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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Learn to create plugins for WordPress 4.x to deliver custom projects or share with the community through detailed step-by-step recipes and code examples
About This Book
- Learn how to change and extend WordPress to perform virtually any task
- Explore the plugin API through approachable examples and detailed explanations
- Mold WordPress to your project's needs or transform it to benefit the entire community
Who This Book Is For
If you are a WordPress user, developer, or a site integrator with basic knowledge of PHP and an interest to create new plugins to address your personal needs, client needs, or share with the community, then this book is for you.
What You Will Learn
- Discover how to register user callbacks with WordPress, forming the basis of plugin creation
- Explore the creation of administration pages and adding new content management sections through custom post types and custom database tables
- Improve your plugins by customizing the post and page editors, categories and user profiles, and creating visitor-facing forms
- Make your pages dynamic using Javascript, AJAX and adding new widgets to the platform
- Learn how to add support for plugin translation and distribute your work to the WordPress community
In Detail
WordPress is a popular, powerful, and open Content Management System. Learning how to extend its capabilities allows you to unleash its full potential, whether you're an administrator trying to find the right extension, a developer with a great idea to enhance the platform for the community, or a website developer working to fulfill a client's needs. This book shows readers how to navigate WordPress' vast set of API functions to create high-quality plugins with easy-to-configure administration interfaces.
With new recipes and materials updated for the latest versions of WordPress 4.x, this second edition teaches you how to create plugins of varying complexity ranging from a few lines of code to complex extensions that provide intricate new capabilities.
You'll start by using the basic mechanisms provided in WordPress to create plugins and execute custom user code. You will then see how to design administration panels, enhance the post editor with custom fields, store custom data, and modify site behavior based on the value of custom fields. You'll safely incorporate dynamic elements on web pages using scripting languages, and build new widgets that users will be able to add to WordPress sidebars and widget areas.
By the end of this book, you will be able to create WordPress plugins to perform any task you can imagine.
Style and approach
This cookbook will take you through the creation of your first simple plugin to adding entirely new sections and widgets in the administration interface, so you can learn how to change and extend WordPress to perform virtually any task. Each topic is illustrated through realistic examples showing how to solve common problems, followed by detailed explanations of all concepts used
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Seitenzahl: 424
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
Ähnliche
Second Edition
Yannick Lefebvre
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
WordPress Plugin Development Cookbook
Second Edition
Copyright © 2017 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: July 2012
Second edition: July 2017
Production reference: 1140717
ISBN 978-1-78829-118-7
www.packtpub.com
Credits
Author
Yannick Lefebvre
Copy Editor
Akshada Lobo
Reviewers
Cyril Pierron
Ardian Yuli Setyanto
Project Coordinator
Ritika Manoj
Commissioning Editor
Smeet Thakkar
Proofreader
Safis Editing
Acquisition Editor
Shweta Pant
Indexer
Mariammal Chettiyar
Content Development Editor
Arun Nadar
Graphics
Jason Monteiro
Technical Editor
Ralph Rosario
Production Coordinator
Shantanu Zagade
About the Author
Yannick Lefebvre is a plugin developer who has published eight projects to the official WordPress repository. His first creation, Link Library, has been used on thousands of sites around the world. With a background in Computer Science and working for CM Labs Simulations a company providing software tools and simulators for vehicle and heavy equipment simulation he started writing plugins for his own WordPress site in 2004 and quickly started sharing his creations with the community. He is actively involved in the Montreal WordPress community, has presented multiple times at WordCamp Montreal, and offers WordPress plugin development services. You can find out more about him and his plugins on his website, Yannick's Corner.
About the Reviewers
Cyril Pierron is a tech-savvy, life-curious engineer. He started programming at the age of 8. He worked in the telecommunications industry for 13 years, leading network value added service application development. Since 2011 he has been working as an ecommerce solution architect, supporting customers and partners, building transactional sites on Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform. He is married and the father of a lovely 7-year old girl.
As an ecommerce expert, Cyril has witnessed over the past few years the convergence of content sites and online stores into one unified experience for the consumer. He has integrated with various content management platforms in the context of his projects.
