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Key benefits

Everything you need to know to develop your own plugins for WordPress

Walk through the development of five plugins from ground up

Prepare and release your plugins to the WordPress community

Avoid common mistakes made by most plugin developers by learning more advanced development patterns

Description

WordPress is one of the most popular platforms for building blogs and general websites. By learning how to develop and integrate your own plugins, you can add functionality and extend WordPress in any way imaginable. By tapping into the additional power and functionality that plugins provide, you can make your site easier to administer, add new features, or even alter the very nature of how WordPress works. Covering WordPress version 3, this book makes it super easy for you to build a variety of plugins.WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials is a practical hands-on tutorial for learning how to create your own plugins for WordPress. Using best coding practices, this book will walk you through the design and creation of a variety of original plugins.WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials focuses on teaching you all aspects of modern WordPress development. The book uses real and published WordPress plugins and follows their creation from the idea to the finishing touches in a series of easy-to-follow and informative steps. You will discover how to deconstruct an existing plugin, use the WordPress API in typical scenarios, hook into the database, version your code with SVN, and deploy your new plugin to the world.Each new chapter introduces different features of WordPress and how to put them to good use, allowing you to gradually advance your knowledge. WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials is packed with information, tips, and examples that will help you gain comfort and confidence in your ability to harness and extend the power of WordPress via plugins.

What you will learn

Get to know the WordPress code base, WordPress plugin architecture, and the application programming interface (API)

Integrate with third-party APIs and web services

Hook into the WordPress internals using actions and filters

Customize your WordPress Dashboard with menus and administration panels for your plugin

Streamline user interactions by using jQuery to make AJAX requests

Expand your understanding of WordPress as a CMS

Implement localization support for users of other languages

Maintain and manage your plugin using SVN and publish it to the WordPress Plugin Repository

Write tests into your code to ensure that it is always deployed properly

What do you get with eBook?

Instant access to your Digital eBook purchase

Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats

Access this title in our online reader with advanced features

DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want

AI Assistant (beta) to help accelerate your learning

Frequently bought together

Can$64.99

WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials

Can$58.99

Total Can$ 123.98

Dave H Mar 28, 2012

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.

Amazon Verified review

Joseph Dolson Jul 11, 2011

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.

Amazon Verified review

Brandeline Dec 02, 2012

WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials is a fantastic little book that will really open your eyes to just how simple and easy basic plugins can be to develop. Even if you don't really want to make your own plugins, but occasionally find yourself up to your elbows in theme code trying to bend wordpress to your will on your site, this book has something for you.The first couple of chapters are dedicated to showing how plugins work in wordpress, and the discussion on hooks is very easy to understand. Later chapters go much deeper into the guts of programming plugins. The book is step by step with many demo projects, and never requires the learner to leap across a chasm mentally from one point to another to make the journey and understand how everything works. Very well written and clear.

Amazon Verified review

Robert Morris Jun 07, 2011

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 "fully-functional, dynamic" WordPress website. That is to say, Brian Bondari, Everett Griffiths, and their colleagues have provided a comprehensive and cohesive briefing on how I can work effectively with the specialists to create or select appropriate plugins to extend and add features to my WordPress site.I do not fully understand all of the material provided in Chapter 6 ("Standardized Custom Content"), for example, that begins the process of extending WordPress usage as a content management system. However, given the volume of content that I continue to create or adapt, it has been immensely helpful to me to know (and understand) which questions to ask throughout the website development process, one that will probably be never-ending. But at least I can express my wishes and intentions as various modifications are made in weeks and months ahead.This book comes as close as any single volume can to be a practical, hands-on tutorial for non-technicians such as I as well as for those developers with limited experience with the WP platform. Readers will especially appreciate the direct and personal rapport that Bondari and Griffiths establish with them as well as the summaries that appear at the conclusion of the 10 chapters (Pages 26, 44, 66,102, 135, 165, 190, 211, 235, and 258), the two appendices ("Recommended Resources" that really are valuable and a "WordPress API Reference" section to which most readers will frequently refer.

Amazon Verified review

M. Mendonca Feb 17, 2016

Good book.Before it, I wasted my time surfing and reading messy stuff on the web, feeling like a dog hunting the own tail.The examples makes WP a lab, being you the scientist.I recommend it.

Amazon Verified review

WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials: Create your own powerful, interactive plugins to extend and add features to your WordPress site

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