WordPress is the most widely used CMS in the world. As a developer, WordPress is the ideal way to share your knowledge with a large community as well as build a profitable business. Getting started with WordPress development has been a challenge for novice developers, compared to building everything from scratch in other frameworks. It's very easy to build WordPress sites by connecting bits and pieces without actually knowing what's happening under the hood. Many developers tend to follow this path and face maintenance and security nightmares in the long run. This book is structured to explain the components used in WordPress development, when and where to use them, and why you should be using each component in specific scenarios.
You will begin this book by learning the basic development setup and coding standards of WordPress. Mastering the built-in database is one of the keys to becoming a expert in WordPress development. In this section, you will learn about the database structure, and examine the data usage of the built-in features and their limitations in order to plan the data needs of your application. Then you will move onto an important topic: the theme and plugin development process. In this section, you will learn how themes and plugins fit into an application while understanding basic to advanced techniques for extending themes and plugins.
With the basics covered, we explore the use of the wide range of APIs provided by WordPress and see how we can leverage them to rapidly build solutions. Next, we move onto another essential section, where we explore the techniques for capturing, processing, and displaying user data while integrating third-party components into the site's design. Finally, you will learn how to test and deploy the application with secure and maintainable code, while providing the best performance for end users.
By the end of this book, you will have the ability to choose the right components for any development task and build flexible solutions that work with existing plugins and themes.
This book is intended for web developers and site owners who are planning to build custom websites with WordPress. Also, web developers could use this book as a starting point for getting into plugin and theme development.
Chapter 1, Introduction to WordPress Development, covers the basic installation and configuration process of WordPress. Setting up the development environment, an introduction to WordPress coding standards, and understanding the WordPress file/folder structure are the highlights of this chapter.
Chapter 2, Managing Database Structure, Storage, and Retrieval, introduces you to the existing WordPress database table structure and its role in custom development. Executing basic queries, managing custom tables, and tracking the database usage of various features are the highlights of this chapter.
Chapter 3, Designing Flexible Frontends with Theme Development, explores the role and features of a theme in custom development. In-depth coverage of template hierarchy, custom template design, and custom development techniques in themes are the highlights of this chapter.
Chapter 4, Building Custom Modules with Plugin Development, explores the role of plugins and introduces the basics of developing a simple plugin. Understanding plugin life cycle events, identifying advantages of building plugins, and developing a plugin covering life cycle events are the highlights of this chapter.
Chapter 5, Extending Plugins with Add-ons, Filters, and Actions, focuses on extending existing plugins and core features with the use of add-ons and WordPress hooks. Customizing third-party plugins, integrating multiple plugins, and identifying the extendable features of existing plugins are the highlights of this chapter.
Chapter 6, Practical Usage of WordPress APIs, explores WordPress APIs and their functionality in custom development. Mastering the use of shortcodes, building custom routes with the Rewrite API, and allowing remote connections with REST APIs are the highlights of this chapter.
Chapter 7, Managing Custom Post Types and Processing Forms, explains the primary data capturing and managing process with custom post types and custom forms. Building object-oriented plugins for handling property management site with custom post types and building custom forms in the frontend are the highlights of this chapter.
Chapter 8, Discovering Key Modules in Development, dives into the process of improving user experience with interactive designs and customized backend features. Integrating UI components, working with page builders, and simplifying backend admin features are the highlights of this chapter.
Chapter 9, Enhancing Security, Performance, and Maintenance, covers the non-functional aspects of development for building quality and reliable sites. Identifying the process of testing, steps for securing sites, migrating sites using plugins, and exploring the primary tasks of maintenance are the highlights of this chapter.
Basic knowledge of PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS is required. You also need a computer, a browser, and an Internet connection with the following working environment:
- An Apache web server
- PHP version 5.4 or higher
- WordPress version 4.9.8
- MySQL version 5.6+ OR MariaDB 10.0+
You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packt.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.
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The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/WordPressDevelopmentQuickStartGuide. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.
We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!
We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/9781789342871_ColorImages.pdf.
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There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.
CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "We need to use the self::$instance object as we are within the static function."
A block of code is set as follows:
add_action( 'plugins_loaded', 'wqcpt_plugin_init' );
function wqcpt_plugin_init(){
global $wqcpt;
$wqcpt = WPQuick_CPT::instance();
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add_action( 'plugins_loaded', 'wqcpt_plugin_init' );
function wqcpt_plugin_init(){
global $wqcpt;
$wqcpt = WPQuick_CPT::instance();
}
Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Select System info from the Administration panel."
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