Ardian Yuli Setyanto, S.Kom, has played with programming since in high school. He joined national selection for Tim Olimpiade Komputer Indonesia (TOKI, Indonesia Computer Olympiad Team) in 2002 and 2003, which convinced him to study computer science at Gadjah Mada University (UGM), and he graduated in 2009 firstly among his other friends with a score 3.5/4.
He also used WordPress as his essay topic for bachelor degree, he developed his own plugin and combined it with a GSM phone to read and send SMS, instead of the usual email, to manage WordPress comments in his essay. After graduating from university, he start working as freelancer using WordPress and Prestashop. These CMS are widely used in his home country, Indonesia.
Now he is working as a backend developer using Symfony2, Rails, and Sinatra. You can reach him on Twitter: @ardianys.
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Table of Contents
Preface
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Downloading the example code
Errata
Piracy
Questions
Preparing a Local Development Environment
Introduction
Installing a web server on your computer
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Creating a remote web development environment
See also
Downloading and configuring a local WordPress installation
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Creating a local Subversion repository
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Manual repository creation
Other version control systems
See also
Importing initial files to a local Subversion repository
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Checking out files from a Subversion repository
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Subversion file statuses
See also
Committing changes to a Subversion repository
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Viewing the differences in modified files
Updating files to latest repository version
Reverting uncommitted file changes
Viewing file history
Installing a dedicated code editor/text editor
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Plugin Framework Basics
Introduction
Creating a plugin file and header
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Adding output content to page headers using plugin actions
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Action hooks online listings
Searching for hooks in the WordPress source code
See also
Using WordPress path utility functions to load external files and images
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
See also
Modifying the site generator meta tag using plugin filters
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
preg_replace function
Filter hooks online listings and the apply_filters function
See also
Adding text after each item's content using plugin filters
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
get_the_title and get_permalink functions
See also
Inserting link statistics tracking code in page body using plugin filters
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Troubleshooting coding errors and printing variable content
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Built-in WordPress debugging features
See also
Creating a new simple shortcode
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Creating a new shortcode with parameters
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Creating a new enclosing shortcode
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Loading a style sheet to format plugin output
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Writing plugins using object-oriented PHP
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
User Settings and Administration Pages
Introduction
Creating default user settings on plugin initialization
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Deactivation function
See also
Storing user settings using arrays
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Removing plugin data on deletion
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Creating an administration page menu item in the settings menu
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Settings hook priority to determine menu order
See also
Creating a multi-level administration menu
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Adding menu items leading to external pages
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Hiding items which users should not access from the default menu
How to do it...
How it works...
Rendering the admin page contents using HTML
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
wp_nonce_field
See also
Processing and storing plugin configuration data
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Displaying a confirmation message when options are saved
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Adding custom help pages
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Rendering the admin page contents using the Settings API
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Rendering a drop-down list settings field
Rendering a text area settings field
See also
Accessing user settings from action and filter hooks
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Formatting admin pages using meta boxes
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Splitting admin code from the main plugin file to optimize site performance
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Storing style sheet data in user settings
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Managing multiple sets of user settings from a single admin page
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Creating network-level admin pages
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
The Power of Custom Post Types
Introduction
Creating a custom post type
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Changing the custom post type permalinks slug
Adding a new section to the custom post type editor
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Displaying single custom post type items using a custom layout
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Displaying custom post type data in shortcodes
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
do_shortcode function
Adding custom categories for custom post types
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Adding custom fields to categories
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Hiding the category editor from the custom post type editor
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Displaying additional columns in the custom post list page
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Adding filters for custom categories to the custom post list page
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Adding Quick Edit fields for custom categories
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Updating page title to include custom post data using plugin filters
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Customizing Post and Page Editors
Introduction
Capturing and displaying information using custom meta boxes
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Adding a new meta box to all post types (including custom ones)
Displaying custom post data using filter functions
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Hiding the Custom Field section in the post editor
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Extending the post editor to allow users to upload files directly
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Accepting User Content Submissions
Introduction
Creating a client-side content submission form
