How to Add a WordPress Query Monitor On Your Site

WordPress Plugins

Do you want to add a WordPress query monitor on your site? A query monitor gives you behind the scene look into your WordPress site. In this article, we will show you how to add a WordPress query monitor on your site and debug performance issues like a pro.

Adding a WordPress query monitor

What is WordPress Query Monitor?

WordPress query monitor is a debugging tool that monitor the requests your WordPress website makes to the server.

You can then use this information for troubleshooting WordPress issues or find and fix common WordPress errors.

Some of the things you can look up are:

  • Database queries triggered by a page in WordPress.
  • HTTP requests made by scripts in your themes or plugins
  • Hooks and actions triggered on a page
  • Language, user role checks, and template files used to display the page
  • Your hosting environment like PHP and MySQL versions, memory limits, and more.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to add a query monitor on your WordPress site.

Adding Query Monitory in WordPress

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Query Monitor plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will add the query monitor menu into your WordPress admin bar.

Query Monitor menu in WordPress admin bar

Taking your mouse over to the query monitor will display the menu allowing you to jump to a parameter quickly. You can also click on the query monitor stats to view all data.

Viewing Data in WordPress Query Monitor

First you need to make sure that the WordPress admin bar is visible when you are viewing your website. Simply go to Users » Your Profile page and check the box next to ‘Show Toolbar when viewing site’ option.

Show admin bar

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Update profile’ button to store your settings.

Next, you need to visit the page you want to check the queries for. Once on this page, simply take the mouse over to the query monitor menu in the admin bar and click on the section you want to view.

Monitoring SQL Queries

The query monitor plugin allows you to monitor all SQL queries, queries by caller, and component. Queries by component section shows you queries by plugins, theme, and core files.

SQL queries

Rewrite Rules and Templates

This section shows you matching rewrite rules and the templates used to display current page.

Requests, rewrite rules, and templates

Scripts and Styles

Scripts and Styles section shows you Javascript and stylesheets loaded by your theme and plugins. You will also see where these files are loaded (e.g. header or footer).

Scripts and styles

Hooks and Actions

This section shows you the hooks used and the actions triggered while loading the current page.

Hooks and actions

Languages Section

This section shows you the language files requested and loaded by the current page. If you run a multilingual WordPress site, then this helps you figure out which theme and plugins have language files available.

Languages loaded

HTTP API Calls

This section displays HTTP API calls made to third party API libraries.

HTTP API Calls

Transient Updates

Transient API allows developers to store information in your WordPress database with an expiration time. This section displays any transient updates requested during the current page load.

Capability Checks Section

This section displays user role capabilities check run by WordPress core, plugins, and themes while loading the current page.

Capability check

Environment Section

This is where you will get your WordPress hosting environment information like PHP version, MySQL version, MySQL Host, WordPress database name, and more.

WordPress hosting environment

Conditional Checks

This is where plugin shows conditions that were required to display the current page view.

Conditional checks

We hope this article helped you add a query monitor to your WordPress site and troubleshoot performance and security issues. You may also want to see our guide on how WordPress actually works behind the scenes.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Will Gutenberg Kill WordPress Page Builders? Not So Fast…

Beaver Builder, Divi, Elementor, Gutenberg, Page Builders, WordPress Plugins

Back in November 2017, the team behind Tailor Page Builder made the hard decision to bow out of the page builder market because of, in part, the incoming WordPress Gutenberg editor. Will other companies soon be following suit? Does Gutenberg signal the end of WordPress page builders? Well – spoiler alert – I don’t think ... Read moreWill Gutenberg Kill WordPress Page Builders? Not So Fast…

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How to Disable the Screen Options Button in WordPress

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Do you want to disable the screen options button in WordPress? The screen options button allows you to show and hide elements on different pages through out the WordPress admin area. In this article, we will show you how to disable the screen options button in WordPress.

Disable screen options button in WordPress

Why You May Want to Disable Screen Options Button?

Screen Options button is located on the top right corner of different pages in your WordPress admin area. It allows each logged in user to show and hide items on various sections of the WordPress admin area.

Many WordPress site owners run multi-author blogs. With screen options button, their authors may accidentally uncheck something that is important.

For example, on the posts edit screen users can show / hide change author field, featured image section, and more.

Screen Options settings on post edit screen in WordPress

You can control the admin view for all users by disabling the screen options button. Let’s take a look at how to easily disable screen options button in WordPress.

