gavinballard.com

Retiring the blog

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

While it's pretty evident from the timestamps on the "recent" posts here, I'm not actively writing here much any more.

Hiding payment method by country with Shopify Scripts

Thu, 20 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A quick Shopify script to hide a specific payment method (eg credit card) from customers located outside specific countries.

Comma list Liquid snippet for Shopify

Thu, 27 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Breaking the posting drought with a little Liquid snippet to output comma lists.

Shopify Unite Recap

Sun, 27 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

My take on Shopify Unite - a recap and analysis of the big announcements, along with my thoughts on the conference itself.

Advanced Shopify Theme Development Course

Mon, 14 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

My new course on Shopify theme development is now freely available on Skillshare. Created in partnership with Shopify and Skillshare, this course aims to teach the techniques needed to build exceptional Shopify theme.

Shopify OAuth Flow for Dummies

Fri, 22 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

In this post, I'm going to try to provide a plain-language, high-level description of how Shopify's OAuth authentication flow works. To goal is to help out developers new to Shopify and OAuth grasp the broad concepts of the technique without diving into too many technical details.

Boosting launch day revenue by $2000 with a Shopify app

Thu, 19 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Did I do the clickbait headline right? In this post, I'll share a Shopify app success story -- how I helped charity Dansk Flygtninge Hjælp boost their launch day revenue by 18% with an app that took a couple of hours to build.

Ruby Shopify Script Tutorial

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This example is part of my free email course, “Mastering Shopify Apps”. If you didn’t arrive here from an email from me, consider signing up to the course to receive more content designed to help you build Shopify applications.

Fixing 'Oauth error invalid_request' for Shopify Apps

Mon, 09 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

It seems recently that a lot of folks have been running into errors with the OAuth flow when building Shopify applications - most specifically, getting an error reading "Oauth error invalid_request: The redirect_uri is missing or not whitelisted". In this post, I'll show you how to tackle this problem.

Getting Started with the Shopify API

Wed, 14 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Even if you've never worked with a HTTP API before, or aren't particularly technical, it's actually quite easy to get started working with the Shopify API. In this post, extracted from my email course on building Shopify Apps, I'll show you how to get started.

Exporting Gumroad Sales to Xero

Mon, 05 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I've been using Gumroad for a couple of years to sell products to my audience. In this post, I'll show you how I semi-automated the process of importing Gumroad sales data into accounting software Xero using a simple Ruby script.

Why learn to build a Shopify app?

Wed, 30 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

In this post, extracted from my new email course, I take a step back and ask a "big picture" question: why would we want to learn how to develop Shopify applications?

Notes from Generate Conference London

Thu, 17 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

My summaries of some of the standout talks at Generate Conf 2015 in London.

Building Shopify Apps with PHP

Wed, 29 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

PHP may not be the sexiest or "it's so hot right now" of languages, but it's still hugely popular, gets the job done for millions of sites, and has a large base of talented developers. If you're a PHP developer interested in building Shopify applications, but are a bit put off by the apparent lack of PHP-specific resources out there, I've put together a collection of useful places to start.

Securing customer pages with a Shopify app proxy

Fri, 10 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Shopify's proxy pages allow you to offer customers some pretty nifty functionality. However, a naive implementation raises a few security issues. In this post, I'll walk through the techniques I use to authenticate proxied requests.

Tiny tweaks for Shopify theme performance

Sat, 30 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I share a couple of minor tips to squeeze that little bit extra from Shopify themes.

A Shopify Partner’s thoughts on the IPO filing

Wed, 15 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Way back before I started Disco and went full-time as a Shopify developer and consultant, I had a brief flirtation with the world of corporate law. Something in me must have missed the hours spent trawling through long and boring legal documents, because I just had a quick read through of Shopify’s IPO filing.

Mastering Shopify Themes Published!

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a long road, but yesterday I clicked the “send” button to let the earlybird list for Mastering Shopify Themes know that the course is now live and available for purchase!

The “Click Trepidation” Test of Software Quality

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

When I was 17, I entered a programming competition for high school students. The most important lesson I got from the experience is that your own gut can be a strong indicator of software quality.