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Saving user-submitted content in custom post types
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Moderating user-submitted content
See also
Sending email notifications upon new submissions
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Implementing a CAPTCHA on user forms using an online service
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Using a local library to implement a CAPTCHA on user forms
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Customizing User Data
Introduction
Adding custom fields to the user editor
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Processing and storing user custom data
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Displaying new user data in user list page
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Using custom user data in containing shortcode
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Creating Custom MySQL Database Tables
Introduction
Creating new database tables
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Using phpMyAdmin to simplify code creation
Create tables in network installation
Deleting custom tables on plugin removal
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Updating custom table structure on plugin upgrade
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Displaying custom table data on an admin page
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Inserting and updating records in custom tables
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Deleting records from custom tables
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Displaying custom database table data in shortcodes
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Implementing a search function to retrieve custom table data
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Importing data from a user file into custom tables
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Leveraging JavaScript, jQuery, and AJAX Scripts
Introduction
Safely loading jQuery onto WordPress web pages
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
jQuery noconflict mode
Displaying a pop-up dialog using the built-in ThickBox plugin
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Removing the dialog close button
Displaying pop-up dialogs on select pages
Controlling pop-up dialog display using shortcodes
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Displaying a calendar day selector using the Datepicker plugin
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Adding tooltips to admin page form fields using the TipTip plugin
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Using AJAX to dynamically update partial page contents
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Adding New Widgets to the WordPress Library
Introduction
Creating a new widget in WordPress
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Plugins extending other plugins
See also
Displaying configuration options
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Validating configuration options
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Implementing the widget display function
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Adding a custom dashboard widget
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Adding a custom widget to the network dashboard
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Enabling Plugin Internationalization
Introduction
Changing the WordPress language configuration
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
Adapting default user settings for translation
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Making admin page code ready for translation
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Modifying shortcode output for translation
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Translating text strings using Poedit
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Translation template file
See also
Loading a language file in the plugin initialization
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Updating a translation file
Advanced translation functions
Localizing JavaScript files
See also
Distributing Your Plugin on wordpress.org
Introduction
Creating a README file for your plugin
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Releasing specific plugin versions using tags
Applying for your plugin to be hosted on WordPress.org
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Uploading your plugin using Subversion
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
There's more...
Checking out plugins to your development installation
See also
Providing plugin banner and thumbnail images
Getting ready
How to do it...
How it works...
See also
Preface
Developing plugins for WordPress is the next big thing for you if you are an administrator looking to enhance a personal site with custom functionality for which no plugin exists, a developer looking to enhance the WordPress platform with new ideas for the community, or a website designer building a specific project for a client. Learning how to create WordPress plugins will allow you to unleash the full potential of the most popular web content management system.
As an early WordPress adopter, before version 1.0 was out, I started building plugins to add functionality to my personal site. Once I got these new elements in place, I quickly realized that other users could benefit from these extensions, and started distributing them online. To this day, I always love hearing back from users of my creations and finding out how they have put them to use and what new functionality they think would make them even better.
While developing plugins might initially sound a little bit like black magic, this book shows you how easy creating plugins actually is through a series of step-by-step recipes. If you have previously added code to a theme's functions file, you may even be familiar with some of the mechanics explained in this book. With all of the information contained in this book, you will quickly be able to create your own plugins or dissect existing ones to add that extra bit of missing functionality that you require. Before you know, you'll be publishing your own creations to the official WordPress plugin repository!
Let's start learning how to cook up great WordPress plugins!
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Preparing a Local Development Environment, shows plugin developers how to install and configure an efficient development environment.
Chapter 2, Plugin Framework Basics, explains the basic mechanics of registering user functions with WordPress to be executed at key points when web pages are displayed, forming the basis of plugin creation.
Chapter 3, User Settings and Administration Pages, covers the creation of administration pages that will allow users to configure the plugins you create.
Chapter 4, The Power of Custom Post Types, empowers developers to add whole new content management sections to the WordPress environment.
Chapter 5, Customizing Post and Page Editors, demonstrates how to alter the default administration post and page editing environment to add new capabilities.
Chapter 6, Accepting User Content Submissions, allows users to submit their own content to new content sections that will be managed by your plugins.
Chapter 7, Customizing User Data, explains how to store additional information for users and how to modify site output based on this data.
Chapter 8, Creating Custom MySQL Database Tables, leverages the power of MySQL to create custom database tables in a site database to store and retrieve custom data.
