Book Image

WordPress Web Application Development

By : Rakhitha Nimesh Ratnayake
Book Image

WordPress Web Application Development

By: Rakhitha Nimesh Ratnayake

Overview of this book

Developing WordPress-powered websites is one of the standout trends in the modern web development world. The flexibility and power of the built-in features offered by WordPress has made developers turn their attentions to the possibility of using it as a web development framework. This book will act as a comprehensive resource for building web applications with this amazing framework. "WordPress Web Application Development" is a comprehensive guide focused on incorporating the existing features of WordPress into typical web development. This book is structured towards building a complete web application from scratch. With this book, you will build an application with a modularized structure supported by the latest trending technologies. "Wordpress Web Application Development" provides a comprehensive, practical, and example-based approach for pushing the limits of WordPress for web applications beyond your imagination. This book begins by exploring the role of existing WordPress components and discussing the reasons for choosing WordPress for web application development. As we proceed, more focus will be put into adapting WordPress features into web applications with the help of an informal use-case-based model for discussing the most prominent built-in features. While striving for web development with WordPress, you will also learn about the integration of popular client-side technologies such as Backbone, Underscore, and jQuery, and server-side technologies and techniques such as template engines, RSS feeds, Open Auth integration, and more. After reading this book, you will possess the ability to develop powerful web applications rapidly within limited time frames with the crucial advantage of benefitting low-budget and time-critical projects.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
WordPress Web Application Development
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

WordPress as a CMS


Way back in 2003, WordPress released its first version as a simple blogging platform and continued to improve, until it became the most popular blogging tool. Afterwards, it continued to improve as a CMS (Content Management System) and has a reputation now for being the most popular CMS. These days everyone sees WordPress as a CMS rather than just a blogging tool.

Now, the question is where will it go next?

No one really knows the answer for this question. But recent versions of WordPress have included popular web development libraries such as Backbone.js and Underscore.js, and developers are even building different types of applications with WordPress. So we can assume that it's moving towards the direction of building applications. It's important to keep an eye on the next few versions to see what WordPress offers for web applications.

Before we consider the application development aspects of WordPress, it's a good idea to figure out the reasons for it being such a popular framework. The following are some of the reasons behind the success of WordPress as a CMS:

  • Plugin-based architecture for adding independent modules and the existence of over 20,000 open source plugins

  • Super simple and easy-to-access administration interface

  • Fast learning curve and comprehensive documentation for beginners

  • Rapid development process involving themes and plugins

  • Active development community with awesome support

  • Flexibility in building websites with its themes, plugins, widgets, and hooks

These reasons prove why WordPress is the top CMS for website development. But experienced developers who work with full stack web applications don't believe that WordPress has a future in web application development. While it's up for debate, let's see what WordPress has to offer for web development.

Once you complete reading this book, you will be able to decide whether WordPress has a future in web applications. I have been working with full stack frameworks for several years and I certainly believe in the future of WordPress for web development.