Book Image

Wordpress Web Application Development - Third Edition

By : Rakhitha Nimesh Ratnayake
Book Image

Wordpress Web Application Development - Third Edition

By: Rakhitha Nimesh Ratnayake

Overview of this book

WordPress is one of the most rapidly expanding markets on the Web. Learning how to build complex and scalable web applications will give you the ability and knowledge to step into the future of WordPress. WordPress 4.7 introduces some exciting new improvements and several bug fixes, which further improve the entire development process.This book is a practical, scenario-based guide to expanding the power of the WordPress core modules to develop modular and maintainable real-world applications from scratch. This book consistently emphasizes adapting WordPress features into web applications. It will walk you through the advanced usages of existing features such as access controlling; database handling; custom post types; pluggable plugins; content restrictions; routing; translation; caching; and many more, while you build the backend of a forum management application. This book begins by explaining how to plan the development of a web application using WordPress' core features. Once the core features are explained, you will learn how to build an application by extending them through custom plugin development. Finally, you will explore advanced non-functional features and application integration. After reading this book, you will have the ability to develop powerful web applications rapidly within limited time frames.
Table of Contents (14 chapters)

Customizing the main navigation menu

In WordPress, the main navigation menu is located on the left-hand side of the screen where we have access to all the sections of the application. In a similar way to the admin toolbar, we have the ability to extend the main navigation menu with customized versions.

Let's start by adding the admin menu invoking an action to the constructor:

    add_action('admin_menu',array( $this,'customize_main_navigation') );    

Now, consider the initial implementation of the customize_main_navigation function:

    public function customize_main_navigation(){ 
global $menu,$submenu;
echo "<pre>";print_r($menu);echo "</pre>";exit;
}

The preceding code uses the global variable menu for accessing the available main navigation menu items. Before we begin the customizations, it's important to get used to the structure...