About

I’ve been interested in making things easier for as long as I can remember. Perhaps I’m just lazy, perhaps I’m not very clever… though if you ask me it’s just because I can’t believe that things have to be as difficult as they are.

Lovely pic of me
Me (Todd Halfpenny)

I work at MobileCaddy as their Mobile Technical Architect, and am heavily into Salesforce.

As well as being a  leader of the London, UK Salesforce Developers Group, I’m an organiser for the annual London’s Calling community event, and have spoken multiple times at these types of events (inc. all four London’s Calling conferences).

My love for the community doesn’t stop with Salesforce though, I’m also a huge fan of WordPress and it’s wonderful community. I have volunteered at WordCamps and was even on the organising team for WordCamp London 2019. As with Salesforce I have also presented at WordPress events.  I’m also the guy behind several popular WordPress plugins such as 5-star rated Widgets On Pages and its newly released successor Turbo Widgets.

Previously I worked for 13 years in telecoms networks as a software developer and engineer. During this time I was part of the small team who designed and developed an in-house SMSC (Short Message Service Centre) and also within the Intelligent Networks design and developement team who were responsible for services such as Pay As You Go. My latest role was as the lead developer on the in-house PCRF platform.

During my studies at university I was the webmaster* for the Student Union site as well as writing music reviews (where I got the chance to interview Roxy Wild – Kim Wild’s younger sister – and walk past Kylie Minogue – she still had a surname then – in a corridor).

This site is my home and the web… it’ll contain some of his thoughts and  ramblings.

* what an awful title that is… but that’s the way it was in the late 90s 🙂

61 Replies to “About”

  1. Hi Todd,

    I was wondering if I could ask for your support with using the Widgets on Pages plugin in my theme file?

    If yes, to which address/where should I contact you?

    Thanks
    -Johanna

  2. Hi Todd,

    great work on your plugins. very handy for people like myself who forget where they are when in long code.
    I am looking for some custom work to develop the functionality on a site for peole with learning disabilities. Would love to get your input and pay for time to develop if you are able to.

    Thanks
    Chris

  3. Dear Todd,

    For a non profit project of mine, I am looking for a plugin/way to insert a particular “rating” widget into a page. So that the “ratings” will be displayed inside the “Top rated” page instead of the sidebar.

    I found your plugin, which says to solve this problem.
    But I could not make it work.

    Could you please help me solve this problem ?

  4. Hey Ivan,

    Please feel free to leave some details here or mail me with further info and I’ll be happy to take a look.

    Ta,
    Todd

  5. Hi. I’m using thesis Framework. I also have WordPress Multi site.
    I just added Widgets on pages..
    what I want to do it on the static page for the main website to post the recent posts from all my websites. I already installed it and named each widget..the only thing I’m stuck on is the number 4-6 on the installation part of widgets on pages. please help. Thank you so much.
    Main is where I’m trying to add the widget…main it the front page..Please help

  6. Hey Jennifer,

    I take it at this point you have added the widgets (to show the posts from your other blogs) to the Widgets on Pages sidebar via the Widgets admin area.

    If so you then need to copy and paste the shortcode (which is displayed just under the title of said sidebar, will look something like this [widgets_on_pages id=x]) into your static page content at the point you want the widgets to be displayed.

    I hope this helps… if not feel free to email me and we can try to get this working for you.

    Ta,
    Todd

  7. Hey todd, thanks for “widgets on pages,” been really useful. I was just wondering if there was anything in the pipeline to be able to organize the “widgets on pages” settings page and implementation page so that it is not just a long list down. Something maybe like categories in posts with filtering mechanisms.

  8. Hey Jeff,

    Glad you like the plugin!

    And yes, the options page could do with some love, especially when you have many extra sidebars configured. I shall look at revamping the admin UI for the next release.