Method 1: Hiding Screen Options Button Using Plugin

This method is easier and is recommended for all users.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Adminimize plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Adminimize page to configure plugin settings.

Adminimize Settings

You will see a list of sections. On this page, you need to click on the Global Options link, and it will take you down to a different section tabs. On that tab, you need to once again click on the Global Options tab to expand it.

Section tabs

This will expand the tab, and you will see a bunch of options to show and hide in your WordPress admin area. You need to check the boxes next to ‘Screen Options’.

Deactivate screen options button

The plugin allows you to disable it for all users as well as selected user roles.

Once you are done, don’t forget to click on the update options button to save your settings.

You can now visit any page in the admin area that showed Screen Options button like the dashboard or post/page edit screens, and you will notice that Screen Options button is now disabled.

Adminimize is a really powerful plugin that allows you to completely change the WordPress admin area by selectively showing or hiding different items. For more details, see our article on hiding unnecessary items from WordPress admin area with Adminimize.

Method 2: Manually Disable Screen Options Button in WordPress

This method requires you to add code to your WordPress files. If you haven’t done this before, then please take a look at our guide on how to copy and paste code in WordPress.

You will need to add the following code to your WordPress theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin. 

function wpb_remove_screen_options() { 
if(!current_user_can('manage_options')) {
return false;
}
return true; 
}
add_filter('screen_options_show_screen', 'wpb_remove_screen_options');

This code removes the screen options button for all users except administrators.

You can now switch to any other user account that is not an administrator. After that, visit your admin area Dashboard screen, and you will notice that Screen Options button has disappeared.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily disable screen options button in WordPress. You may also want to see our mega list of most useful WordPress tips, tricks, and hacks for beginners.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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One-Page Design: Pros and Cons you should know about

One Page Theme, One Page Themes, WordPress Tips

In today’s day and age, where we all have so many distractions – phones, social media, emails –  it is safe to say that attention spans have reduced drastically. So anything that helps you capture your audience’s attention and ensures they focus on your content, is a good thing, right? Enter – Single Page Design. ... Read moreOne-Page Design: Pros and Cons you should know about

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Shopify vs WooCommerce – Which is the Better Platform? (Comparison)

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Are you thinking of starting an online store? Not sure whether you should use Shopify or WooCommerce? These are the two most popular eCommerce platforms in the market with their own advantages and disadvantages. In this article, we will compare Shopify vs WooCommerce to help you decide the best option for you.

Shopify vs WooCommerce

Since this is a detailed comparison of Shopify vs WooCommerce, here’s a quick table of content:

Overview: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Before we start with our in-depth comparison of the two most popular eCommerce platforms on the web, it’s important that we cover the basics and highlight what makes these platform stand out.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform that makes it easy for you to create an online store, accept payments, and manage your inventory all from a single platform without ever worrying about the technical aspects of managing a website such as web hosting, security, caching, etc.

What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce plugin built for WordPress. It allows you to leverage the most powerful content management system (CMS) and use it to run an online store. Because of the open-source nature, you can customize every aspect of your store and easily build custom extensions.

The decision to choose between the two platforms depend entirely on your needs and skill level.

What to Look for in Your eCommerce Platform?

There are few things that you absolutely need to keep in mind when starting an online store. These key factors will help you decide which platform is better suited for your needs.

  • Budget – The initial cost of starting a fully functional ecommerce store.
  • Ease of use – It should be easy to use even for absolute beginners.
  • Payment Methods – It should have support for multiple payment methods (e.g. PayPal, Stripe, other merchant processors).
  • Integrations – Number of services and third party tools you can integrate to grow your business.
  • Scalability – The platform should be able to scale as your business grows.

These are the very basic requirements that all online store owners must consider. However depending on your need, you may also want to look at other options like shipping, inventory management, invoicing, taxes, etc.

Our goal with this article is to take an in-depth look at how Shopify and WooCommerce stand on these basic requirements, and which one of them is best suited for your needs.

Cost: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Cost is often the most important consideration for eCommerce website owners. You need to evaluate the cost of getting started while also keeping in mind the variable costs for add-on services and software.

The true cost of using Shopify

Shopify makes it super easy to start your online store. Their basic plan starts at $29 per month, and you can upgrade to the Shopify plan for $79 or the Advanced Shopify plan for $299 per month.

Shopify pricing

Each of these plans include domain name, SSL certificate, and web hosting.

The basic plan comes with enough features to setup a new online store. You can add unlimited products, 2 user accounts, unlimited file storage, and more.

