This book will provide an easy to understand, step-by-step approach to building your own WordPress plugins from scratch. We will construct a variety of plugins from the group up, demonstrating how to tap into a number of WordPress’ development aspects, as well as how to prepare and release your plugin(s) to the public. This book is for WordPress users who want to learn how to create their own plugins and for developers who are new to the WordPress platform. Basic knowledge of PHP and HTML is expected, as well as a functional knowledge of how WordPress works from a user standpoint.
WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials
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About the Author
Brian Bondari
Brian Bondari is a musician, composer, and teacher with equal loves for both music and technology. His hobbies include reading, hiking, composing music, and playing with his pet rabbit. He also spends an exorbitant amount of time lying on the floor grading papers.
Brian earned his doctorate from the University of Kansas in 2009 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Texas at Tyler. When he is not writing music or grading papers, he serves as Senior Editor for the multi-author technology blog.
Everett Griffiths
Everett Griffiths is a freelance PHP/Perl developer and database architect specializing in Content Management Systems and plugin development. His hobbies include playing guitar and running. He currently resides in Los Angeles with frequent trips abroad.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It's without a doubt that WordPress is one of the largest content management systems out there. WordPress has been known for its easy to use software and along with its extendability.
WordPress's extendability features, called plugins, have always been loved by WordPress's users as they provide an elegant system to expand WordPress to do practically anything.
With Packt Publishing's latest WordPress book, WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials, it provides a nice and fairly detailed (281 pages) description on how WordPress 3 handles plugins.
What I really love about WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials is that it starts off the first few chapters very simply. When just reading the first chapter, it explains on how setting up your WordPress development system, best coding practices (which can be used for no matter what you're programming), and how handle testing, code versioning, security, along with other things. For anyone reading this book, they most likely already have programming experience, and because the authors decided to start this book out in a way that's not too in a rush, it really means quite a bit. It's a great way to start off a book entirely on development...
Just like the first chapter, the second chapter doesn't rush you at all; in fact, it's more of giving you baby steps to start building powerful WordPress plugins. Any kind of developing book can be boring with all that computer code. But the best part I love about WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials is that you're not going to be seeing pages and pages of code; the authors give you some code, and describing what it's accomplishing. I've seen books that have two or three pages, back to back, that's filled with code only. No reader is going to give that code a good glance, it'll just confuse them. So with WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials, it takes a completely different approach; it takes the main functions of a plugin, the anatomy of a plugin, and breaks it down in an easy to comprehend way.
In the second chapter, there's one thing that rather surprised me in a WordPress plugin development book. In just the second chapter, the author has you making a plugin, that is, an "evil functionless plugin". The author includes some errors in the plugin, where to put the header() function, whether or not to close the PHP tags (this was my favorite part of the chapter. Some WordPress users may edit a plugin, put some whitespace at the bottom, and find that everything is not working right. I'm glad this was added.), and a brief explanation to hooks.
With WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials brief introduction to hooks, the authors did one amazing job describing how they work in a simple manner. Hooks are extremely important in WordPress plugin development, if you didn't have it, your plugin wouldn't be as effective.
The next section of WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials is where everything starts coming together. The book guides you though implementing a Digg social media button next to each post. An easy concept, but ideal for learning how WordPress handles its plugins. The steps taken in this chapter to implement this feature is so nicely laid out, that you can practically use it as a guide when writing your own plugin. The authors don't rush into things, they make sure what you're going to implement will work, layout the general plan, create the main system, test it, add some more, and test it again. This approach was something that I really appreciated. As a programmer myself knowing many languages (really, don't get me started), I can truly say you want to take programming step by step.
The next two chapters are very similar to the previous one. You learn how to create a content rotator in the widget (typically a sidebar) section, which is very popular among WordPress blogs, and using the power of custom fields to expand the attached content to a post. With the content rotator, they could have integrated some neat jQuery content rotator, but I'm sure the reader can figure that out after reading the chapter. This is actually a very crucial chapter though, you learn how to integrate a widget with custom settings into WordPress! After that, you'r going right to the custom fields. Custom fields in WordPress is simply a way to put more content into your posts and do something with it. Personally, I use custom fields quite a bit on Tech Cores to get many of the things done that WordPress can't do out of the box.