Chapter 9, Leveraging JavaScript, jQuery, and AJAX Scripts, makes plugin output very dynamic by using a number of popular script libraries.
Chapter 10, Adding New Widgets to the WordPress Library, indicates how to add new widgets that users will be able to easily drag and drop to add content to their web pages.
Chapter 11, Enabling Plugin Internationalization, prepares your plugin to be translated into any language to make it easier to be used by non-English speakers.
Chapter 12, Distributing Your Plugin on wordpress.org, shows you how to prepare your plugin for sharing with the global WordPress community.
What you need for this book
Chapter 1, Preparing a Local Development Environment, walks you through all of the tools that are useful to have when developing plugins for WordPress, including a local web server, a Subversion client, and a dedicated code editor. While this book will always describe all of the steps necessary to perform its recipes, having a good understanding of WordPress will allow you to fully appreciate the information contained in these pages.
Who this book is for
This book is for WordPress users, developers, or site integrators with basic knowledge of WordPress and PHP and an interest in creating new plugins to address their personal needs, client needs, or share new ideas with the WordPress community.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "create a text file called uninstall.php in the ch8-bug-tracker directory and open it in a code editor."
A block of code is set as follows:
add_filter( 'the_generator', 'ch2gf_generator_filter', 10, 2 );
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
echo '<tr style="background: #FFF">';
echo '<td><input type="checkbox" name="bugs[]" value="';
echo intval( $bug_item['bug_id'] ) . '" /></td>';
echo '<td>' . $bug_item['bug_id'] . '</td>';
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Here, we added an inner grid with two full-size columns; one for thePriceof an item and the other will wrap up theQuantitycomponent."
Reader feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book-what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it helps us develop titles that you will really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply email [email protected], and mention the book's title in the subject of your message.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide at www.packtpub.com/authors.
Customer support
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
Downloading the example code
You can download the example code files for this book from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.
You can download the code files by following these steps:
Log in or register to our website using your email address and password.
Hover the mouse pointer on the
SUPPORT
tab at the top.
Click on
Code Downloads & Errata
.
Enter the name of the book in the
Search
box.
Select the book for which you're looking to download the code files.
Choose from the drop-down menu where you purchased this book from.
Click on
Code Download
.
Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:
WinRAR / 7-Zip for Windows
Zipeg / iZip / UnRarX for Mac
7-Zip / PeaZip for Linux
The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/WordPress-Plugin-Development-Cookbook-Second-Edition. We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!
Errata
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books-maybe a mistake in the text or the code-we would be grateful if you could report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded to our website or added to any list of existing errata under the Errata section of that title.
To view the previously submitted errata, go to https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/support and enter the name of the book in the search field. The required information will appear under the Errata section.
Piracy
Piracy of copyrighted material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.
Please contact us at [email protected] with a link to the suspected pirated material.
We appreciate your help in protecting our authors and our ability to bring you valuable content.
Questions
If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at [email protected], and we will do our best to address the problem.
Preparing a Local Development Environment
We will cover the following topics in this chapter:
Installing a web server on your computer
Downloading and configuring a local WordPress installation
Creating a local Subversion repository
Importing initial files to a local Subversion repository
Checking out files from a Subversion repository
Committing changes to a Subversion repository
Installing a dedicated code/text editor
Introduction
Before we start writing our first WordPress plugin, it is important to have a good set of tools in place that will allow you to work locally on your computer and be more efficient in your work. While it is possible to perform some development tasks with the built-in tools that are provided with the operating system, creating a solid local development environment will help you develop plugins quickly and have full control over your server settings to be able to test different configurations.
This chapter proposes a set of free tools that can easily be installed on your computer, regardless of your preferred operating system, to facilitate the development of your future WordPress plugins. These tools include a local web server to speed up page access and avoid sending files constantly to a remote server, a version control system to keep incremental backups of your work, and a code editor to enhance your editing capabilities. In addition to installing and learning how to use these tools, this chapter also shows how to download and configure a local WordPress installation on a local web server.
Installing a web server on your computer
The first step to configure a local development environment is to install a local web server on your computer. This will transform your computer into a system capable of displaying web pages and performing all tasks related to rendering a WordPress website locally.
