George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School

Category: Web Development

phpCAS and WordPress

Make sure your account is in the “Administrator” role, as you won’t be able to login as admin after switching to CAS.

1. Download phpCAS and unzip/untar it: https://wiki.jasig.org/display/CASC/phpCAS

2. Download wpcas.zip and unzip it in wp-content/plugins

3. edit wp-content/plugins/wpcas/wpcas.php and remove or comment out line 57:

/* $wpcas_options['server_path'] == '' || */

4. Create wp-content/plugins/wpcas/wpcas-conf.php with the following content (change “/path/to” to the path to CAS.php that you installed in step 1):

<?php

// the configuration array

$wpcas_options = array(

'cas_version' => 'S1',

'include_path' => '/path/to/CAS.php',

'server_hostname' => 'login.gmu.edu',

'server_port' => '443',

'server_path' => ''

);

// this function gets executed

// if the CAS username doesn't match a username in WordPress

function wpcas_nowpuser( $user_name ){

die('you do not have permission here');

}

?>

4. Login with an account that’s in the Administrator role.  In “Plugins”, activate the wpCAS plugin.

5. If possible, test in a separate browser.  When you click “Log in” you should be redirected to https://login.gmu.edu.  Type in your PatriotPass NetID and password.  You should be redirected back to your WordPress site.

Speed Up Site Performance

Set HTTP Cache Headers

<VirtualHost *:80>
# Your config...
ExpiresActive On
<FilesMatch "\.(ico|gif|jpe?g|png|js|css)$">
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 year"
Header unset ETag
FileETag None
Header unset Last-Modified
</FilesMatch>
</VirtualHost>

Gzip Web Server Output

<VirtualHost *:80>
# Your config...
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml application/xml application/xhtml+xml text/javascript text/css application/x-javascript
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch \\bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html
</VirtualHost>

Source: Faster Sites Done Faster

Further reading: Using a far future expires header

Roll Your Own Social Media Buttons

I recently tested out several WordPress’s social media share plug-ins and disappointed with unnecessary injections of JavaScripts and CSS. Some services even use their own site as a gateway to server up the social media services. I was frustrated and ended up rolling my own, thanks to this blog post. Here’s my customized codes:

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=<?php the_permalink();?>&t=<?php the_title(); ?>" target="_blank"><img src="facebook.png" alt="Share on Facebook"></a>

<a href=”https://plusone.google.com/_/+1/confirm?hl=en-US&url=<?php the_permalink() ?>” target=”_blank”><img src=”google-plus.png” alt=”Share on Google+”></a>

<a href=”http://twitter.com/share?text=<?php the_title(); ?> -&url=<?php the_permalink() ?>” target=”_blank”><img src=”twitter.png” alt=”Share on Twitter”></a>

<a href=”http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=<?php the_permalink() ?>” target=”_blank”><img src=”linkedin.png” alt=”Share on LinkedIn”></a>

Sass

$ sass --watch style.scss:style.css --style compressed

// Import
@import "normalize";

// Variables
$body_font: 'Georgia', serif;

// Mixin
@mixin rounded_corners($rounding) {
-webkit-border-radius:$rounding;
-moz-border-radius: $rounding;
-o-border-radius: $rounding;
border-radius: $rounding; }

Apache Rewrites

Redirect non-www to www with .htaccess


RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

Example: law.gmu.edu to www.law.gmu.edu

Add trailing slash (/) to URL:


RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(.*)/$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.sample.com/$1/ [QSA,L,R=301]

Example: law.gmu.edu to law.gmu.edu/