If you’ve been using WordPress for a while, plugin importance is probably not new for you. However, using plugins on a website and creating your own are two different things.
Fortunately, creating your plugins is easier than you think. The first important step is to have a clear understanding of how plugins work and how they are made. Once you understand the basics, creating and installing simple plugins is pretty straightforward.
What is a Plugin?
A plugin is a software that contains features that can be added to a WordPress website. You can expand this feature or add a new feature to your WordPress sites.
WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and are easily integrated with WordPress. There is a saying in the WordPress community: “There is an add-on for this.” They allow users to easily add features to their website without even knowing a single line of code.
Thousands of WordPress plugins are available for free on the official WordPress plugins directory. At WPBeginner, we write about the best WordPress plugins. We even shared a list of all the plugins we use. In addition to the free plugins, there are some great third-party and developer ads.
How Do Plugins Work?
You can find out all about it below. In general, you need to do the following to use WordPress plugins on your site.
- Find the WordPress plugin that interests you
- Install this plugin on your WordPress website
- Customize the plugin in your WordPress control panel.
You can add plugins to almost any topic and expect it to work as expected. Add-ons are modular, so you can copy (or distribute) them to a new project.
The plugin acts as a container for all of your codes and elements. If you need to create similar functions in a topic, you can mess things up. With an add-on, everything is required for a package to work.
They are easy to manufacture and can take advantage of WordPress’ power and filters. They are quickly built in an object-oriented manner, which creates a more potent and more manageable code.
Finding and Managing WordPress Plugins For Your Site
Now that you can answer the question of what a WordPress plugin is, here’s where to find WordPress plugins and how to add them to your site.
Where can you Find WordPress Plugins?
You can find WordPress plugins in different places, whether you want free or higher-end plugins.Free plugins allow you to install and use the add-on for free. Sometimes some features are disabled when you don’t pay.On the other hand, high-quality add-ons certainly cost money, but often offer better features.
WooCommerce plugin for WordPress
WooCommerce is the world’s most popular open-source e-commerce solution. Unlike hosted eCommerce solutions, WooCommerce store data in the future. If you want to move to another platform, you can export all of your content and host your site anywhere. No restrictions.
Developers can use WooCommerce to create, customize, and scale a store to meet specific customer needs, and expand it with extensions and plugins like WooCommerce Product Video and WooCommerce name your price.
How to develop your plugin
To develop your plugin, it’s essential first to understand how critical systems work. Add-ons work mainly with hooks that allow the code to communicate with other codes. There are two types of eavesdroppers in WordPress: actions and filters. We discuss them in more detail below, as well as the other two elements commonly used in developing impurities.
- Actions
A WordPress action refers to a specific action that is performed at a particular time. Follow these steps to add or change features for your plugin. Functions added to story are executed after that action has been started.
Example of a WordPress operation – save_post. The do_action function defines actions. They require the parameter $ tag (action name) and in some cases $ args (additional arguments that extend the action).
The core of WordPress contains a dozen predefined actions. But you can also create your own. In either case, use the do_action to set the values for the hook function when developing the WordPress plugin. The add_action part is then used to link that function to a specific action.
- Filters
WordPress filters are hooks that take a single variable or a series of variables and return after changing. Essentially, filters allow you to change the content that users see.
WordPress filters are created with the Apply_filters function and defined in this function. This requires the $ tag (filter name) and $ value (filtered value or variable) arguments, although the $ var function can be used for additional function values.
You can use the Apply_filters hook to create your filter. You can then use the add_filter function to start it. This allows you to associate a specific role with a filter so that you can edit and return the variable.
- Shortcodes
Put, codes are code-behind programs that allow users to quickly and easily create and display custom functions for their website visitors. Abbreviations for posts and pages are available through the editor, menus, widgets, and more.
Many plugins use shortcodes. You can create your shortcode using the add_shortcode function. Your nickname code name is the first variable, and the second variable is the output function. The output function consists of three values: attributes, content and expression.
- Widgets
Another way to enable plugin features through a simple interface is to use WordPress widgets. You can create a widget by extending the WP_Widget class. WordPress uses a purposeful approach to creating widgets, e.g. functions and values are stored in a separate unit of the type.
Takeaway
One reason WordPress is so successful is how easy it is to customize with themes and plugins. There are tons of plugins in the WordPress plugins directory or the Envato market. However, if you want to take your WordPress skills to the next level, this is no substitute for learning a custom plugin.