How can a plugin create a page/form in the front end?
See How do you create a “virtual” page in WordPress for the solution. This should work for your case as well.
plugin-development
Does the number of downloads displayed for a plug-in in the WordPress.org plug-in directory include automatic updates?
That’s the total number of downloads. It includes direct downloads in the Repository and installs/updates done in the dashboard. Quotes from Otto comments in this 2010 article about the stats charts in every plugin’s page. […] the download count includes direct downloads as well […] There is no “raw count” anywhere on that version number … Read more
Symbolic Links on dev box with plugins and stylesheets
Symbolic links are … risky in WordPress. It is easier to use a separate domain for plugins per wp-config.php: define( ‘WP_PLUGIN_DIR’, ‘/local/path/to/plugin/directory’ ); define( ‘WP_PLUGIN_URL’, ‘http://plugins.dev’); See Strategy On Building Plugin Using Eclipse as an example for IDE configuration with such a setup.
Get a path to a different plugin
My best guess would be: if ( ! is_file( $dir = WPMU_PLUGIN_DIR . ‘/pluginb/pluginb.php’ ) ) { if ( ! is_file( $dir = WP_PLUGIN_DIR . ‘/pluginb/pluginb.php’ ) ) $dir = null; } return $dir; However, the danger here is still the assumption of the plugin’s “basename” – a well written plugin will still function even … Read more
Custom Post Type Plugin: Where Do I Put The Template?
So what’s the best practice here? I would say a combination of letting the theme handle it and providing a default with your plugin. You can use the single_template filter to switch out the template. In your callback, see if the theme provided a template for the post type, if it did, do nothing. <?php … Read more
How to Add an Index to Plugin Database table
You can execute arbitrary SQL statements with wpdb::query(), including Data Definition Statements, e.g. function create_index () { global $wpdb ; $sql = “CREATE INDEX my_index ON {$wpdb->prefix}my_table (my_column)” ; $wpdb->query ($sql) ; return ; } Note: Because $wpdb->query() can execute arbitrary SQL, if the statement you pass to it contains ANY user input, then you … Read more
How to Add a Third Level Sub Menu to the WordPress Admin Menu
No, it is not possible to create third level menu in admin panel. If you look at the definition of add_submenu_page, you need to mention the parent slug name. For eg: add_menu_page ( ‘Test Menu’, ‘Test Menu’, ‘read’, ‘testmainmenu’, ”, ” ); add_submenu_page ( ‘testmainmenu’, ‘Test Menu’, ‘Child1’, ‘read’, ‘child1’, ”); The first parameter of … Read more
Add self-closing shortcode button to TinyMCE in WP 4.6
We start by adding the custom TinyMCE Button: function add_mce_button_custom_em() { // check user permissions if ( !current_user_can( ‘edit_posts’ ) && !current_user_can( ‘edit_pages’ ) ) { return; } // check if WYSIWYG is enabled if ( ‘true’ == get_user_option( ‘rich_editing’ ) ) { add_filter( ‘mce_external_plugins’, ‘add_tinymce_plugin_custom_em’ ); add_filter( ‘mce_buttons’, ‘register_mce_button_custom_em’ ); } } add_action(‘admin_head’, ‘add_mce_button_custom_em’); … Read more
Where to store plugin settings fields
It depends on how you are going to use the stored data. If you want to run complex queries against the values, use a custom table with indexes optimized for those queries. If you will always just fetch all the values for a given object, create a non-public custom post type, and store the data … Read more
Stop a plugin in the activation process when a certain WP version is not met then show error message in admin_notices action hook
I may be late to this party, but to stop plugin activation and have WordPress show an error message where the admin notices go, I simply output an error message and terminate execution. This has the added advantage of playing nice with wp-cli: Example: class testPlugin() { … static function activate() { //[do some stuff … Read more