    Ta,
    Todd

  9. Hi, thanks for the awesome Widgets on Pages plugin, this is seriously exactly what I needed for my food review website! I am having a problem though, I have been trying to troubleshoot an issue for several hours and I can’t figure it out for the life of me.
    Maybe I can show you the error that shows up in Firebug and you could point me in the right direction if you have any spare time. I am using this plugin to show “MapPress” maps on specific pages via a widget. The maps show up fine in the sidebar without using the WoP widget, when I add the shortcode to my page to show the map I get this error in Firebug: “unterminated string literal” …819803,”lng”:-117.23630292}},”user”:false,”showPoiList”:true,”poiListTemplate”:

    The MapPress widget works perfect in the sidebar, but when I use it in the WoP widget on my page the map fails to load, I just see a swirling circle and I get the unterminated string literal error is all browsers. The WoP plugin works great with all other widgets I try to show in pages on my site, except for MapPress it completely chokes. =(

    I’ve contacted the author of MapPress but he says it sounds like the WoP plugin that is causing the issue and he recommended another plugin to try instead, but that plugin (widget logic) doesn’t do what your plugin “WoP” does. I really need both of these plugins to work together.

    The URL to the page is: http://eatsd.com/category-map/
    I can send you URL’s of screenshots of the errors as well if you supply an email.

    Any help you can provide would be excellent.
    Thank you for your time!
    -Mike

    1. Hey Mike,

      Thanks for letting me know about that… looks like it could be a conflict with the 2 plugins. If you could send me some details over that would be ace (todd@gingerbreaddesign.co.uk)

      Ta,
      Todd

  10. Hello, great plugin (widgets on pages), however I’m have the same problem as others concerning the bullets showing.

    I tried the:
    .widgets_on_page ul li { list-style: none; }

    And other suggestions you gave, but still nothing working as the background image of my theme is being shared as bullets:
    http://bible.proofdirectory.org/answers/

    My assumption is that no matter what I select, the css on the plugin remains “inactive”. Could this be the reason? Please advise. Thank you 🙂

    1. Hey Philip,

      It’s likely that the CSS is active but isn’t explicit enough to overwrite your theme’s styling.

      I tried looking at that link but get your holding page, perhaps you I need a login to see? Feel free to either send me an “open” link or a login and I’d be happy to take a look.

      Ta,
      Todd

  11. Hi Todd,
    I have just posted a comment on Joseph’s blog but in doing some further investigation I found you, so thought it was probably better to go straight to the source for an answer to my problem, so firstly i will post my message to Joseph below and then follow on with the continuing saga;

    Hi Joseph, I have spent most of the day on this problem and still cannot find a solution, I thought I had it with this plugin but I can’t seem to figure it out, i have followed your directions, I have my extra widgets in widgets under appearance, now I am assuming that my next step is to remove this message “#1 Widgets on Pages sidebar. Use shortcode “[widgets_on_pages]” from the new widget and enter my html code, then use shortcode “[widgets_on_pages_id=1]” from the widget that i want to use and place in my post area that i want the widget to appear in, (whew I hope I have explained that clearly for you) now if all of this is correct, my problem is I cannot remove the message from the widget, I try to delete but nothing happens.
    Can you please help me with this problem.
    thanks Cheryl

    O.K. now firstly i realized I was doing something incorrectly as I did not drag a text widget over to drop in my new WoP widget, this I have now done, then added the html code and then copied the shortcode to my post, but still nothing is happening, the heading that I put in shows up but nothing else. What i am trying to do is put an Amazon widget carousel into my post.
    I hope you can help with my problem.
    Thanks
    Cheryl

  12. Hi Todd!

    Found your nice widgets on page-plugin! Do you have (or have planned) a function that will let me control the appearance of the widget? Right now it is centered, and it would be great to be able to choose between center, left or right for the widgets! And while we´re at it, a global switch for widgets on all post or pages would make my day! Great job, hope you continue to update the plugin!