Having a local web server has many benefits, as follows:
It provides a quick response to the frequent page refreshes that are made as plugin code is written, tested, and refined, since all information is processed locally
It removes the need to constantly upload new plugin file versions to a remote web server to validate code changes
It allows development to take place when no internet connection is available (for example, when traveling on an airplane)
It offers a worry-free programming environment, where you cannot bring down a live website with a programming error or an infinite loop
There are many free packages available online that contain all of the web server components necessary to run a WordPress installation. This recipe shows you how to easily install one of these packages.
How to do it...
Visit the XAMPP website (
https://www.apachefriends.org/
) and download the appropriate XAMPP package for your computer.
Optional on Windows: Disable the Windows
User Access Control (UAC)
feature to give full permissions to XAMPP to install itself on your system (look up the steps to perform this procedure on your favorite search engine).
Launch the XAMPP installer (
xampp-win32-5.6.30-0-VC11-installer.exe
on the Windows platform).
Acknowledge the warning message about
User Access Control
(
UAC
) and click on
Next
to start the installation process.
On the following screen, which lists all of the components that can be installed, uncheck the boxes for
FileZilla FTP Server
,
Mercury Mail Server
,
Tomcat
,
Perl
, and
Webalizer
, then click on
Next
:
On the
Installation folder
screen, leave the default value for the installation directory if possible (
c:\xampp
), since some references to this folder will be made in this book, then click on
Next
.
Click on the
Next
button to proceed with the web server installation.
Make sure that the option to start the
Control Panel
is checked and click on
Finish
once the installation is complete.
Select your preferred language for the
XAMPP Control Panel
and click on
Save
to launch the application.
Click the
Start
buttons for
Apache
and
MySQL
to launch these modules. Their names will be highlighted in green once they have been successfully started, as shown in the following screenshot:
Open a web browser and navigate to the address
http://localhost
to display your local web server's welcome page:
Open the
c:\xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf
file in a text editor (for example, Notepad).
Search for the
DocumentRoot
configuration option and change its value to a different location on the disk to avoid keeping your project files under the original installation directory. For example, you could set it to a new directory designed to hold your local development installation of WordPress, such as
DocumentRoot "C:/WPDev"
.
Search for the
Directory
option and change it to the same path that was used for
DocumentRoot
, that is,
<Directory "C:/WPDev">
.
Save and close the
httpd.conf
file.
Create the directory specified as
DocumentRoot
, if it does not already exist on your computer.
Open
XAMPP Control Panel
.
Stop and re-start the
Apache
service for the new configuration to take effect.
How it works...
The XAMPP package contains all of the components necessary to run a web server capable of hosting a WordPress website on your computer. These components include:
Apache web server
PHP interpreter
MySQL database server
phpMyAdmin database management interface
The XAMPP package also includes other components, which are not required to run a local WordPress development site.
Once XAMPP is installed and started, the keyword localhost that we type in the web browser is recognized by the operating system as a request to communicate with the web server on the local computer and the Apache web server displays the welcome page from its documentation.
The XAMPP documentation is a set of flat HTML files located in the c:\xampp\htdocs directory on the Windows platform. This is the web server's default working directory.
The last few steps of the recipe instruct the Apache web server to look for the local website's content in a new directory. This is a safety precaution to be sure that site files are not deleted inadvertently if XAMPP is uninstalled. It can also help in managing multiple sites on a single computer.
There's more...
While XAMPP is a full-featured local web server package and is available on the three major operating systems, there are many others available online. Most of these packages will run the required web services on the computer directly, while more advanced packages, such as Varying Vagrant Vagrants (VVV), will virtualize a Linux-based web server on your computer to create a more accurate replica of a final deployment environment optimized for WordPress. Here is a list of some of the most popular local web server packages: For Windows:
WampServer (
http://www.wampserver.com/en/
)
EasyPHP (
http://www.easyphp.org/
)
For macOS X:
MAMP (
https://www.mamp.info/en
)
For Windows, Mac, or Linux:
Varying Vagrant Vagrants (
https://varyingvagrantvagrants.org
)
Creating a remote web development environment
If it's not possible for you to set up a local web server to develop WordPress plugins, or if you are planning to share the development tasks with one or more people, then an alternative to setting up a local web server is to create a remote development environment.
