025

Playing with the WordPress Playground CLI and Woo's Smooth Generator to build full Woo demo stores in seconds. (Next step: how can I push this into WordPress Studio for local development 🤔?)

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 02/06/2025

I sat down with @craylor.link to chat about his path to success on YouTube. This conversation is a great mix of learning about the process and about the person. Here's a short clip, but find webmasters.fm in your podcast app for the whole episode.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 23/05/2025

Wrapping up a wonderful week in Lisbon with the Woo Developer Advocacy team, focused mostly on super-powering our developer docs. We have some amazing things coming but if you have any thoughts on what you need from our dev docs, please share.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 09/04/2025

Nice! I found that we do have an experimental WooCommerce MCP in progress. Pretty neat stuff...

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 11/03/2025

Looking forward to talking all about WordPress & AI with my pal @nickdiego.com and @vikasprogrammer.bsky.social tomorrow. Register here: streamyard.com/watch/xU5BV7...

Building WordPress Plugins with Al with Nick and Brian! 12th Mar Wednesday 9 PM IST / 3:30 PM UTC

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 29/01/2025

Love seeing this WordPress plugin which is nothing but a shortcode and custom block but feels like it needs a top-level admin menu item to show a very basic instructions page and sub-items full of CTAs to other products/services.

The image displays a dark-themed dropdown menu with a blue-highlighted “Countdown” tab at the top, featuring a clock icon. The menu options listed include “Countdown” in bold, followed by “Featured Plugins,” “Featured Themes,” “Hire an Expert” in green text, and “Support or Any Ideas?” also in green.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 22/01/2025

If you're interested in hearing how the GenerateBlocks team is building tools that make developers love Gutenberg, here's a great example of @iansvoboda.com talking about how they added ACF support in query loops.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 20/01/2025

Seeing people post negative temperatures wondering how you survive. Meanwhile it’s a warm sunbathing and weed-pulling day with this little guy.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 17/01/2025

And another one - a quick block style to force the new Grid group block to stack on mobile. Not perfect but solves like 90% of the ways I want to use the grid block.

$register_block_style( 'core/group', array( 'label' => 'Stack Grid on Mobile', 'name' => 'stack-grid-on-mobile', 'inline_style' => ' @media (max-width: 768px){ .is-style-stack-grid-on-mobile{ grid-template-columns: 1fr !important; } .is-style-stack-grid-on-mobile > * { grid-column: 1 / -1 !important; } } ', ) );$

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 17/01/2025

It's not fancy or glamorous but this code snippet solves a huge pain point for me in Gutenberg. Reverse the column flow on desktop, let it stack correctly on mobile. Super handy for repeatable image/text combos where you want to alternate the visual order on desktop.

$register_block_style( 'core/columns', array( 'label' => 'Reverse on Desktop', 'name' => 'reverse-on-desktop', 'inline_style' => ' @media (min-width: 768px){ .is-style-reverse-on-desktop{ flex-direction: row-reverse; } } ', ) );$

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 17/01/2025

Elementor adding an accessibility overlay widget ahead of the new EU regulations hitting this year? 🤔

A man in a dark shirt and white undershirt is presenting a new “Accessibility Widget” during the Elementor web.fwrd 2025 online event. On the right side of the screen, a widget interface is displayed, showcasing various accessibility options such as text resizing, grayscale, contrast, sitemap, and color adjustments.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 15/01/2025

Pointed Raycast at a folder with some simple bash scripts in it. They become commands you can run with Raycast (using comments in the header for the name, etc.). So handy, even simple things like "Open this exact file with this app" can become a command.

A bash script to quickly open my ssh config file in VS Code.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 14/01/2025

For some reason I can't save posts with emojis unless I enable this chunk of code on my site (filtering the post content to run through wp_encode_emoji). Wondering if anyone knows why this might be 🤔 (this is one of like three recent bugs on my site that have been stumping me)

Screenshot of a filter where I run wp_encode_emoji on the wp_insert_post_data filter.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 13/01/2025

Example - a very simple agent via N8n who can answer questions about my past blog posts and fetch relevant text (all using the WP Rest API). This is infinitely harder when your content is inside a black box.