    1. Hey Anders,

      No, I hadn’t planned for that… but the next release does have some features including choosing how many widgets to display next to each other… a sort of column setting I suppose. It seems to make sense to add this alignment feature to that if only 1 column is chosen.

      Thanks for the suggestion.
      Todd

        1. Hey Paul,

          I have a complete overhaul which is currently still being developed… it’s more a replacement of Widgets on Pages than an upgrade though. In fact I trying to make it a complete overhaul of Widgets in WordPress entirely.

          I’m afraid though I’m super busy at the moment so it’s taken a backseat for the time being.

          Ta,
          Todd

          1. Hello again Todd

            I look forward to the trying out your new overhauled plugin when the chance arises!
            You can send me an e-mail with the plugin when ready and I will test it out and give you UI feedback.

            Have a great day!

  13. Hello Todd… I love your widgets on pages plugin but I have found a huge issue(bug).. I updated the plugin and it deleted all my widget area data.. So I had to go back and add all my widget data again… This is a bummer because I am using a ton of widgets…. It did not delete the widgets I made just the data in them….

    Thanks Johnny

    1. Hey Johnny,

      Do you know what version you updated from/to?
      There was a known case that this might happen on some themes when updating from older versions (pre 0.0.8 IIRC). This was noted in the install notes to warn users.

      Todd

    1. Hey John,

      I think that some widgets that use JS have issues… feel free to start a support thread over on the WordPress.org forum.

  14. Hello Todd,

    had removed the plugin and now get a box / line where the content use to be, How can I remove this, or the widget box of: Widgets on Pages 1 in widget area.

    Thank you in advance.

  15. Hey Todd, support request I’m afraid! I am waving some small coins that should help you buy a pint or two though.. Do you mind dropping me an email? I have a quick question about (I think a conflict in the coded) when using Widgets on Pages. I appreciate your help. Thanks, Ben

  16. hey todd

    thanks for the widget – love it horizontally.

    questiobn: I’m getting bullet points issue like others (couldn’t find solution from your coments) for flickr widget and twitter posts. the “enable styling” only takes off bullet points for title but not the content. how can I remove all bullets?

  17. Hi Todd,
    Let me introduce myself. My name is Borisa Djuraskovic. I am associated with Web Hosting Hub. Your Widgets on Pages plugin at http://gingerbreaddesign.co.uk/todd/ is very interesting. I want to translate it to my native language Serbo-Croatian.
    Do you mind if I do so?
    Please let me know!!!
    Best Regards,
    Borisa Djuraskovic

  18. Hi Todd,

    I just downloaded your Responsive Twenty Ten Plugin. It is great! I am wondering if you could help me with the resizing of the logo image I am trying to use in place of the title. The header image and other images on the page resize nicely when the screen size is reduced, but the logo image I am using stays the same size.

    Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

    Thanks,

    Gina

  19. Hi Todd,

    I like your comments of the WordPress meetup and your background.

    I’m interested in talking with you about freelance plug-in development projects.

    Would you be available ?

    Alex,

  20. Sorry Todd – I just realized I posted this in 3 Pointers area. This seems like a more appropriate place to contact you.

    Hi Todd,

    I came across your plugin Widget on Pages 0.0.12. Even though I am running WP 4.0 I thought I would give it try it and it seemed to work great. Then the page widgets stopped showing up on the page.

    Not sure if it was something I did elsewhere but it still does not show up even though I have deactivated all other plugins and cleared my browser cache.

    It seems that you have stopped updating this widget, so I am hoping you will be willing to share some advice on how to make this work or a recommendation for another plugin you like that does the same thing that will work with WP 4.0.