What's fairly ironic is the how WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials described on how to implement custom fields is nearly identical to the way on how I accomplished it. Anyways, when getting back to the topic, I was very thrilled to read over this section. If there's one thing you should pick up from this book, it would have to be custom fields. With this small little feature, you can expand WordPress to do practically anything you want it to do. And yes, by the way, the way the authors described this is one of the best ways that I've ever heard. I have to give them an A+ on this entire chapter.
The next section is all about shortcodes. These are simply just like BBCode, but act as powerful extension to the text editor in WordPress. This was a fairly simple chapter, but using the function, register_post_ type(), the authors were left with very little documentation about it; they ended up writing a chapter that I think, should be available on the WordPress Codex. I'm glad that WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials decided to make it so it was easy to understand in a practical use. Also, there's one thing that really let me down in this chapter. Like with many plugins, I see the plugins shortcode integrate with the TinyMCE text editor in WordPress to provide a GUI to shortcodes. I really think the authors should have added something like this as an example.
WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials explains how to version your code using Subversion. Even though I prefer to use Cornerstone, the book explains how to do it the command line way, which will work on any operating system. This is a great chapter, it even discusses Google Code, but it seems a little out of place. I'm glad they added it, but I personally don't think they needed a full chapter on it.
The next chapter, is a very crucial part of WordPress plugin development: getting your plugin ready for the world! The authors review some common mistakes that make the plugins glitchy on other systems, like conflicting names. This entire chapter is all based upon testing, discussing WordPress limitations, and more. This chapter really tells you the things you need to make sure of when turning a development plugin into a released one.
You guessed it, the next chapter is releasing your plugin for real! This discusses some more best practices and things like localization, getting your plugin noticed, along with some minor things. Great chapter with lots of information!
The last good amount of pages include the appendix which just provides extra reference material (the WordPress Codex is amazing!). Just many of Packt's books, you can easily use this book as a reference guide when you need to. It only covers the essentials of WordPress plugin development, but enough for you to get practically anything done.
Overall, I really enjoyed WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials. It was a great short read and I learned a few extra tricks along the way. If you are a causal WordPress developer or you want to be, I highly recommend for you to pick up a copy.
WordPress's extendability features, called plugins, have always been loved by WordPress's users as they provide an elegant system to expand WordPress to do practically anything.
With Packt Publishing's latest WordPress book, WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials, it provides a nice and fairly detailed (281 pages) description on how WordPress 3 handles plugins.
What I really love about WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials is that it starts off the first few chapters very simply. When just reading the first chapter, it explains on how setting up your WordPress development system, best coding practices (which can be used for no matter what you're programming), and how handle testing, code versioning, security, along with other things. For anyone reading this book, they most likely already have programming experience, and because the authors decided to start this book out in a way that's not too in a rush, it really means quite a bit. It's a great way to start off a book entirely on development...
Just like the first chapter, the second chapter doesn't rush you at all; in fact, it's more of giving you baby steps to start building powerful WordPress plugins. Any kind of developing book can be boring with all that computer code. But the best part I love about WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials is that you're not going to be seeing pages and pages of code; the authors give you some code, and describing what it's accomplishing. I've seen books that have two or three pages, back to back, that's filled with code only. No reader is going to give that code a good glance, it'll just confuse them. So with WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials, it takes a completely different approach; it takes the main functions of a plugin, the anatomy of a plugin, and breaks it down in an easy to comprehend way.
In the second chapter, there's one thing that rather surprised me in a WordPress plugin development book. In just the second chapter, the author has you making a plugin, that is, an "evil functionless plugin". The author includes some errors in the plugin, where to put the header() function, whether or not to close the PHP tags (this was my favorite part of the chapter. Some WordPress users may edit a plugin, put some whitespace at the bottom, and find that everything is not working right. I'm glad this was added.), and a brief explanation to hooks.
With WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials brief introduction to hooks, the authors did one amazing job describing how they work in a simple manner. Hooks are extremely important in WordPress plugin development, if you didn't have it, your plugin wouldn't be as effective.
