Creating Wordpress Plugins

Who is Here? PHP GTA Meetup Wordpress Toronto Meetup East Toronto Web Design Meetup

About Me – Peter Meth Degree in Computer Science Full time web application developer Also do websites, hosting, consulting PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, Javascript Wordpress, Joomla

What is Wordpress? Most popular Blogging System in the World Most popular Content Management System in the World Used by 13% of the world's top million websites It’s free and Open Source

What is a Plugin? Add functionality without changing core files Use Wordpress API to interact with Wordpress Not overwritten when Wordpress gets updated 13,000+ Free Plugins on Wordpress.org Commercial Plugins also available

Why Create Plugins for Wordpress? Add functionality for existing Wordpress users Take advantage of Wordpress security, stability, infrastructure, templates Exposure to a huge userbase You may have your own reasons

Naming & File Structure Give your plugin a unique name Create a main php file You can create your own directory structure gets installed in plugins directory: –{pathtowordpress}/wp-content/plugins/

Standard Header <?php /* Plugin Name: Name Of The Plugin Description: A brief description of the Plugin... */ ?>

Activating Your Plugin Copy all files to –{pathtowordpress}/wp-content/plugins/ Load the wordpress admin go to the Plugins menu, click Activate Let’s have a look...

Filters Filters change text as it gets written or processed add_filter('hook_name','myfilter') function myfilter($content) {... return $content; } Let’s have a look...

Actions Actions are the steps that Wordpress takes to create a page add_action('hook_name','myaction') function myaction() {... }

Creating a Menu Create a new function call add_menu_page(..) within it add your function to the admin_menu action add_action('admin_menu','mymenu'); use if(is_admin()) for safety Let’s have a look...

Creating a Settings Page Create a function that outputs a form In the form set action=“options.php” call settings_fields(..) inside your form register your fields register_setting(..) use get_option(..) to retrieve values Let’s have a look...

Other Ways to Manage Data Create your own tables and forms Use Wordpress built in Options mechanism Use Custom Fields mechanism to add fields to Posts Beyond Scope of this presentation

Want More Information? –(paid videos) –(commercial plugins) B2Template plugin by Dan Imbrogno

Questions & Answers