I was still stuck with the same two constraints: I needed the widget to appear only when comments were closed, and I needed to control its placement without editing templates. The real solution was still out there — buried somewhere between WordPress hooks and my own stubborn insistence on doing things the right way. And that’s where the story goes next.
I was still standing in front of the same problem, with the same constraints, and the same stubborn desire to do things properly. The AIs had exhausted their options. The theme had revealed its hidden traps. And the “doorbell” still had no place to live. The next step would have to come from me — not from Gemini, not from Copilot, not from another round of late‑night desperation. And that realization was both terrifying and liberating.
If you’re joining me after the previous post, you already know how my attempt to solve a very specific PHP challenge drifted into an unexpected tour of AI‑generated misdirection. Helpful? Occasionally. Entertaining? Absolutely. A shortcut? Not even close. So this time, instead of asking Artificial Intelligences for guidance, I’m turning to actual intelligences—you. Can anyone outsmart the AIs and crack this puzzle cleanly, without wandering into the weeds of almost‑helpful advice?
In a determined attempt to solve a PHP challenge, I turned to Artificial Intelligences (AI) for help. This post describes how that decision led me into the strange gap between what you ask for and what you actually get. Each step forward is met with a new twist—hooks that don’t fire, logic that vanishes when you need it most, and helpers who confidently guide you in every direction except the one you’re actually facing. Their advice is polished, enthusiastic, and somehow always just off the mark. The real challenge isn’t the code—it’s escaping the gravitational pull of almost‑helpful advice from AI: Accurate, Irrelevant.
By default, post’s visibility is set to Public. One of the option to protect your content is to use the Password Protected feature. Now, WordPress displays a password-protected post differently. In particular, it will not print a password-protected post’s Excerpt until the correct password is entered. How to overcome this behavior?
Many themes no longer support them. Some people actually claim, it’s a largely obsolete feature at this point
. Indeed, while premiered in WordPress back in 2011, Post Formats are a powerful feature that is clearly neglected nowadays.
After few weeks of wandering in the legal limbo, it was time to translate this newly acquired knowledge into practical coding. After eight posts on the subject matter, it was also time to conclude this mini-series on the General Data Protection Regulation.
One of the main problem with modifying a theme directly is that any update will overwrite your changes. What if the solution to that problem becomes the source of another? There are two sides to the coin indeed.
Unlike Twenty Twenty (the most recent default themes by WordPress), Twenty Seventeen does not come with a copyright notice by default. In fact, it displays a credit link that cannot be removed through the theme settings (i.e. Customizer). How to reclaim the footer area?
After customizing my comment form, I kept it unchanged for a while. Armed with rudimentary knowledge of PHP, I start digging into WordPress code (during the redaction of the previous post)… That’s odd!