However, this pricing doesn’t include third-party tools and addons that you will need to take your Shopify store to the next level. As your business grows, these costs will start adding up, and you’ll soon be paying a lot more than the basic plan.

Payments are another factor that affects your costs. Shopify offers their own Shopify Payments solution which costs 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction.

If you want to use third-party payment gateways or your own merchant account, then you will be charged a flat fee of 2.0% for all transactions. You can reduce this fee to 0.5% by using the Shopify Advanced plan which costs $299 per month.

These payment processing fees are fairly steep when using external payment gateways. However if you’re just starting out and want to use the Shopify payment solution, then the fees are fairly comparable to popular platforms like Stripe and Braintree.

The true cost of using WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an eCommerce plugin for WordPress.org (also known as self-hosted WordPress). It is open source and freely available as a WordPress plugin.

However, you’ll need a domain name, SSL Certificate, and a WordPress hosting account to start a WooCommerce store.

Typically, a domain name costs $14.99, SSL Certificate costs $69.99, and web hosting around $7.99 / month. This is not cheap, particularly when you are just starting out.

Thankfully, there are several hosting companies who are now offering specialized WooCommerce hosting plans which significantly reduces the cost.

Getting started with WooCommerce

Bluehost, an official WordPress and WooCommerce recommended hosting provider, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name, free SSL certificate, and a discount on web hosting.

This will help you start your online store for as low as $6.95 / month.

→ Click here to Claim this Exclusive Bluehost offer ←

As you can see, the cost of starting a basic WooCommerce store is significantly lower than Shopify. WooCommerce also doesn’t charge you a percentage fee of your transactions which is a very nice perk.

But the WooCommerce costs start adding up as you purchase paid extensions. Your hosting costs will also increase as your online store grows.

However, one clear advantage of using WooCommerce is that you can often find free alternatives to the paid extensions. You can also keep your costs in control by only purchasing the tools and plugins as you need them.

With the amount of free themes and free addons available for WooCommerce, it’s definitely the winner when it comes to cost.

Winner: WooCommerce

Ease of Use: Shopify vs WooCommerce

Most users starting an online store are not web designers or developers. Even users who are familiar with basic concepts need a platform that is easy to use and gets out of their way.

Let’s see how Shopify and WooCommerce stack up in terms of user friendliness.

Shopify – Ease of Use

Shopify is a fully hosted platform which means you don’t need to install, manage, or update any software. You also don’t need to worry about security, performance, backups, and compatibility issues.

As soon as you sign up, it helps you pick a design for your website. After that, they walk you through customization, and then help you add products.

Shopify customization

Shopify comes with an intuitive drag and drop interface. Managing your products, sales, and inventory inside Shopify is a breeze.

One downside of this guided, polished, and highly optimized user experience is that it limits your control. You can only use the design and development tools provided by Shopify or addons available in their marketplace.

However, this is not as bad as it sounds. For most users, the large selection of extensions and themes available in Shopify, is more than enough to get started and grow your online store.

WooCommerce – Ease of Use

WooCommerce is not a hosted platform like Shopify. This means you will need to install WooCommerce, manage updates, keep backups, and make sure that your website is secure. There are plenty of free and paid plugins that can automate most of these tasks for you.

WooCommerce setup wizard

WooCommerce is super flexible when it comes to customizations. You have full control of the whole platform. You can add any functionality imaginable to your website with the help of more than 50,000+ WordPress plugins. However, there is no built-in drag & drop design builder. You can use one of the WordPress page builders like Beaver Builder, but it adds to your cost.

The biggest downside of the flexibility is that it comes with a learning curve and requires a more hands-on management of your website. You also have to signup for a merchant account or similar service like Stripe / PayPal. While the WooCommerce guided setup wizard is helpful, it does not come close to the onboarding and ease of use of Shopify.

Winner: Shopify

Payment Methods: Shopify vs WooCommerce

There are many payment gateways that you can use to accept payments online. Some payment methods may not be suitable for you, and others may not be available to your customers.

This is why it’s important that the platform you choose offer multiple payment options. Let’s take a look at how Shopify and WooCommerce compare when it comes to payment integrations.

Payment Options in Shopify

Shopify offers plenty of payment options that you can use to receive payments from customers. It has its own payments solutions called Shopify Payments (powered by Stripe) as well as all popular third party payment gateways.

Shopify Payments

The problem is that Shopify charges an extra 2% fees on each transaction made through third party payment gateways. This is on top of the transaction fees charged by the payment gateway. You can reduce the fee to 0.5% by paying $299 per month for Advanced Shopify plan.

