How to create a custom plugin: Edit

If you want to create your plugins, WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ has a powerful scaffold command that allows us to generate starter code. In this guide we will see how to generate starter code for a basic pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party.

Step 1 – Scaffold the plugin files

The following command uses several options to lets us specify the plugin slug, its name, description, author name and uri as well as the plugin uri. You can replace the values passed to the options below to customize the plugin based on your needs.

    $ wp scaffold plugin wpcli-demo-plugin --plugin_name="WP-CLI Demo Plugin" --plugin_description="This is a wp-cli demo plugin" --plugin_author=wp-cli --plugin_author_uri="https://wp-cli.org" --plugin_uri="https://plugins.wp-cli.org/demo-plugin"
    Success: Created test files.

The above command generates a new folder called wpcli-demo-plugin in the plugins directory, with the following files structure.

| - bin/
| - tests/
| - .gitignore
| - .editorconfig
| - .phpcs.xml.dist
| - .travis.yml
| - Gruntfile.js
| - package.json
| - phpunit.xml.dist
| - readme.txt
| - wpcli-demo-plugin.php

Unless you use the –skip-tests flag the following files are always generated:

• phpunit.xml.dist is the configuration file for PHPUnit.
• .travis.yml is the configuration file for Travis CI. Use --ci=<provider> to select a different service.
• bin/install-wp-tests.sh configures the WordPress test suite and a test database.
• tests/bootstrap.php is the file that makes the current plugin active when running the test suite.
• tests/test-sample.php is a sample file containing test cases.
• .phpcs.xml.dist is a collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules.

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Step 2 – create a custom post type:

We can now use the scaffold command again to add a custom post typeCustom Post Type WordPress can hold and display many different types of content. A single item of such a content is generally called a post, although post is also a specific post type. Custom Post Types gives your site the ability to have templated posts, to simplify the concept. inside our new plugin using the wp scaffold post-type command.

    $ wp scaffold post-type books --label=Book --textdomain=wpcli-demo-plugin --dashicon=dashicons-book-alt --plugin=wpcli-demo-plugin
    Success: Created '/wpcli-demo-plugin/post-types/books.php'.

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Step 3 – Write code inside the main file:

The main plugin file wpcli-demo-plugin.php is the starting point that we can use to write our plugin logic.

Inside the main plugin file lets now reference the new post type we just created.

Open in your favourite text editor the file wpcli-demo-plugin.php
and under the line saying “your code starts here” add the following:

\\Your code starts here.
require('post-types/books.php');

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Step 4 – Activate the plugin

You can now use two wp-cli commands to check the list of plugins and activate your newly created plugin.
wp plugin list and wp plugin activate. The first command lists all plugins installed while the second
activates a given plugin.

    $ wp plugin list
    +-------------------+----------+-----------+---------+
    | name              | status   | update    | version |
    +-------------------+----------+-----------+---------+
    | akismet           | inactive | available | 4.1.5   |
    | hello             | inactive | none      | 1.7.2   |
    | wpcli-demo-plugin | inactive | none      | 0.1.0   |
    +-------------------+----------+-----------+---------+

From the list above we can see that our plugin wpcli-demo-plugin is inactive. Let’s enable it using the other command.

    $ wp plugin activate wpcli-demo-plugin
    Plugin 'wpcli-demo-plugin' activated.
    Success: Activated 1 of 1 plugins.

Our plugin is now active. We can visit the WordPress admin panel and
start using our books custom post type.

Last updated: December 2, 2024