We will start a project with multiple dev phases. First, develop a low code web app using WordPress and Crocoblock jet plugins. Second, use that as the backend for apps built in Flutter and Dart.

When to consider reliability of your emails and how to use a third-party email service like Elasticmail. We will talk thru plug-ins and domain keys to keep you emails from hitting spam folders.

As I work on developing my web app called PetStayCay, using WordPress and Crocoblock as the framwork, I realized I needed to make some changes to my hosting choices. I also do some self coaching which I think will help you on your creative project. How do we cultivate clarity, consistency, and confidence...thru challenging ourselves.

Our minds have been damaged by the educational model where failure is punished and look at negatively. Getting to success in a project, a job, a business, and life in general, is thru a path strewn with pivots, false starts, pauses, and yes failures. Learning is the most important thing you can do, and trying things - even failures - ultimately opens your success surface area.

I am using my PetStayCay web app project to share my approach to business asset development. In this case, I am creating a sustainable online business. My approach starts with 3 pillars: 1. Audience building - even before the first line or code is written or WP plugin is installed 2. Monetization strategy - ideas on how this project will be funded and sustained as I bootstrap it from zero to ? 3. The Tech - I am always focused on leveraging the WordPress open source platform as my development framework of choice

Start 2024 learning with me as I build and launch a microSaaS using my favorite platform...WordPress. This episodes gives you some basic background on my PetStayCay project. Happy New Year

If you are programming your entire micro-saas, are building it all with plugins and no-code, or a combination = low-code, then documentation is essential. I talk about a log-based type vs system-based type, and how I use both in a typical Wordpress micro- saas. And I am finding documentation important as I continue to test building with crocoblock plugins like jetengine.

I hope everyone listening can visit my redesigned website https://pluggedintoprogramming.com I am celebrating the rebuild of it using jetengine, jetformbuilder, and other crocoblock plugins. All no code! I also reached episode 30 and gave 1000 all times listens. Thank you all very much!

Just some general observations about confusion and project documentation issues when developing a low code micro-SaaS. On Day 7 of my series using crocoblock plugins to see how far I can get with no code development.

I was just listening to another podcast yesterday that had Seth Godin on as a guest. He has a new book out called "The song of significance". Anyway, Seth gave some advice to help people focus on creative projects. I am qupting him from what I jotted down while at a stop light yesterday: "What is the very very hard thing, that if it happens, your project will work better?". In other words, figure out the part that maybe you don;t know as much about (or down-right do not enjoy as much) and hit it first.

So I took the bull by the horns and selected the payment gateway and membership level/user registration part. Not as flashy as the other parts of the micro-SaaS I am redoing in this ongoing test - but critically important for so many reasons.

In this pod I will talk about my 11 hour saga today (on my vaca day off from J1) ... Ok I did eat a few meals at home... but it was a solid focused day. I am very happy :)

• Some gotchas on having to create a new business level paypal - they would not let my old paypal create APIs any more.
• How to get the pro version of jetformbuilder - the crocoblock super advanced form builder that I get with my license level. Turns out you get the free plugin from the WP repo and the pro parts are add-on that I get with my license.
• Building the form was the easy part
• Created a CCT using jetengine - to store some buyer info
• Learned about the post submit actions on the jetform settings on Gutenberg.
• A few gotchas due to even 1 year old youtube videos and other docs being outdated - crocoblock is modernizing everything all the time - which is great.
• Got some help from the cocoblock chat support - excellent and fast info
• Got some help from a youtube chat with some random user helping my with a 5 month old chat
• Completed the tests - finally getting a user registered, CCT record on the order inserted, an email to the admin sent, and a jetformbuilder form record being saved into a sort of form log

All very cool. I learned a lot and it is full steam ahead.

Thank you Seth Godin for inspiring my direction today - as now I can get to the fun parts :)

My ongoing series evaling Crocoblock as a development tool for micro-SaaS in Wordpress. Today I talk about the exciting possibilities of Custom Post Types (CPT) and Custom Content Types (CCT). Crocoblock plugins support both and it is cool. I also mention some low code thoughts using the actions I can add in a crocoblock form. This includes hooks into WP code as well as my own PHP as secret sauce for my apps.

