Programming — Terresquall Blog

How to rewrite the author permalink URL structure in WordPress

Recently, one of our clients building their website on WordPress with us had a requirement — they wanted to have a URL base structure for their author pages that was different from the WordPress default. Instead of the default /author/[username] structure, they wanted to use /authors/[username] instead. Although there are plugins for this, we decided to implement it into the theme we were developing for the client to make the functionality as lightweight as possible.

Turns out, the implementation was pretty simple, as WordPress has built-in hooks for this. To update the author page URLs, we need to do 2 things:

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Creating a Metroidvania (like Hollow Knight) — Part 6: Enemies, Spikes, and an Advanced Camera

This article is a part of the series:
Creating a Metroidvania (like Hollow Knight) in Unity

26 April 2024: This article has been updated to correct some errors and missing information.
Here’s the list of changes and bugfixes for Part 6 of the Metroidvania Series.

Welcome to Part 6 of our Metroidvania tutorial series, where we’ll be taking you on a journey through the development process of creating your own Metroidvania game, just like the widely popular Hollow Knight, in Unity!

Creating a Rogue-like Shoot ‘Em Up (like Vampire Survivors) — Part 11: Code and Aesthetic Touch-ups

This article is a part of the series:
Creating a Rogue-like Shoot 'Em Up (like Vampire Survivors) in Unity

Ever wanted to create a rogue-like shoot ’em up game like Vampire Survivors? In Part 11 of our guide, we will be touching up on certain aspects of our project such as identifying and fixing bugs, along with aesthetic changes. You can also find Part 10 of our guide here, where we went through how to create additional features for our game manager by continuing where we left off. We also covered some important additions to UI elements.

A link to a package containing the project files up to Part 11 of this tutorial series can also be found at the end of this article.

Creating a Metroidvania (like Hollow Knight) — Part 5: Level Design and Lighting

This article is a part of the series:
Creating a Metroidvania (like Hollow Knight) in Unity

26 April 2024: This article has been updated to correct some errors and missing information.
Thanks to Allan Valin for pointing these out to us!
Here’s the list of changes and bugfixes for Part 5 of the Metroidvania Series.

Welcome to Part 5 of our Metroidvania tutorial series, where we’ll be taking you on a journey through the development process of creating your own Metroidvania game, just like the widely popular Hollow Knight, in Unity!

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How I made double dashes automatically convert to em dashes in WordPress Gutenberg Editor

Over the weekend, I was tackling a client request requesting for us to help modify their WordPress backend so that when writing posts, the Gutenberg Editor will automatically convert consecutive double dashes -- to an em dash — character.

It was a particularly difficult task for me, despite having coding in WordPress for many years, simply because the Gutenberg editor was relatively new, and there is very little documentation regarding it.

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How to override Astra Pro templates in a child theme

At the recommendation of a fellow web developer, I’ve been using the Astra theme in WordPress to develop Terresquall’s client websites for years now, and it’s been by and large a positive experience. Astra is a very versatile theme that can be used to build many different kinds of website, and their paid Astra Pro plugin adds even more customisation options, allowing for even more rapid customisation options.

If you are building your site upon the addition features that Astra Pro provides using a child theme, however, customising Astra Pro templates can be a bit difficult to do, because there isn’t much documentation about this.

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What `NullReferenceException` errors are (and how to fix them) in Unity

An error involving a NullReferenceException is something that new developers often encounter when working on projects in Unity. These errors occur when attempting to access object variables, or members of object variables, when the variable itself is null.

Although the cause is simple, NullReferenceException errors can present themselves in many different ways. As a result, fixing them isn’t always as straightforward as following a standard series of steps. In this article, we will explore the various ways that a NullReferenceException can occur in Unity, as well as how to handle these various situations.

If you don’t prefer reading and wish for more visual aid, check out our video guide here.
But if you prefer reading, scroll down to check the rest of the article.

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Creating a Metroidvania (like Hollow Knight) — Part 4: Mana and Spellcasting

This article is a part of the series:
Creating a Metroidvania (like Hollow Knight) in Unity

2 June 2024: This article has been updated to correct some errors and missing information.
Thanks to Allan Valin for pointing these out to us! Check out this post to see a list of common issues readers run into with this part of the series.

Welcome to Part 4 of our Metroidvania tutorial series, where we’ll be taking you on a journey through the development process of creating your own Metroidvania game, just like the widely popular Hollow Knight, in Unity!

Continue reading →

Creating a Rogue-like Shoot ‘Em Up (like Vampire Survivors) — Part 10: Game Manager and UI 2

This article is a part of the series:
Creating a Rogue-like Shoot 'Em Up (like Vampire Survivors) in Unity

Ever wanted to create a rogue-like shoot 'em up game like Vampire Survivors? In Part 10 of our guide, we will go through how to create additional features for our game manager by continuing where we left off. We will also be covering some important additions to UI elements. You can also find Part 9 of our guide here, where we went through how to create a game manager to connect everything we have created thus far. We also covered how to create some important UI elements for the game, including several add-on features.

A link to a package containing the project files up to Part 10 of this tutorial series can also be found at the end of this article.

Why an `ArrayList` in Java cannot contain primitives like `int`, `double` or `char`

In Java, an ArrayList is a very convenient object that allows us to create and manage variable-length arrays. However, in Java, an ArrayList also has a weird quirk. You cannot declare an ArrayList that uses Java primitives. Below are a few examples:

import java.util.ArrayList;

public class ArrayListTest {
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		ArrayList<int> intList = new ArrayList<int>();
		ArrayList<double> doubleList = new ArrayList<double>();
		ArrayList<char> charList = new ArrayList<char>();
	}
}

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