WordPress Plugin Development (Beginner's Guide)

This book is written in a very easy to understand fashion. Each example builds on the the previous example. Its a great way for someone like me, who likes to learn by doing, to learn how to create plugins. There is a lot of information out on the web that will tell you how to create a plug-in, but this book allows you to follow the creation of a plugin from start to finish. Highly recommended

this book helped me get started in plugin development, really like this book, now i want a more advanced book to do more advanced development, this is a basic intro, if you know how to develop wordpress plugin, this might be a waste of time, but if your new to the wordpress world, i recommend it.

If you want to get started with wordpress plugin development, then this is what you need. I cant say anything more then that :)

I bought this book hoping to get one thing out of it: "How to create a plugin which makes use of a custom database table". Unless I missed something, this book doesn't show you how. At least not plainly. All the examples that concerns databases makes use of the existing WP tables. I would've thought that using custom tables would definitely be in a plugin development book. But the book did a good job in walking a user through the topics it did cover.

The first plugin you build is suppose to add a Digg button to your posts. Problem is the plugin "Digg This" does not work.. So might find yourself banging your head against the wall like I did. First thing I did after checking my code for typos over and over is try the source code you can download.. That does not function either. Okay so I went and installed Vladimir's newer vesion from wordpress.org. The Digg features does not work there either. Why? After at least six hours of trying to resolve this I found out the Digg links do not exist any longer on the Digg site or they are broken. I went and looked for errata.. None to be found. I went to Vladimir's site and the comments and questions I saw posted as far back as 2009 appear to have no response to them. So if you are new like me instead of typing in your first plugin and experinece the joy of creating a working plugin in you are left trying to figure out why it does not work. I returned the book. I do not know if the rest of the plugins function but I am not going to risk my time only to be spend hours building non functional plugins.

I learned many applicable techniques.

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging programs available and plugins associated with it are also quite popular. This book shows the reader how to create your own and provides excellent instructions on doing this. One concept that is discussed early on is "dogfooding your plugins." This means you should strive to create a plugin that satisfies your needs. And while it addresses a need you have, it very likely is one that others have as well. With all the plugins available now, a plugin that addresses a unique need should become popular quickly. The book devotes chapters to the creation of seven different plugins, including Digg This (social bookmarking plugin), Live Blogroll, The Wall, and Post Types among others. Each chapter describes in step by step details how to create the plugin and gives numerous code examples along the way. It also explains unfamiliar concepts in a way that makes them easy to quickly understand. There are also brief explanations of how JQuery and Ajax (two important programming languages used in developing plugins) work. The book's final chapter gives tips on documenting and promoting your plugin, as well as ways to improve your overall WordPress knowledge. Every time I check the WordPress plugin directory, it seems there are quite a few amazing new plugins to try out which have been created by talented people. This book will help you to become one of them.

WordPress has gone from strength to strength since it was released in 2003, and much of its success is due to the open source community's commitment to plugin development. Take a look at the WordPress Plugin Directory, and you'll see thousands of plugins that extend the WordPress core to do almost anything you can imagine. Packt Publishing's WordPress Plugin Development is written by Vladimir Prelovac, a WordPress expert and developer of WordPress plug-ins such as Smart YouTube and Plugin Central. Part of Packt's Beginners Guide series, the book focuses more on experimentation and learning by doing, and develops 6 real-world plugins throughout its 270 or so pages. Chapter Overview 1. Preparing for WordPress Development 2. Social Bookmarking 3. Live Blogroll 4. The Wall 5. Snazzy Archives 6. Insights for WordPress 7. Post Types 8. Development Goodies Aimed at developers who are familiar with PHP, the book wastes little time getting straight into coding. Chapter 1 gives an overview of plugin development, and details the six plugins that are developed throughout the course of the book. 1. Digg This The first plugin simply shows a Digg button in blog posts. It's a good first plugin, since it shows the reader the fundamental Plugin concepts such as the WordPress API, filters and actions. 2. Live Blogrool This plugin works at making the basic Blogroll a little bit more exciting. I enjoyed this chapter since it talked about integrating jQuery and AJAX into plugins. 3. The Wall The Wall is a plugin that creates a shoutbox on your blog's sidebar, where users can leave comments and shouts. This chapter introduces widgets and the WordPress database. 4. Snazzy Archives This plugin beautifies blog archives, and hooks into posts and the administration panel. 5. Insights The insights plugin increases blog post writing productivity by offering quick access to common information in the Write Post screen. 6. Post Types This plugin works closely with the WordPress back-end, and extends the platform's CMS capabilities. Despite WordPress 3.0's core functionality being extended in this area, it's still a useful chapter. As fantastic as WordPress is, a real sense of power can be gained from extending it. I particularly enjoyed this book, since it got straight `down to business' and focused on the core concepts and practices that enable developers to create reliable, useful plugins.