The easiest way to create such an environment, assuming that you already have a web hosting account set up, is to create a sub-domain off your main domain. This will allow you to create a standalone test installation for WordPress that will still provide safety from affecting a live site, but will not carry the other benefits of a local installation.
See also
The
Downloading and configuring a local WordPress installation
recipe
Downloading and configuring a local WordPress installation
The next component of our local development environment is to install WordPress on your local web server to run a fully working website and have all of its files hosted locally.
WordPress has always prided itself with its easy five minutes installation process. Installing it on a local web server is even easier and quicker than it would be on a live remote server. This recipe covers the creation of a MySQL database to store all data related to our new WordPress installation and the actual setup process.
Getting ready
This recipe assumes that you have a local web server installed on your computer. This web server can be a fresh install performed using the previous recipe or can be from a previous installation. The steps in the following section are written with a focus on new local web servers. If you have created a new account to access the MySQL database or changed the root user's password, some of the steps will change slightly. The location of the phpMyAdmin tool might also be different if you are using a different web server than XAMPP. You should refer to your web server's documentation to find out what that address is.
How to do it...
In the web browser, navigate to the address
http://localhost/phpmyadmin/
to access your web server's database administration tool.
Click on
Databases
tab in
phpMyAdmin
.
Type the name of the new database to be created in the empty field following to the words
Create database
. In this case, we will use the name
wordpressdev
:
Click on the
Create
button to complete the database creation process.
Download the latest WordPress installation package from the official WordPress website (
https://wordpress.org
)
. The download link can be found on the very first page of the website and the download package will work on any web server, local, or remote.
Extract the WordPress archive file contents using your favorite file archiver utility or your operating system's built-in capabilities.
Copy the contents of the resulting
wordpress
folder to your local web server's web content directory (
c:\WPDev
, if you followed the previous recipe). You should not copy the
wordpress
folder itself unless you want the address of your WordPress website to be
http://localhost/wordpress
.
Direct your web browser to
http://localhost
to start the WordPress installation process.
Select your preferred language and click on
Continue
.
On the next page, click on the
Let's Go
button to start your development site's configuration.
Update the
Database Name
field to reflect the name of our newly-created database (
wordpressdev
).
Set the MySQL
User Name
to
root
.
Delete all the characters from MySQL
Password
to leave it empty, since local MySQL server root accounts are typically configured without any password.
Leave the
Database Host
field with its default value (
localhost
).
Change the
Table Prefix
field from its default value to
wpdev_
:
Click on the
Submit
button to validate the information entered. If any parameters are not entered correctly, or if the WordPress installation process cannot correctly access your database server, it will display an error page and give you an opportunity to make corrections.
Click on the
Run the install
button for WordPress to create the required table structure in the designated MySQL database.
Specify a
Site Title
(for example,
Development Site
).
Set
Username
for the admin user. For increased security, it's always best to choose a username that people would not be able to easily guess. Obvious names such as admin or administrator should be avoided.
Optionally, change the randomly generated password with a password of your own choice. If WordPress determines that your new password is weak, you will need to check the additional checkbox that appears to confirm that you want to use a weak password.
Enter your email address in the appropriate field (although no email will actually be sent on most local development installations).
If you are configuring a live external development server, check the
Discourage search engines from indexing this site
option, since we do not want this development site to appear anywhere.
Click on
Install WordPress
to complete the installation and you will be automatically logged in to the site's WordPress
Dashboard
.
Click on the
Development Site
link in the Dashboard admin bar to see your new site:
How it works...
In the first few steps, the phpMyAdmin interface is used to create a database on the local MySQL server. This web-based database management tool comes bundled with XAMPP and most other web servers. The http://localhost/phpmyadmin address will always take you to the database administration tool, even if you relocate your web server's document root directory as documented in the previous recipe.
Once a database is created and the WordPress files have been copied to the correct location, pointing your browser to the local web server gets it to search through the document root directory to find HTML files to send back to the browser or PHP files to execute. In the case of WordPress, the web server finds the index.php file and executes it using its PHP interpreter. As the WordPress code is executed, it checks if a configuration file is present and launches the installation process when it does not find one. The WordPress code does not see any difference between the local web server that we are running it on and a remote live web server that would be accessible anywhere online.
