My Courses > CustomizeWoo > Module 1 > Lesson 01: Plugin or Custom Code?
Plugin or Custom Code?
WooCommerce plugin is flexible – it comes with clean code and plenty of hooks. You can achieve a lot with a few lines of PHP and CSS so why using bloated plugins? So, let’s learn what’s possible & easy.
Video
Please note: English captions are enabled by default (click on “CC” in the video player to disable). Also, you can click on the “gear” icon to manage quality and playback speed. Enjoy!
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For any other queries, feel free to get in touch
If you already enrolled in this course, please LOG IN
Otherwise, please enroll in the FREE / PRO COURSE
For any other queries, feel free to get in touch
21 thoughts on “Plugin or Custom Code?”
Questions? Feedback? Support? Leave your comment now!
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If you are writing code, please wrap it between: [php]code_here[/php]
Hey Rodolfo, just one suggestion. It’s a little hard to navigate and find the free lessons. I’ve searched for them for at least 5-10 mins before I found them at the bottom of the page. Also when we login into the course, we land at the error page saying “Sorry, this video is visible to fully registered students only”, which is so confusing.
Keep up the amazing work. I love your blog and your snippets are helped me so many times! Thanks!
Thanks for your feedback!
In regard to “It’s a little hard to navigate and find the free lessons”, what would you suggest?
Finally, the “Sorry, this video is visible to fully registered students only” error, is that because on login you are redirected to Lesson #1, and that lesson is not free? Or can you give me a URL + screenshot and let me take a look?
Thank you
If I want to create a view on the shop page/home page of all my categories with a button that leads to/displays a page of that category. What do you recommend? I know I can get a plugin that does this in Elementor but I am thinking I should be able to add this using a custom filter
somehow. I feel like I should be able to find this demonstrated in the course somewhere among the many excellent examples but was hoping if you have a moment you could point me in the right direction. Thank you for any assistance you can provide and also fo rthese wonderful courses!
Hi Sam! You can simply add a shortcode, and specifically [product_categories], to your Shop page content. Give it a go. Documentation: https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/woocommerce-shortcodes/#section-13
where can i find the free course?
Hey Alex, you’re on it! Simply take a look at the sidebar navigation, and look for the “(FREE)” lessons. Enjoy!
Took the Customize Woo – Free course. Great tutorials, well written & easy to understand. It was easy to find the hook(s) that I needed and implement a few lines of PHP in my child theme’s functions.php file.
Thanks Roy!
I’m trying to view this video on the Free plan, but it says “Sorry, this video is visible to fully registered students only.
To gain access, please purchase the FREE / PREMIUM COURSE”.
I wanted to have a look at the free courses before I made the investment in the Pro plan with all courses. Should I be looking somewhere else for the 5 free videos?
Thanks for your comment Felicia! Yes, if you take a look at the sidebar “Course Navigation”, you will see some lessons marked as “(FREE)”. Those are the ones you can watch, for example https://www.businessbloomer.com/lesson/cuwm1l06/. Hope this helps!
Hello Rodolfo,
I did enroll in the free plan. I am logged in, I can see “My courses” in my Account, but I keep seeing that message, even those lessons marked as free. Tried two different browsers.
What may I be missing?
Nevermind, now it’s working.
Ah, excellent! Enjoy!
Hi Rodolfo,
I have one question. What type of business Woo suitable? How many product which It can support on a shop to ensure the site is still able to operate well and optimize on speed?
Thanks
Good question! Answer here: https://businessbloomer.com/many-products-can-woocommerce-handle/
Thank you so much!
You’re welcome. Also check https://businessbloomer.com/top-websites-powered-woocommerce/
Thanks so much for getting back to me so quickly and thoroughly, Rodolfo. 🙂 I appreciate that! Your explanation definitely makes a lot of sense. I am extremely picky about which plugins I recommend to my clients, and heavily favour official WooCommerce extensions because of the seamless integration and stellar support.
Off-topic: I didn’t see a reply link so I wrote a new comment. 😉
Great!
Hey Rodolfo, I’m super excited to have started #CustomizeWoo! In this video I just learned you ask yourself: “how likely is it that this will need premium support?” How do you determine whether something does or doesn’t need support? Thanks!
Hey Noelle, thanks for your comment! That’s a million dollar question, and there is no definite answer I’m afraid. In general, a plugin needs a lot of support when it’s either badly coded (unfortunately many of them are) or when the functionality it adds requires deep integration with WooCommerce.
Example 1: a plugin that is not well coded will break your website sooner or later. Hence the need of support and bug fixing. By choosing premium plugins from trusted developers, this should be hopefully solved.
Example 2: a plugin that deeply integrates with WooCommerce and all its possible add-ons might be “WooCommerce Subscriptions”. It integrates with online payments, user membership, user roles, you need to properly set up PayPal/Stripe, and something might break as there are way too many variables. Thankfully, this is a plugin about payments, so coding this is not cost-effective. Trust the official plugin devs and their support skills.
Example 3: a plugin that customizes WooCommerce colors (there used to be one called “WooCommerce Colors”). Now, what’s the point of using this plugin when you can achieve the same with a few lines of CSS? A plugin adds files, functions, settings (and possible bugs) to your site – so in this case ditch the plugin and use custom CSS instead. You achieve the same if not more, you avoid yet another plugin.
Hope this makes a little sense 🙂