Screenshot of an n8n workflow interface showing a “Test WP Search” automation process. The workflow diagram connects nodes including “When chat message received,” “AI Agent,” “OpenAI Chat Model,” “Window Buffer Memory,” and “HTTP Request.” The right panel displays logs and input data, while the left sidebar lists admin options like templates and variables.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 10/01/2025

Automate the application password and username process! You can ask for their WordPress URL and then send them to an screen that lets them authorize you (send you back the credentials via the URL)

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 09/01/2025

Another cool Python/Streamlit thing - creating your own custom dashboards to view data. I've been wanting a central place to check pod/video/newsletter stats. With a few lines of code I can grab data from the WP REST API. Here's a few iterations playing with its ability to generate tables/charts:

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 09/01/2025

Wow. Good thing I don't turn 40 until 2026.

YouTube thumbnail that says "Over 40? Don't Do It" The title of the video is "Don't be a YouTuber over 40 in 2025, Do this instead"

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 08/01/2025

I recently wrote a python script to help me aggregate any links I shared in Bluesky. I just added Streamlit and with about 5 lines of code I have a little app/UI for my script that I can run (instead of just running in the terminal). Neat!

A screenshot of a web app titled “Brian’s Bluesky Links,” displaying a tool that fetches recent Bluesky posts with URLs. The interface includes a field to specify the maximum number of posts to fetch, a button labeled “Fetch recent posts with URLs,” and a section titled “Posts with URLs…” showing fetched posts with hyperlinks. The app has a clean layout with a success message at the bottom saying, “Posts with URLs fetched successfully!”

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 06/01/2025

I built an app on Retool that lets me read/write blog posts via the the WP Rest API. I’m not actually sure why I’d want that, but it was a fun learning experience!

Screenshot of the retool interface with a table on the left showing my 10 most recent posts and a form on the right to add a new post.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 04/01/2025

This puppy (upper right) is joining my family this week. We haven’t had a puppy in like a decade. If you’re a puppy expert, please send me your best resources because I’ve only had human infants the last ten years.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 27/12/2024

Working on a prototype over the holidays and fighting the block editor (and interactivity API, which I may just ditch) every step of the way.

Screenshot of a Git commit history showing multiple commits by a user named “bacoords” with messages summarizing changes, such as “stashing some bad code,” “enables flex controls,” and “adds basic nav block.” Each commit includes a timestamp and a unique commit hash for reference, organized by date. The interface is displayed on a dark background.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 21/12/2024

Oh cool thanks. Glad I signed up for this service.

Screenshot of my inbox with an email that says “large bill due soon”

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 19/12/2024

Trying to find this "Jamie Marsdale" guy mentioned in the State of the Word but can't find him. He does WordPress YouTube or something?

This image shows a search result for “Jamie Marsdale” on a social media platform, with two accounts listed under “People.”

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 17/12/2024

While talking performance, @felixarntz.bsky.social mentioned that switching from a classic theme to a block theme can be one of the biggest boosts to your site's web vitals number. One benefit of WP controlling the theme's frontend is they can continually improve it. (full episode link below)

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 15/12/2024

The "final" block ended up here, but it's definitely one of those blocks that really only makes sense in this very specific situation. If I have time I'll still make a video showing it and talking about what the options were here and why there's still so much uncertainty. github.com/bacoords/web...

The image features a podcast or content title card with the following details:

Title: “Building a Block Theme for 1 Million Users ft. Jessica Lyschik”
Date: December 13, 2024
Description: A brief summary describes Jessica Lyschik’s journey as a WordPress developer and core contributor. It mentions her insights on WordPress themes, the evolution of the platform, full site editing, challenges with the block editor, and the future of Gutenberg.

Additional text includes a “Play Episode” button link. The overall design is minimalistic, with a dark background and green and white text.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 12/12/2024

Playing locally with @n8n.io and convincing myself not to immediately throw away my Zapier account and try to self-host this bad boy myself for no good reason.

Screenshot of the n8n software running on localhost.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 10/12/2024

Wrapping my head around Python use cases. I built a script to pull my latest Bsky posts via their API, filter down to ones with URLs, and generate a markdown list for easy export to WordPress. Could probably also do the same with my Likes as a way to surface all my recent reads.

This image shows a split-screen view of a coding environment. The left side features a Python script in a code editor titled “bsky.py,” containing a function (fetch_posts_with_urls) that processes posts with URLs, extracting and appending them from a feed. The right side displays a terminal window with text logs discussing topics such as WordPress, sponsorships, and links to various resources and discussions. The environment seems to be focused on developing and analyzing data related to web content and social platforms.

This image shows the WordPress admin interface, specifically the post editor. The post draft contains bulleted content with links discussing topics like WordPress updates, accessibility in WooCommerce, and Cory Doctorow’s commentary on technology.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 09/12/2024

First punk show in a while!