Deploying Shopify Themes with Beanstalk: First Run Review

Thu, 22 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A live video run-through of my first run through of Beanstalk's new "Deploy to Shopify" feature for Shopify themes.

Improving Shopify Themes (Podcast interview)

Fri, 05 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I recently appeared on the Unofficial Shopify podcast, where I discussed the ins and outs of Shopify themes with Kurt and Paul.

Build a Shopify App in 15 minutes with Django

Mon, 20 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

A series of 3 very short screencasts showing you how you can use Django to build a functional Shopify app in 15 minutes.

Announcing Cart.js

Tue, 14 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Cart.js is an open source project making it easier to add Ajax cart functionality to Shopify themes.

Associating Django users with their sessions

Sun, 28 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

A simple way to fetch all of a user's sessions when building Django applications.

Updates to Shopify theme settings plugin

Wed, 24 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Announcing a few key updates to my Shopify theme settings plugin.

Managing Shopify’s settings.html

Wed, 30 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Managing Shopify's HTML settings file can be a pain when building Shopify themes. I've released a Grunt plugin that makes it a bit easier.

Verifying Shopify Proxy Requests in Python

Fri, 18 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I've been playing around with Shopify's application proxy feature of late as part of my work for Disco's range of upcoming Shopify applications.

Introducing: Disco Labs

Mon, 14 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Job change! (Sort of). As of last week, I’m now the Founding Partner at Disco Labs.

Offline Shopify Theme Editor

Tue, 14 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

If you’ve ever developed a Shopify theme, you know that the process can be a bit of a pain. The platform’s great, but there are lots of little pain points that can drive you to frustration:

Optimising Pages the Hard Way

Sat, 21 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I recently came across an article by Dan Riti, “Breaking the PageSpeed Barrier with Bootstrap”, which examines ways to improve the performance score of pages analysed by Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

Automatically Subscribing Gumroad Customers to MailChimp

Tue, 03 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

A method for automatically subscribing new Gumroad customers to a MailChimp list. It’s not pretty, it’s not super-simple, but it works. Warning: moving parts (your own server, nginx) involved.

Using Respond.js with Shopify: Redux

Wed, 27 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Since describing how to get Respond.js to work with Shopify, plenty of folks have been in touch with questions, comments and a few issues. In this post, I’ll respond to some common questions, and describe a technique to make the original trick even easier.

Microdata on Shopify and other eCommerce Platforms

Tue, 19 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Have you heard of micro data? It’s a relatively new method of providing search engines with structured, detailed information about the products your online store carries. Learn more and see how to implement it on your own store.

Shopify Theme Performance Roundup

Thu, 14 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

There’s no denying that great products, great content and great marketing are all important parts of building an eCommerce site. You might be focusing on these right now (and rightly so), but you shouldn’t forget an oft-overlooked facet of your online store - its performance.

Bootstrap for Shopify Released

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Six months after I announced the beta release of Bootstrap for Shopify, I’m happy to say it’s just reached its first official release!

The Wright Technique

Tue, 10 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I heard an interesting (if potentially urban-legend-esque) fact the other day about the Wright Brothers that made me wonder if a behavioural change could improve discussion on the internet.

Are coders worth it?

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

James Somers just published a fantastic piece over on Aeon Magazine. In it, he brings the question of virtue versus value home to the “startup community”.

Automatically Converting HTML to PDF on Mac

Thu, 30 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

It’s amazing just how difficult it can be to automatically render HTML files to lightweight PDF documents. After a lot of frustration, I found a welcome solution in the URL2PDF utility.

Introducing: Bootstrap for Shopify

Mon, 27 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Today, I’m super-excited to announce the beta release of Bootstrap for Shopify!

Using Respond.js with Shopify

Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Out of the box, Respond.js just doesn’t work with Shopify due to the latter’s asset delivery system. Fortunately, there is a reasonably straightforward technique we can use to resolve this issue.

Talk: Prototyping

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I recently returned to my alma mater to deliver a talk to the current group of students undertaking their final year project at the University of Melbourne. The focus of the talk was prototyping - what a good prototype is, what it achieves, and how to develop one.