I was elbow deep in a new website I am working on in WordPress and I wanted to add some social buttons for sharing not only posts, but pages, too.
That’s when I ran into a problem.
I wanted to lean on Jetpack’s social share buttons, since I was running it anyway. The problem with Jetpack, however, is that social share buttons are only allowed to reside inside the WordPress Loop. I would not be able to place them anywhere, else.
That wasn’t okay with me. I wasn’t about to sacrifice my design.
A few years ago I would have started digging around in the WordPress Plugin Repository to find an alternative until I found something that kind of worked or could fit my use. That was when I was scared of code.
Since building up my bravery, I’ve actually found it pretty liberating and empowering. There are so many cool snippets and bits of Javascript that can really take your website, even built on WordPress, to a cool new level and take you beyond the plugin.
Start East
Having dug into social network APIs before, I knew it would be easy to build out my own. This is probably the easiest place to start. Most social networks are well documented and keep their bits of code snippets easy and simple to use.
How would like to add a Facebook Like or Twitter follow button to your church or ministry website?
Trust me, it’s easy.
Links
Here’s where you can find all your snippets:
Don’t let these intimidate you.
By following the included documentation and some copy and paste and you’ll be rockin’ your own social buttons! No WordPress plugins, just pure code, place exactly where you want it (some CSS required).
The Next Level
Once you’ve harnessed these basic skills, you’ll be ready to start implementing some Javascript plugins!
Don’t be scared. There’s always undo. 😉
Have you dug into any of the social network APIs before?
Have fun!
Dan Stephens says
So where would you recommend going to learn some code? I’m still stuck at the look-for-plugins level.
Eric Dye says
Honestly, starting with simple stuff like Facebook buttons and custom Google fonts can be a great place to start. These are things that are designed to be used by those who are not robust in their code knowledge. Beyond that, you might check out these resources:
https://churchm.ag/codecademy-learn-to-code/
https://churchm.ag/learn-code-resources/
Dan Stephens says
Sweet. I’ll check those out. Thanks.
Eric Dye says
Cool! 😀