WordPress Plugin Writing

Posted by Jacob Santos on January 7, 2008

The WordPress Function Documentation blog has several posts about the current state of inline documentation.

However, I’m currently writing a daily series on Plugin authoring that will last until I either get bored of writing the series or I run out of ideas. The plan is to write as much as possible on plugin authoring and then eventually move the contents to the codex and to a WordPress Developer Manual.

So far, I’ve dived into the deep end of the WordPress Plugin API, but I’m eventually going to write posts on the add_filter() and friends functions on their usage. Eventually, I want to cover all I can on the Plugin API, which is my “field” that I’ve adopted in WordPress.

I will eventually move on to covering the other subjects, but it really just depends on time.

Each post that I’ve written does not exceed 500 words, which keeps the information concise and to the point. Eventually, I believe creating a larger document for other areas.

While the blog is primarily for function documentation and the progress of inline documentation in WordPress source. I do want to expand to user documentation fields and much like the posts for the Developer Manual, expand on user concepts in order to eventually create an User Manual.

The nice thing about the blog is that when I write a post, I sent the publish date to the next day of the last post. As long as I keep creating a post a day or several every other day, I should have a blog that has a post every day. Well, that will be tested as soon as I start school and WordPress goes into the forethought of my mind.

The goal is not to have a post a day, the goal is to write as much as possible about WordPress documentation to eventually create something bigger.

Please note, the contents of the blog are licensed under GPL v2, therefore all contents are with permission to be used under the restriction of that license. It is impossible to publish modifications back to my blog. I do think it would serve its purpose if you published modifications to the codex or if you so choose to do so at your blog and retain the GPL v2 license for that post.

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5 Comments.

  1. Adam January 9, 2008 at 7:22 am

    I’ve been trying my hand at writing WordPress plugins as well.

  2. Jacob Santos January 9, 2008 at 7:32 am

    Eh. The current series goes to the 13th. I’m still not finished, so I might go on a writing campaign on Saturday or Sunday to either finish all that I’m going to have on the series or at least last until the 20th.

    WordPress 2.5 adds more features and those are reviewed first. I don’t go into adding filters and actions, because there is already codex documentation on that and it is very easy. However, I’m still going to add it at some point.

    Today is not going to have a plugin series but will be on the current state of wordpress documentation. Expected in the next few hours. I had a longer post, but the contents of which were lost. No matter, the current shorter version does its job well and is under 500 words.

  3. jfeltz January 13, 2008 at 2:49 pm

    Since you leave little in the way of an email contact, I’m posting this here. I think were a lot alike and a few of our projects have the same goals. I’ve been kicking around some ideas around for a open mecha (with SDK for wing/seed and other IP violating third party mods) based simulator, set in a space to planet surface scale environment, with an economy and factions. I’m looking for help. I’m a hobbiest/commercial developer. My experience is in C++, python, using generic programming methods. I would like to focus my work on the engine and "back end" game mechanics. I do however have some experience in 3d modeling, toying with character animation (cal3d), photoshop and the like. If you’re interested in collaborating or know of people who are, please let me know and we can discuss this project further.

    [Email address removed to protect from havesters]

    One of my projects:
    http://cmil.sourceforge.net

    My company:
    http://www.ovbstudios.com
    (currently working to release commercial podcast aggregation software)

    Thanks for your time,
    John

  4. Jim Mirkalami February 6, 2008 at 3:56 pm

    I have been a frequent visitor of this blog for some time now, so I thought it would be a good idea to leave you with my thanks.

    Regards,
    Jim Mirkalami

  5. burun February 29, 2008 at 2:55 am

    Writing a plugin for WordPress isn’t that hard. The hardest part is coming up with a idea for a plugin that hasn’t been written already. But once you have a idea, the real fun starts. Like many programming jobs, the creation of a WordPress plugin is all about trial-and-error. You have to try it, to be able to learn how to write a plugin for WordPress.