The next section of WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials is where everything starts coming together. The book guides you though implementing a Digg social media button next to each post. An easy concept, but ideal for learning how WordPress handles its plugins. The steps taken in this chapter to implement this feature is so nicely laid out, that you can practically use it as a guide when writing your own plugin. The authors don't rush into things, they make sure what you're going to implement will work, layout the general plan, create the main system, test it, add some more, and test it again. This approach was something that I really appreciated. As a programmer myself knowing many languages (really, don't get me started), I can truly say you want to take programming step by step.
The next two chapters are very similar to the previous one. You learn how to create a content rotator in the widget (typically a sidebar) section, which is very popular among WordPress blogs, and using the power of custom fields to expand the attached content to a post. With the content rotator, they could have integrated some neat jQuery content rotator, but I'm sure the reader can figure that out after reading the chapter. This is actually a very crucial chapter though, you learn how to integrate a widget with custom settings into WordPress! After that, you'r going right to the custom fields. Custom fields in WordPress is simply a way to put more content into your posts and do something with it. Personally, I use custom fields quite a bit on Tech Cores to get many of the things done that WordPress can't do out of the box.
What's fairly ironic is the how WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials described on how to implement custom fields is nearly identical to the way on how I accomplished it. Anyways, when getting back to the topic, I was very thrilled to read over this section. If there's one thing you should pick up from this book, it would have to be custom fields. With this small little feature, you can expand WordPress to do practically anything you want it to do. And yes, by the way, the way the authors described this is one of the best ways that I've ever heard. I have to give them an A+ on this entire chapter.
The next section is all about shortcodes. These are simply just like BBCode, but act as powerful extension to the text editor in WordPress. This was a fairly simple chapter, but using the function, register_post_ type(), the authors were left with very little documentation about it; they ended up writing a chapter that I think, should be available on the WordPress Codex. I'm glad that WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials decided to make it so it was easy to understand in a practical use. Also, there's one thing that really let me down in this chapter. Like with many plugins, I see the plugins shortcode integrate with the TinyMCE text editor in WordPress to provide a GUI to shortcodes. I really think the authors should have added something like this as an example.
WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials explains how to version your code using Subversion. Even though I prefer to use Cornerstone, the book explains how to do it the command line way, which will work on any operating system. This is a great chapter, it even discusses Google Code, but it seems a little out of place. I'm glad they added it, but I personally don't think they needed a full chapter on it.
The next chapter, is a very crucial part of WordPress plugin development: getting your plugin ready for the world! The authors review some common mistakes that make the plugins glitchy on other systems, like conflicting names. This entire chapter is all based upon testing, discussing WordPress limitations, and more. This chapter really tells you the things you need to make sure of when turning a development plugin into a released one.
You guessed it, the next chapter is releasing your plugin for real! This discusses some more best practices and things like localization, getting your plugin noticed, along with some minor things. Great chapter with lots of information!
The last good amount of pages include the appendix which just provides extra reference material (the WordPress Codex is amazing!). Just many of Packt's books, you can easily use this book as a reference guide when you need to. It only covers the essentials of WordPress plugin development, but enough for you to get practically anything done.
Overall, I really enjoyed WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials. It was a great short read and I learned a few extra tricks along the way. If you are a causal WordPress developer or you want to be, I highly recommend for you to pick up a copy.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'd underline something a few other reviewers have mentioned - this book is rich with many tips and techniques 'beyond the WordPress specific scope' If you happen to be like me, trying to learn advanced Wordpress, PHP, and jQuery all at once, this author has a clear grip on the big picture and really pulls it together with practical exercises that (for me at least) really turn on the light bulbs. Things like setting up a development environment with Firebug, Firefox web developer toolbar, jQuery, etc are covered better than I'd seen anywhere. The 'pedagogy' is sound, as each chapter is a new plugin built step by step, where each step includes things like testing what will become a complex thing in small stages, starting, say, in a static HTML page using the Firebug console. Having made the foundation points, with hands-on 'aha's - the author helps you build up the complexity in a way that you can really see how it all works (and you've learned some valuable 'test-first' practices).
We've all seen lots of these how-to books -- in my experience this one stands in that very very top tier - very much worth your consideration.
