An introduction to WordPress Development
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John Hawkins gives an introduction to WordPress development. He discusses common misconceptions that WordPress is only for blogging and outlines the differences between .com and .org versions. The presentation covers building plugins with hooks and filters and creating themes with templates and stylesheets. It emphasizes best practices like not editing core files and creating child themes to make changes.
An introduction to WordPress Development
- 1. An Introduction To WordPress Development by John Hawkins Monday, October 15, 12
- 2. I’m John I run 9seeds.com / WordPress development I speak at WordCamps nationally I started the Vegas WordPress group (260+) I’ve got 1 wife, 2 kids, 1 cat, 3 dogs, self- diagnosed ADD and OCD. SQUIRREL! Monday, October 15, 12
- 3. The Misconception About WordPress Monday, October 15, 12
- 4. WordPress is Just For Blogging Monday, October 15, 12
- 5. That is... Wrong Not true Complete BS Erroneous False All of the above Monday, October 15, 12
- 6. What is WordPress A content management system An open source project Created by and for the community Free to use for anything from a personal blog to a Fortune 500 web site Monday, October 15, 12
- 7. .com vs .org .com is a service .org is downloadable provided by a For software you can use Profit company on any server .com doesn’t allow .org allows unlimited install of your own freedom to do as you plugins / themes wish .com is updated for .org requires you you automatically update the software yourself Monday, October 15, 12
- 8. Why I Use WordPress 70,000,000+ sites = big pool of clients Easy to use for end users Helpful community / access to support Can be made to do most anything Monday, October 15, 12
- 9. Let’s Get Started But first, a couple rules Monday, October 15, 12
- 10. The First Rule of WordPress Development Monday, October 15, 12
- 11. The First Rule of WordPress Development You do not edit core files Monday, October 15, 12 The reason for this is that WordPress typically releases 3 major updates per year along with a handful of security releases. Any core files you edit will be overwritten with the standard WP upgrade process
- 12. The Second Rule of WordPress Development Monday, October 15, 12
- 13. The Second Rule of WordPress Development You DO NOT edit core files Monday, October 15, 12 Please see slide 11...
- 14. Standard WordPress Structure Monday, October 15, 12 Unless you are making a change to submit as a patch to the core team, you should most likely only be messing with files in the plugins or themes folders
- 15. Let’s Build a Plugin Plugins can be a single file or multiple directories of files Create a folder and a php file with matching name inside the plugins folder Monday, October 15, 12
- 16. my-plugin.php Monday, October 15, 12 This information is all you need in order to tell WordPress that this file is a plugin.
- 17. Monday, October 15, 12 With that little bit of info, our plugin is ready to be activated. Although it won’t do anything yet.
- 18. Add a Filter Monday, October 15, 12 Added a filter which is going to edit the content and run our function in a specified order
- 19. Create a CSS Folder & File Monday, October 15, 12
- 20. Add an Action Monday, October 15, 12 We’ve told WordPress that when it enqueues the rest of the scripts, enqueue ours, too.
- 21. The End Result Monday, October 15, 12
- 22. Some Plugin Resources Don’t write code that WordPress already handles http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference Know your hooks and filters http://adambrown.info/p/wp_hooks Check out the WordPress coding Standards http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Coding_Standards Monday, October 15, 12 - Don’t reinvent the wheel - 1600 hooks and filters - Hooks are actions that fire at specific spots in the code. - Filters typically modify content before displaying it on screen or writing to the database.
- 23. Let’s Build a Theme Like plugins, a theme can be one or many files Themes add design to your site Themes can also add functionality Monday, October 15, 12
- 24. style.css Monday, October 15, 12 This is the only info you need to tell WordPress about our theme
- 25. Monday, October 15, 12 With that little bit of info, our theme is ready to be activated what happens if we activate now?
- 26. Monday, October 15, 12 D’oh! We didn’t add anything to our index file yet...
- 27. index.php Get started by adding the header/footer Monday, October 15, 12
- 28. Post Layout, part 1 Monday, October 15, 12 have_posts() checks page for available content while have_posts will loop through each post the_title() / the_content()
- 29. Post Layout, part 2 Monday, October 15, 12 This is displayed if no posts were on the page _e() allows for translations
- 30. Hey, We Have a Page! Monday, October 15, 12 It may be ugly, but you can see the beginnings of our site.
- 31. Add Some Style Monday, October 15, 12 Adding the most basic amount of style, and activating our plugin
- 32. http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy Monday, October 15, 12 Knowing what template is being used is VERY important.
- 33. Some Theme Resources The WordPress theme community http://make.wordpress.org/themes/ WordPress CSS Coding Standards http://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/coding-standards/css/ Monday, October 15, 12
- 34. Save Some Time, Create a Child Theme Monday, October 15, 12 Creating a child theme only needs the Template tag Importing the style sheet is a huge shortcut
- 35. Monday, October 15, 12 the original twentyten theme with our plugin activated
- 36. Monday, October 15, 12 The Child theme changes colors, moves menu location, moves sidebar, made it 3 column doesn’t affect the parent theme at all
- 38. Want to Learn More? http://vegasgeek.com/skillshare-schedule Monday, October 15, 12
- 39. Thank You! Email: john@vegasgeek.com Twitter: @vegasgeek Facebook: /vegasgeek I’m sensing a pattern... Monday, October 15, 12