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 06/12/2024

WordPress has a "canonical" 2FA plugin but even if you search for the exact name of the plugin you have to scroll to find it. Among the many many many priorities in WordPress I would love to see canonical plugins become a more integral part of core.

This image shows the WordPress plugin directory interface, specifically a search result page for the keyword “two-factor.” It displays a grid of plugins like Solid Security, Wordfence Security, and Really Simple Security, along with details such as active installations, last updated dates, and “Install Now” buttons for easy activation.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 05/12/2024

I get emails and DMs like this on a weekly basis, (not including all the times @jeffr0.bsky.social asks for help matching designs in Gutenberg). The central premise is always: I'm not sure where to go with WordPress. I answer all of them but it takes time and sometimes I can only empathize.

Hi there,

I have some questions and thoughts about WordPress, and I’d really appreciate it if you could share your advice. I feel a bit unsure about which theme and “page builder” to use to build websites in the best way. There are so many options out there, and I feel lost.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 03/12/2024

Are you subscribed to my newsletter? I was cooking up something fun over the holiday weekend and I'm getting excited to share it with you. Subscribe: www.briancoords.com/newsletter/

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 02/12/2024

Classic example of "developers love dropdowns". This used to be a checkbox and could be set with one click when you changed your Slack status. Now it takes two clicks. And it could still easily be handled as a simple radio/checkbox if they really wanted to.

The image displays a dropdown menu titled “Pause notifications.” The options in the dropdown include:
1. “Do not pause”
2. “Pause notifications for everyone” (currently selected)
3. “Pause notifications for everyone except VIPs”

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 28/11/2024

How is Akismet incapable of catching these obvious spam comments? I've been getting these for months now.

From You got a transfer from Binance. Withdraw >> on Full Site Editing and Ollie with Mike McAlister | [Pending] dlz36c

From Email; Operation 1.823487542 BTC. GET => on Add custom CSS and
JavaScript to any WordPress block | [Pending]

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 27/11/2024

Gonna Black Friday a real desk because this file cabinet plus 2x4s plus butcher block system I have now is feeling a little janky.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 26/11/2024

I've been trying to think of the name for my series of interviews. Lots of brainstorming puns with ChatGPT. I'm leaning very heavily towards "Webmasters w/ Brian Coords" and this wizard-themed cover art unless someone talks me out of it:

AI-generated image of a wizard in a dark library facing three computer screens. The art is pixel-art style and the text Webmasters with Brian Coords is across the top.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 25/11/2024

If you haven't tried out the built-in iPhone Mirroring app on MacOS, I recommend it! You can control your actual iPhone as a window on your screen, great for authentic mobile previews, copy/pasting, grabbing stuff from apps, etc.

Screenshot of chrome open to a webpage and the iphone mirroring app open to the same webpage.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 23/11/2024

Nice touch by Yoast suggesting I think about my SEO. Part of the problem is that there's like three new random URL structures I need to clean up. The podcast is also a taxonomy and is also a CPT but I'm not really using either of those features. 11/

Notifications (1)
You've added a new type of content. We recommend that you review the corresponding Search appearance settings.

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 23/11/2024

A card pattern from Ollie in the single.html template holds the audio player, which I can now add CTAs to. The entire thing is wrapped in a group block w/ Block Visibility to conditionally show it. The Audio player block looks weird on the backend but everything seems to be working. 10/

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 23/11/2024

I get a lot of errors from these plugins. I mean a lot. Just constant blocks crashing, editor crashing, etc. Artifacts of the site/block editors being merged, poorly written blocks, and so on. I can definitely understand why people turn to Ghost and Substack. 9/

Three errors from the Simple Podcasting Plugin

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 23/11/2024

So this is what a podcast episode single template looks like by default. Wah wah. The player is fine, but I feel like we could elevate it a bit. It's automatically injected into the content, but I bet I could use the site editor and make it better. 8/

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 23/11/2024

If you don't have a block, WP will recommend blocks from the plugin directory. Would be cool if there was like a 1-click test where you real site gets cloned into Playground and you can try it. And maybe premium blocks? I'd drop a few bucks for a really good block if one came up. 7/

The "available to install" callout when you try to add a block

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Brian Coords @briancoords.com · 23/11/2024

The custom color picker is annoying and a sign that this might be an older block. None of my brand colors show up so I'm copying and pasting hex codes. Let's all fight the urge to make a better podcast sharing link block. 5/

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