Bram Esposito - Page 5 - Designer ~ Hacker ~ Dreamer

the JagersToren in Boekenbergpark
Written on March 1, 2025 by Bram Esposito in photo · 24 words · 1 min read
In: friends, running
A longer run today with my son on the bike. And a long stop at Dries’ for a chat and a cup of tea ❤️.
Read more: the JagersToren in Boekenbergpark
Lucie Antunes pre-show
Written on February 16, 2025 by Bram Esposito in music · 37 words · 1 min read
In: French, Lucie Antunes, music
Watch these artists prepare for their show:

I’m really into Lucie Antunes percussive electronic/classic mashups recently. Have been going through a lot of their music in the last days.
Read more: Lucie Antunes pre-show
New WordPress Plugin: Photoblog
Written on February 16, 2025 by Bram Esposito in tech · 180 words · 1 min read
In: Photography, Programming, WordPress
I started a new Git Repository for a WordPress plugin I’m creating to contain the features that I want on this website related to Photoblogging.
- I want to display a grid view of photos, in columns of 3, as I do on my photos page
- I want to be able to add landscape and portrait photos, without breaking the grid view
- I want to be able to navigate the photo’s with the arrow keys on the keyboard
- I want to be able to add Galleries and make these appear as. a single image set in the grid
- I want to enable zooming on all images by default
- I want to display a short paragraph below the photo
- I want to support video’s as well
Currently only the first two bullets have been implemented. I’ve created a custom renderer for the Post Content that extracts the first image block (in the future I’ll add gallery and video blocks).
Then I added some styling to make the images always fit within the designated grid square, without stretching it to the image’s original size.
Read more: New WordPress Plugin: Photoblog
meet Ruby
Written on February 10, 2025 by Bram Esposito in life · 2 words · 1 min read
In: cat, tax
meet Ruby
Read more: meet Ruby
Using ddev for local PHP development
Written on February 8, 2025 by Bram Esposito in tech · 409 words · 2 min read
In: ddev, debugging, Magento, podcast, WordPress
For me, one of the discoveries of 2024, has been ddev, a tool to manage PHP (and other) environments, based on Docker images.
Docker-based PHP development environments.
In the last months I have been very happy using this project. It allows me to work locally on my source files and assets while at the same time have a specific environment with the exact server configuration that I need.
Let me sum up some cases where it really came in a handy:
- I ran into ddev for the first time when trying out a sample project for craft cms. The instructions to get the project up and running were surprisingly concise:
```
git clone https://github.com/craftcms/europa-museum.git
cd europa-museum
ddev start
ddev craft db/restore seed.sql
```
- Converting an existing WordPress setup? Just run ddev config and ddev start.
- Pull in a database dump from production? Configure a provider (ok that’s a little bit more work if you’re not on one of the predefined hosting providers)
- want to add an extra container, say ElasticSearch? no problem.
- Want to inspect the database? I run ddev sequelace and I’m in the database, editing the data.
- run ddev mailpit and see the mails that have been sent out, in a Gmail like UI, or download them as a PNG screenshot
- Boot that old Magento shop? Set the right PHP version, composer version, mysql version, run some terminal commands with ddev ssh and we’re up and running.
- importing a database throws an error Unknown collation utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci? just switch from mariadb to mysql, run ddev restart and import again.
- Want to run PHP with Xdebug? just drop an xdebug.ini in the correct config directory
- I’m working on a Django setup, with extra startup scripts, an MQTT client and a Nuxt/Vue frontend and I hope to find the time to configure that for ddev as well. That would mean that starting ddev starts the full stack, all on the right ports and the paths mapped correctly
I guess it’s clear that I’m excited about this addition to my toolchain.
I’ve always been running Apache, MySQL, mkcert, MailHog through homebrew. And while that served my needs, I had to reconfigure quite a lot every time I ran brew upgrade.
PS: last week I sent a toot at @atpfm suggesting ddev as a solution for Marco’s work on Overcast. I was happy to hear Casey read/butcher my name on the podcast 😄.
Read more: Using ddev for local PHP development
Tailscale killed my DNS
Written on February 3, 2025 by Bram Esposito in tech · 151 words · 1 min read
In: DNS, MacOS, Tailscale
I am working on a remote location today, on a shared venue network.
After rebooting my Mac I could no longer connect to any website domain, which led me to believe that DNs was not resolving. And indeed, pinging www.google.com gave no results. Even when tethered to my iPhone, I could not connect to any website. Connecting to VPN by IP did work though, and pinging 8.8.8.8 worked fine as well.
Luckily, I could search for clues on my phone, and ran into this command that I have not used before:
scutil --dns which gives you a nice list of DNS resolvers as they are used by the system, and, on top of that list this entry:
```
resolver #1
  search domain[0] : tailf67a92.ts.net
  nameserver[0] : 100.100.100.100
  if_index : 24 (utun4)
  flags    : Supplemental, Request A records, Request AAAA records
  reach    : 0x00000003 (Reachable,Transient Connection)
  order    : 102000
```
I restarted Tailscale, and we are online again 🎉.
Read more: Tailscale killed my DNS
The creek flooded the trail
Written on January 25, 2025 by Bram Esposito in photo · 8 words · 1 min read
In: Antwerp, creek, rain, running
The creek flooded the trail after tonights rain
Read more: The creek flooded the trail
Exploring some new city neighbourhoods
Written on January 23, 2025 by Bram Esposito in life · 5 words · 1 min read
In: Antwerp, graffiti, running
Exploring some new city neighbourhoods
Read more: Exploring some new city neighbourhoods

Enable compatibility mode in WooCommerce

Written on January 22, 2025 by Bram Esposito in tech · 675 words · 3 min read

If you have setup a WooCommerce shop recently, or have enabled their HPOS¹ you will want to enable compatibility mode as soon as you use any extension.