Shopify Payments has flat credit card fees, but no other transaction fees. Credit card rates start from 2.9% + 30¢ for basic plan and get lower for other plans.

Payment Options in WooCommerce

WooCommerce offers PayPal and Stripe payments by default. It also supports all other popular payment service providers through add-ons.

WooCommerce payment methods

For payment gateways, WooCommerce even has support for many regional and less popular payment services. Since there is no barrier to entry, any payments company can create add-ons for WooCommerce and provide support for it.

As a self hosted platform, you are only charged transaction fees by your payment gateway or your bank. WooCommerce never charges you a % fee on your store transactions which is a major plus.

If choosing your own merchant account and using a third-party gateway is important for you, then you will save A LOT of money by using WooCommerce. But if you’re a small store and willing to use Shopify Payments which has the same credit card rates as Stripe / Paypal, then it makes no difference.

Winner: Tie

Integrations and Add-ons: Shopify vs WooCommerce

No matter how robust an ecommerce platform is, you’ll always need third-party tools and services to grow your store. For example, an email marketing software, lead generation tool, analytics tools, outreach services, etc.

Both Shopify and WooCommerce have a massive extensions directory, and they integrate with many third-party services.

Shopify Add-ons and Integrations

Shopify comes with a powerful API and an App Store where you can buy third party addons for your Shopify store. They have hundreds of apps in the store covering every feature you’ll want to add to your store.

Shopify App Store

For lead generation, they have integrations with software like OptinMonster which helps you grow your email list and reduce cart abandonment. They have apps for SEO, product reviews, discounts, countdowns, and more.

Shopify’s app store contains both free and paid apps. Free apps are usually created by third party services that have their own pricing, and the app only integrates your store to their APIs. Pricing for paid addons varies and most apps offer monthly subscriptions.

WooCommerce Add-ons and Integrations

WooCommerce extensions

WooCommerce is open source and built on top of WordPress. This gives you access to more than 50,000 free WordPress plugins and many more paid plugins.

You can use these addons to add payment gateways, lead generation, SEO, performance optimization, and almost any feature you can think of.

Due to the low barrier of entry, there are a lot more integrations and addons available for WooCommerce than Shopify. Almost all third party tools and service providers have their own plugins to seamlessly integrate with your WooCommerce store.

You can also hire a developer to create an integration or plugin just for your own website. However it’s important to keep in mind that WooCommerce is a lot easier to customize. Having personally gone through the process of submitting a plugin for WordPress and submitting an app to the Shopify store, we can say that the process is extremely harder on Shopify vs WooCommerce.

Winner: WooCommerce

Scalability and Growth: Shopify vs WooCommerce

You have probably heard the term “growth-pains” from various CEOs. As your business grows, you will need more resources to handle new challenges and goals.

Shopify and WooCommerce can both be scaled to handle large amount traffic and orders, but they’re not created equal. Let’s take a look at how these two eCommerce platform compare when it comes to scalability.

Scalability on Shopify

Shopify enterprise

Shopify handles the technical parts of your store which means you don’t ever have to worry about performance, security, and scalability. Once your business starts growing, you can simply upgrade your Shopify plans.

Their infrastructure can easily handle your growing business without you having to worry about downtimes, backups, updates, or security. They also offer enterprise services as part of the Shopify Plus plan.

This takes out the painful part of the growth, but it also adds to your cost of business. Your expenses will grow, and you’ll have to plan accordingly.

The good part is that your costs will be offset by you not having to hire / manage a technical team in-house.

Scalability on WooCommerce

WooCommerce Scalability

WooCommerce is a self hosted platform which makes you responsible for maintaining updates, backups, and security of your website.

Your starter WooCommerce hosting plan would run out of resources as your store starts getting more traffic.

The good part is that you have plenty of options to manage growth as you are in full control of your website. Starting with better management of resources with caching to upgrading your hosting plan to more powerful servers.

Your WooCommerce hosting costs will increase, but you will have better control on resources, and you can make sure that you are not paying for resources that you don’t need. You can use a managed WordPress hosting provider like WP Engine or LiquidWeb to help scale your WooCommerce store.

Despite the control that WooCommerce offers, some business owners simply prefer a hassle-free solution.

Winner: Shopify

WooCommerce vs Shopify: Which is the Best eCommerce Platform?