We've all seen lots of these how-to books -- in my experience this one stands in that very very top tier - very much worth your consideration.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
At root, this book is an excellent overview of the techniques and issues which will be encountered by any developer -- however experienced -- when they are authorizing a plug-in using the WordPress plug-in API in WordPress 3. In particular, I appreciated the emphasis on organization and coding best practices. I've worked with plenty of plug-ins, and there's a lot of ugly, unmaintainable code out there. (And I've written some of it, too!) The fact that anybody looking to develop a plug-in who uses this book as a major reference will also get a guide to some best practices in writing software is a <strong>definite</strong> bonus.
The authors are very realistic about the limitations and benefits of the WordPress plug-in system. They observe that WordPress has a great deal of flexibility when it comes to coding style and organization -- and the result is that there's a low resistance to entry. Great for beginners, but it does mean that trusting the code you find is something you shouldn't do blindly. Clearly the authors want to emphasize that anybody looking to begin developing plug-ins should give some significant thought to the sustainability and quality of their work. Kudos to them!
The book doesn't cover an enormous number of different API functions, but it does give a good overview of the key hooks that are needed to get started programming for WordPress. Given the scope of what can be done in WordPress, it's really a better solution to solidly introduce some of the core techniques rather than try and cram a huge number of concepts down the throats of their readers.
I found the systematic approach taken by the book to be extremely effective -- I appreciated that the book intentionally had the reader introduce common errors into their plug-ins. Having encountered most of those issues by accident somewhere along the line, it's tremendously valuable to already have been made aware of some key elements.
I do think that this is a good book, and very worthwhile for the beginning plug-in developer. There are a few additional areas which I would have liked to have seen covered, however.
Although the book is very thorough in addressing programming best practices, it doesn't address the quality of output code at all. Valid HTML, consistent use of elements, semantics, and accessibility are all issues which deserve a significant mention in the programming of a WordPress extension -- however easily the plug-in can be maintained, if it doesn't produce high-quality output, this can be a major disadvantage for the plug-in. It is very dissatisfying to install a plug-in which does exactly what you need it to, but produces output which can't easily be styled or doesn't meet the standards required for your web site.
Nonetheless, there are no other issues which I felt were truly missed -- the book is well-written, thorough, and methodical. I can highly recommend it to anybody looking to start authoring WordPress plug-ins.
The authors are very realistic about the limitations and benefits of the WordPress plug-in system. They observe that WordPress has a great deal of flexibility when it comes to coding style and organization -- and the result is that there's a low resistance to entry. Great for beginners, but it does mean that trusting the code you find is something you shouldn't do blindly. Clearly the authors want to emphasize that anybody looking to begin developing plug-ins should give some significant thought to the sustainability and quality of their work. Kudos to them!
The book doesn't cover an enormous number of different API functions, but it does give a good overview of the key hooks that are needed to get started programming for WordPress. Given the scope of what can be done in WordPress, it's really a better solution to solidly introduce some of the core techniques rather than try and cram a huge number of concepts down the throats of their readers.
I found the systematic approach taken by the book to be extremely effective -- I appreciated that the book intentionally had the reader introduce common errors into their plug-ins. Having encountered most of those issues by accident somewhere along the line, it's tremendously valuable to already have been made aware of some key elements.
I do think that this is a good book, and very worthwhile for the beginning plug-in developer. There are a few additional areas which I would have liked to have seen covered, however.
Although the book is very thorough in addressing programming best practices, it doesn't address the quality of output code at all. Valid HTML, consistent use of elements, semantics, and accessibility are all issues which deserve a significant mention in the programming of a WordPress extension -- however easily the plug-in can be maintained, if it doesn't produce high-quality output, this can be a major disadvantage for the plug-in. It is very dissatisfying to install a plug-in which does exactly what you need it to, but produces output which can't easily be styled or doesn't meet the standards required for your web site.
Nonetheless, there are no other issues which I felt were truly missed -- the book is well-written, thorough, and methodical. I can highly recommend it to anybody looking to start authoring WordPress plug-ins.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
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Good approach to teaching the key concepts
There were two things about this book that I really liked: First, it didn't start with just writing a useless "Hello, World" program. Read more
Published 10 months ago by E. Campbell
A practical, hands-on tutorial for creating your own plugins for a...
As is also true of other Packt publications, this book has prepared me well to work with technical and graphics specialists whom I have retained to develop for me a... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Robert Morris
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