I’m running into issues with WooCommerce Memberships not able to create memberships for users, because it cannot find the users related to an order:

<?php
/**
 * Returns users IDs from orders that contain products that could grant access to a given plan.
 *
 * TODO When WooCommerce starts using alternate data stores for products (perhaps from WC 3.5+) this method may require an update as it performs a direct SQL query assuming a standard WPDB data organization {FN 2018-07-23}
 *
 * @since 1.10.6
 *
 * @param int[] $access_product_ids array of product IDs that grant access to a plan upon purchase
 * @return int[] array of user IDs
 */
private function get_users_for_retroactive_access( array $access_product_ids ) {
	global $wpdb;

	if ( ! empty( $access_product_ids ) ) {

		// get orders that contain an access granting product (or variation) to the given plan
		$product_ids  = Strings_Helper::esc_sql_in_ids( $access_product_ids );
		$orders_table = Framework\SV_WC_Order_Compatibility::get_orders_table();
		$order_id_col = Framework\SV_WC_Plugin_Compatibility::is_hpos_enabled() ? 'id' : 'ID';
		$order_ids    = $wpdb->get_col(  "
			SELECT DISTINCT orders.{$order_id_col}
			FROM {$wpdb->prefix}woocommerce_order_itemmeta AS order_item_meta,
			     {$wpdb->prefix}woocommerce_order_items AS order_items,
			     $orders_table AS orders
			WHERE order_items.order_item_id = order_item_meta.order_item_id
			AND order_items.order_id = orders.{$order_id_col}
			AND ( ( order_item_meta.meta_key LIKE '_product_id'   AND order_item_meta.meta_value IN ({$product_ids}) )
			 OR   ( order_item_meta.meta_key LIKE '_variation_id' AND order_item_meta.meta_value IN ({$product_ids}) ) )
		" );

		if ( ! empty( $order_ids ) ) {

			// get user IDs for the found orders
			$order_ids = Strings_Helper::esc_sql_in_ids( $order_ids );
			$user_ids  = $wpdb->get_col( "
				SELECT posts_meta.meta_value
				FROM {$wpdb->prefix}postmeta AS posts_meta
				WHERE posts_meta.post_id IN ({$order_ids})
				AND posts_meta.meta_key = '_customer_user'
			" );
		}
	}

	return ! empty( $user_ids ) ? array_unique( array_map( 'absint', array_values( $user_ids ) ) ) : [];
}

<?php
/**
 * Returns users IDs from orders that contain products that could grant access to a given plan.
 *
 * TODO When WooCommerce starts using alternate data stores for products (perhaps from WC 3.5+) this method may require an update as it performs a direct SQL query assuming a standard WPDB data organization {FN 2018-07-23}
 *
 * @since 1.10.6
 *
 * @param int[] $access_product_ids array of product IDs that grant access to a plan upon purchase
 * @return int[] array of user IDs
 */
private function get_users_for_retroactive_access( array $access_product_ids ) {
	global $wpdb;

	if ( ! empty( $access_product_ids ) ) {

		// get orders that contain an access granting product (or variation) to the given plan
		$product_ids  = Strings_Helper::esc_sql_in_ids( $access_product_ids );
		$orders_table = Framework\SV_WC_Order_Compatibility::get_orders_table();
		$order_id_col = Framework\SV_WC_Plugin_Compatibility::is_hpos_enabled() ? 'id' : 'ID';
		$order_ids    = $wpdb->get_col(  "
			SELECT DISTINCT orders.{$order_id_col}
			FROM {$wpdb->prefix}woocommerce_order_itemmeta AS order_item_meta,
			     {$wpdb->prefix}woocommerce_order_items AS order_items,
			     $orders_table AS orders
			WHERE order_items.order_item_id = order_item_meta.order_item_id
			AND order_items.order_id = orders.{$order_id_col}
			AND ( ( order_item_meta.meta_key LIKE '_product_id'   AND order_item_meta.meta_value IN ({$product_ids}) )
			 OR   ( order_item_meta.meta_key LIKE '_variation_id' AND order_item_meta.meta_value IN ({$product_ids}) ) )
		" );

		if ( ! empty( $order_ids ) ) {

			// get user IDs for the found orders
			$order_ids = Strings_Helper::esc_sql_in_ids( $order_ids );
			$user_ids  = $wpdb->get_col( "
				SELECT posts_meta.meta_value
				FROM {$wpdb->prefix}postmeta AS posts_meta
				WHERE posts_meta.post_id IN ({$order_ids})
				AND posts_meta.meta_key = '_customer_user'
			" );
		}
	}

	return ! empty( $user_ids ) ? array_unique( array_map( 'absint', array_values( $user_ids ) ) ) : [];
}

With HPOS, the customer id is saved in the wp_wc_orders table instead.

High-performance order storage ↩︎

Written on January 22, 2025 by Bram Esposito in life · 47 words · 1 min read
In: balance, work
The last weeks, I’ve been overwhelmed by work, so no time to work on the blog or write posts. Also a bit depressed by the state of the world. And some family troubles that need time and attention.
Here’s to a positive outcome for all of this.
Read more: untitled post 1878