Shopify and WooCommerce are both powerful platforms to start your eCommerce store. It truly comes down to your personal skills and preferences.

Shopify is a lot easier to use. It doesn’t require you to install anything, and you can get started quickly. Setting up payments is easier, and they have easy to understand pricing plans.

The disadvantage of Shopify is that you don’t have full control of everything. Your costs can go high with transaction fees, add-ons, and integrations. Your upgrade options are limited to select plans, and you cannot manage costs on pay as you grow basis.

WooCommerce is open source and gives you full control of your website. It costs a lot lower to start an online store with WooCommerce specially with these WooCommerce hosting companies.

The disadvantage is that you’ll have to maintain the software. It comes with a bit of learning curve. However, millions of beginners are already using it, and they get over the learning phase quite quickly.

If you are looking for a cost-effective solution, and you want to have full-control of your online store, then WooCommerce is the best platform for you.

If you want something that’s completely hassle-free that has infinite scalability, then Shopify is the better platform for you.

We hope this article helped you compare pros and cons of Shopify vs WooCommerce. You may also want to see our guide on how to choose the best website builder.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Shopify vs WooCommerce – Which is the Better Platform? (Comparison) appeared first on WPBeginner.

How to Remove Parent Slug From Child Page URL in WordPress

change child page url, custom permalinks for pages, remove parent page slug, WordPress Plugins

Do you want to remove the parent page slug from child page url in WordPress? By default, WordPress adds parent page’s slug as a prefix to child page URLs which is good for SEO. However, some people may not want parent page slug in the URL. In this article, we will show you how to remove parent page slug from child page URL in WordPress.

Remove parent page slug from child page URL

What is a Parent Page Slug in WordPress?

WordPress comes with two main content types called posts and pages. Pages are hierarchical which means they can have child pages. By default, the URL of a child page in WordPress will have its parent page’s slug in the URL like:

http://example.com/parent-page/child-page/

This is a better way to organize content if you are using hierarchical page structure on your website. It is considered best practice for WordPress SEO, and it makes sense for your users as well.

Removing the parent page slug can potentially break the URL, but in some expert opinion, it also makes it less SEO friendly. Sometimes it may cause conflicts with the WordPress permalink structure.

In our experience, if you don’t want parent page slug in your child page URL, then the best approach is to not create a child page at all. Instead, you can simply create a page and use navigation menus to show that it belongs under this page.

Adding child items to a menu

However, we understand that some users may still want to use child-pages for their own reasons.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily remove parent page slug from child page URL in WordPress.

Removing Parent Page Slug from Child Page URL in WordPress

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Custom Permalinks plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to edit the child page you want to change. Under the page title, you will see the option to change the child page URL.

Change child page URL

The placeholder area will show your page’s current default URL. You need to click on it and enter the custom URL you want to use for your child page.

Custom page URL

Don’t forget to save your page to store your URL changes.

After saving your changes, you can click on the view page button to view your child page URL without parent page slug.

We hope this article helped you learn how to remove parent page slug from child page URL in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of the best drag and drop page builder plugins for WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Remove Parent Slug From Child Page URL in WordPress appeared first on WPBeginner.

Weekly WordPress News: 2017 In Review

2017 in review, Gutenberg, Pippin Williamson, WordPress News

This week, we have two separate 2017 in review posts – one from ourselves and one from Pippin Williamson. Both are worth checking out! Beyond that, there are some good thoughts on Gutenberg from Chris Lema and Delicious Brains. And WP Tavern also put together a big post full of Gutenberg resources. As you can ... Read moreWeekly WordPress News: 2017 In Review

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How To Use Images In Theme Or Plugin Demo Content From A Seller’s Perspective

CCo Images, images, Stock Photos, WordPress Tips

Ever wondered where the images that you see in WordPress theme and plugin demo content come from? If you’re a casual WordPress user, maybe that’s not a pressing thought on your mind. But if you’re thinking of starting a theme or plugin company, you might be wondering exactly how you can go about getting some ... Read moreHow To Use Images In Theme Or Plugin Demo Content From A Seller’s Perspective

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WordPress 2018 Predictions: My Thoughts On The Upcoming Year

Blocks, Customizer, Gutenberg, WordPress News

A few days ago, I shared a recap of some of the biggest events that happened in the WordPress world in 2017. Now, I want to switch things up, get out my Magic 8 Ball, and look into the future to give you my predictions for what will happen to WordPress in 2018. Give them ... Read moreWordPress 2018 Predictions: My Thoughts On The Upcoming Year

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