While we specified an email address for the administrator during the installation, many local web servers are not configured to send out email messages so we will never receive any email communication in these cases. It is preferable to use a remote server when developing and testing email functionality in a plugin.
Once this recipe has been completed, you will have a functional WordPress installation in place.
Creating a local Subversion repository
Version control is an important part of any code development project, to keep track of a project's history, to have full and organized backups, and to be able to easily roll back changes to get back to a known working state. Version control is also the best and most efficient way to share code and other files when developing a project in a team environment. In addition to being a great version control system that is easy to use and configure, Subversion (often referred to as SVN) is also the technology that manages all submissions on the official WordPress plugin directory. Therefore, by setting up and using a local Subversion repository during your initial plugin development, you will immediately be ready to share your creations with the community.
How to do it...
Visit the
TortoiseSVN
website (
https://tortoisesvn.net/downloads.html
) and download the free Subversion client for your version of Windows (32-bit or 64-bit).
Launch the TortoiseSVN installation program and install it using all the default installation options.
Create a new folder on your hard drive that will host the local Subversion repository (for example,
c:\WPSVN
).
Right-click on the new folder and select the
TortoiseSVN | Create repository here
menu item, then click on
Start Repobrowser
. TortoiseSVN will create the required file structure in the target directory and display the contents of the repository, which is currently empty:
How it works...
Subversion is a free, open source version control system that is designed to keep file revisions organized and backed up over the course of a project's development, as well as provide access to older versions of all files at any time. If you have ever found yourself copying a directory on your computer and giving each copy sequentially numbered names or adding dates to their names, then you will recognize that version control is really just a more organized and efficient method of achieving the same goal of keeping backups of known working versions of code files and being able to access any older version of a file.
While the default Subversion interface is a set of command-line utilities, TortoiseSVN and many other client applications provide graphical tools to create, access, and manage local and remote repositories.
In addition to familiarizing yourself with this system for later use on wordpress.org, using a local Subversion repository will ensure that you will always have older versions of your plugins easily accessible in case a code change that you perform breaks your work and you cannot figure out how to get back to a working state.
There's more...
While there are many Subversion clients available online to interact with a repository, not all of them include the necessary administration tools to easily create a repository, as shown in this recipe. You should look for these administration capabilities when searching for a Subversion client for non-Windows platforms.
On macOS X, versions (http://versionsapp.com/) and Cornerstone (https://www.zennaware.com/cornerstone) offer similar capabilities but are paid applications.
On Linux, PagaVCS is a free TortoiseSVN clone (https://code.google.com/p/pagavcs/) while SmartSVN (http://smartsvn.com) is a paid SVN client.
Manual repository creation
If your Subversion client does not offer the ability to create a local repository, you can download the Subversion command-line tools from the official Subversion website (https://subversion.apache.org/packages.html) and create a repository manually following instructions found in the online Subversion reference manual (http://svnbook.red-bean.com/).
Other version control systems
While Subversion is easy to learn and is the system that is used by WordPress on its official plugin repository, other version control systems, such as Git (https://git-scm.com/) and Mercurial (https://mercurial-scm.org/), are gaining traction in the open source development community and could also be considered to manage your plugin code.
See also
The
Importing initial files to a local Subversion repository
recipe
Importing initial files to a local Subversion repository
Once you have a local repository in place, this recipe describes the steps required to add files and start tracking their revisions over time. To have the flexibility to create multiple plugins, as discussed throughout this cookbook, without having to worry about adding each of them to the repository individually, we will add the entire WordPress plugin directory to your local repository.
Getting ready
You should have already installed a Subversion client on your computer and created a local repository, as described in the Creating a local Subversion repository recipe. These steps will be slightly different based on the Subversion client that you have selected and your operating system.
How to do it...
Navigate to the
wp-content/plugins
directory of your local WordPress installation (for example,
c:\WPDev\wp-content\plugins
, if you followed the previous recipe) with the file explorer.
Right-click on the folder and select the
TortoiseSVN | Import
menu item.
Enter the file location of your local Subversion repository in the