Burnout is common in all jobs and professions but I believe it is especially prevalent in IT and other tech-savvy professions. I will talk about burnout and its opposites, namely time freedom, creativity freedom, and decision freedom.

I have been able to have some fun today, and I believe a light bulb went off in my head about the templating features. I will try to summarize what I have found.

As I talk about today's findings, I started off wanting to make an artist portfolio system. So first I used jetengine to create a new CPT (custom post type), called artworks. These are the records that will hold a title and featured image of a painting, followed by some meta fields I created called price, description, notes, and so on. I did not use the content field or area of the default post, just the title and featured image. I also used one of the special media field that allows you to upload multiple images into one field. You will see how I use this later.

So far I have found 3 main crocoblock things related to templates. The first is the Jetengine - Listings, which are really templates. In the context of the grid listing features, you first create a listing item. This looks like you are on a page or post, with gutenberg and all its blocks and features. But this "page" is actually a template. I made one for a test called Artwork listing template.

So I then added a regular WP page called portfolio, and I edited that in gutenberg. I pulled in the jetengine block called listing grid. This is then set to the template I made above and magically all my artworks appear - each following the layout I did above. Very cool and easy.

Since I want to also allow the user to click on any artwork image and go to a single page with all the fields of data displayed, I needed to make a single page template just for this. This is where the crocoblock menu item in the admin dashboard comes in - it has 2 theme related sub menus. They botgh sort of work together. They are theme builder and theme templates. I used the theme templates sub menu item to add what is called a theme part. In my case I am creating a single. This will end up displaying the layout for any of the artwork cpt single pages. I won't go into details here, but you create the layout in gutenberg, with any blocks including the dynamic blocks supplied by crocoblock.

You also have to use the theme builder menu item to create a full template - one that allows (optionally) to change the header, body, and footer of any page. In my case I set the condition to be singular, cpt single - artwork. And I left the header and footer untouched, since my portfolio page is part of the rest of the WP site. In other words, I am using the theme templates laid out above in the middle body part only. Works!

Now comes the crocoblock magic! I want the single cpt - artwork template to also use the cool features of the JetProductGallery plugin. It can make a page look like some cool interactive product page - with image gallery, sliders, zoom, sharing, you name it! I dropped the block called gallery modern (there are others too), and I set it to use that meta field in my CPT where I upload multiple images. It also had a cool setting that allowed me to also use the featured image in with the rest. It looked 1000% better than anything I have made before.

In summary, just having worked on this for a few days, I have already learned enough to make an artwork porfolio system that would have taken me a LONG time using code and PODS. So far so good. No code needed yet :)

Crocoblock has not disappointed me yet. Ticket support is excellent, with helpful tips and links being sent back. Especially now that I am staying on 1 topic per ticket. Got a little confused again with a template that was needed as I began testing the Profile Builder. That is a system they made that can create a frontend dashboard with subpages under a vertical or horizontal menu. This is for your users who log in and need to edit profile or content or other forms you build. My confusion was with making a Listing template using a jetengine listing item. Had earlier used that for listing my CPT about pets. However, in this profile context I was confused if it was a different crocoblock template or maybe gutenberg. Once I got thru that issue I was able to make the frontend user dash. Very cool. CPT is a custom post type. These are used to build upon the data structures Wordpress uses for all post types. CCT is a custom content type. Crocoblock makes this available when you have data that would be more effectively stored in its own individual DB table. Very powerful for the micro-SaaS developer. My problem is mainly one caused by the side hustle nature of my project. I can only dedicate a limited amount of hours toward doing my side project. So far crocoblock has bern fun to learn and to use. I have a new idea for a web app or site or micro-SaaS every time I try a new feature lol.

This is Day 2 of this series exploring how far I can push crocoblock's ecosystem of plugins to build a micro-SaaS app.