    Thanks so much!
    Jody

  21. Hi todd,
    Sorry to bother you. I hope you can help me with a small problem with widgets on pages..
    on http://whatthefaculty.com/student-resources/ you can see on the right in the sidebar that there is some padding or margin before the titles. I tried all kinds of things in css, also with comments from yourself on earlier posts.
    Can you see what I have to change?
    thanks a lot
    cheers, jeroen

  22. Hi Todd
    i love your “Widgets on Pages” Plugin, but recently i noticed a problem in combination with the popular “WordPress Twitter Bootstrap CSS” plugin. Thats wierd but when you have installed both plugins there is a mixed content bug on the “Settings – Widgets on pages” page: it shows your settings and additionally it shows some help file content from the above mentioned bootstrap plugin. That looks like overlapping function names or something like this.
    That would be great if that gets fixed as some users or clients are confused by this 🙂

  23. Somethings WRONG with your latest “Widgets on Pages” Plugin.
    It causes an Error when I try to activate it.

    Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘[‘ in /mnt/web016/b2/23/54561723/htdocs/WordPress_01/wp-content/plugins/widgets-on-pages/public/class-widgets-on-pages-public.php on line 126

  24. Hi Todd,

    just tried to upgrade to your latest version of Widgets on Pages. Ended up horribly: all widgets on pages were gone. In Designer I still had all the widget areas – but they were all empty. Restored yesterday’s backup and all worked again. Any idea or suggestion on how I could upgrade without redefinig all my widgets on pages?

    cheers
    Torsten

  25. Hey Todd,

    I’m taking over for a web designer and I’m not familiar with widgets. Recently something on our site changed.
    A page that contained two columns of 2 pictures in each column became 1 column of 4 pictures.
    I thought maybe it had something to do with Widget secondary area but – it does not. I played with all the plugin setting to see if anything would work.

    Any ideas?
    Any help would be a god send.

  26. Hi Todd, thank you for creating your Widgets On Pages plugin! I don’t have a lot of money but I can send you a few bucks if you could please tell me how to delete the indentation. Here is my Dad’s site I’m working on, and you can see the homepage looks a little funny. Thank you!

    Claire in Canada

    1. Hi Claire,

      Thanks for your kind words.

      Ref support, you’re best of posting over on the support forum. I will keep an eye out for your post.

      I also have a donation link, and any contribution will certainly be welcomed. You could always purchase the PRO version, which inlcudes a priority email support, as we as the other great features.

      Todd

  27. Hi Todd, I love your plugin. Whenever I see a promo code area, I search high and low. Do you have any current promotions?
    AL

  28. Hey Todd,

    I see you get a lot of positive feedback from your plugins. I’ve been having good use out of them myself! I’m having a small issue with the Widgets on Pages plugin. I left my email. Please get back to me as soon as possible!

    Thanks!

  29. Hello Todd,

    First, I have no web background at all. GoDaddy set up a new site for my organization, and I’m trying to refine it, learning as I go.

    I installed Widgets for Pages in my BeaverBuilder themed site, and it seems to function well. I created a widget and placed it in a module titled AKC Events and Related Organization Links at the bottom of the Events page on the site. It consists of organization logos that link to those organization sites. However, only a couple of them work, even though I’ve set up custom links, I believe correctly. The only difference between the logos that work and those that don’t is that the images, taken from my Media Library, have added a string of numbers to the image title.

    For example, an image that works is the logo for OFA. The title appears as OFA.jpg. An image that doesn’t link is the logo for AKC. When I put the logo in the media library, I named it AKC-1.jpg. However, it was automatically renamed AKC-1-e1555259297446.jpg . When I click on the logo image in the widget, it just opens a new page showing the image with the location URL string and this image tile. This happens for all other logos in the widget except one for DE SPCA, with different numbers appended to the title, even though I named them simply. The media library seems to be creating these names automatically, and I don’t know why, and the widget operates as if these names should be the link destination rather than the web site URL.

    Obviously, I’d like to all the links to work. Can you tell me what I’m doing wrong?

    Thanks, Jack

  30. Hi Todd, I love your Widgets on Pages plug in!

    So I was disappointed to see that it has been removed from WordPress.org.

    Are you planning to withdraw the plugin? Or is perhaps the pro version listed on WordPress.org instead?

    Thanks, Colin

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