I really like the ease of working on Custom Post Types or CPTs using Jetengine. Jetengine seems to be the original crocoblock plugin and it handles a lot of things, and its interface for building CPTs is pretty easy to use. I have made CPTs for years with code and also with PODS.

I did get a reply to my questions I submitted on Day 1 (late in day), using the support ticket system. I am in Florida (UTC-5) and they seem to be in Ukraine (UTC+3), and I had a reply waiting for me around 6:30am or so on Day 2. Very fast turnaround and the ticket was helpful. Giving me 2 links.

The crocoblock knowledge base is extensive with documents, tutorials, and a huge video collection. Tons of YouTube videos are made by crocoblock staff, and there are lots of good ones from independent people too.

I also decided to do the dreaded deed and join Facebook. I had a Facebook account MANY years ago and cancelled it after 24 hours. I just don't like the feed system, people trying to friend you, etc. But crocoblocks has a private Facebook community group, and I joined to get into it. You have to wait for a few hours so they vet you. I used the same email I used to register my license of crocoblock.

One my first day I posted a hello to everyone and got some responses :). There are 23.7k members! It does seem very active. On my first day while I was reading I decided to reply with an answer to someone's question - it was clearly about using AJAX so I felt I could answer them about using javascript to make the live updates in the client. They said it was helpful.

That was about it. Day 2 was a J1 day as well, so I have limited time to put on this on weekdays (just like many of you). But I am able to use my time wisely and I will keep pushing forward! Till next time - keep on it.

Day 0 was basically purchase and install, while in this Day 1 episode I talk about setting up an smtp service for the dev site, as well as starting to actually build out part of the specialized content structure of the dev site.

This app was previously developed using PODS and custom PHP code, so I am basically starting on one CPT called pets. Pets holds a title, featured image and a bunch of meta fields. Jetengine has a very nice interface allowing no code construction of the Custom Post Type, as well as allow creation and editing of the data itself in the admin backend.

I am learning as I go, so I spent some time watching the crocoblock videos and reading tutorials. I did get some questions together and created a support ticket to see how long it takes to get help. More on that in Day 2.

This episode is part of a 30 day test I am doing to crash-learn how to use the crocoblock ecosystem of plugins. I am building or should I say rebuilding one of my micro-SaaS apps that I previously developed using PODS, and lots of custom code. I want to see how far I can push crocoblocks :) I will save any coding for my secret sauce of the functionality of the application.

I am doing a 30 day series on my real life evaluation of the crocoblock framework. It is a series of plugins designed for no code development of wordpress sites. I am trying it out as a RAD for one of my own micro-SaaS projects. I called this Day 0, since it was my wedding anniversary and I only had about an hour or so free to purchase it and install on a basic cloudways dev site.

Before installing crocoblocks, I did a WP install, adding mainwp (which I use for monitoring and managing all my sites and micro-SaaS apps), and updraftplus (my backup plugin of choice). I then used the crocoblock wizard to get things going.

The wizard allowed me to easily install the free version of the GeneratePress theme. I happen to have a premium license of GP so I downloaded the plugin .zip from GP's wensite, so now I have the full premium version running. crocoblock claims 100% compatibility with GP (and a half dozen other good plugin choices).

This episode is part of a 30 day test I am doing to crash-learn how to use the crocoblock ecosystem of plugins. I am building or should I say rebuilding one of my micro-SaaS apps that I previously developed using PODS, and lots of custom code. I want to see how far I can push crocoblocks :) I will save any coding for my secret sauce of the functionality of the application.

We can get so invested in projects that we lose sight of the really important part of creative development, our own personal development. This rebooting process is something to celebrate.

As a solopreneur or one person creative team, facing the chaos of the unknown can seem overwhelming. But you can do it! In these times of pandemics, economic disruptions, and changing markets, you can use your mind to level up to navigate across anything. We will explore some self-leadership to help guide you thru today's complex developments.

One of the most important things you can do in the development of your software app, website, or micro SaaS is to get user feedback. Beta testing is one of the methods to not only find bugs, but also to improve functional design and workflow.