WordPress Plugin Template

A robust code template for creating a standards-compliant WordPress plugin.

Why this template?

After writing many WordPress plugins I slowly developed my own coding style and way of doing things - this template is the culmination of what I've learnt along the way. I use this template as a base for any plugin that I start building and I thought it might benefit more people if I shared it around.

How do I use it?

You can simply copy the files out of this repo and rename everything as you need it, but to make things easier I have included a shell script in this repo that will automatically copy the files to a new folder, remove all traces of the existing git repo, rename everything in the files according to your new plugin name, and initialise a new git repo in the folder if you choose to do so.

Running the script

You can run the script just like you would run any shell script - it does not take any arguments, so you don't need to worry about that. Once you start the script it will ask for three things:

1. Plugin name - this must be the full name of your plugin, with correct capitalisation and spacing.
2. Destination folder - this will be the folder where your new plugin will be created - typically this will be your wp-content/plugins folder. You can provide a path that is relative to the script, or an absolute path - either will work.
3. Include Grunt support (y/n) - if you enter 'y' here then the Grunt files will be included in the new plugin folder.
4. Initialise new git repo (y/n) - if you enter 'y' here then a git repo will be initialised in the new plugin folder.

API functions

As of v3.0 of this template, there are a few libraries built into it that will make a number of common tasks a lot easier. I will expand on these libraries in future versions.

Registering a new post type

Using the post type API and the wrapper function from the main plugin class you can easily register new post types with one line of code. For exapmle if you wanted to register a listing post type then you could do it like this:

WordPress_Plugin_Template()->register_post_type( 'listing', __( 'Listings', 'wordpress-plugin-template' ), __( 'Listing', 'wordpress-plugin-template' ) );

Note that the WordPress_Plugin_Template() function name and the wordpress-plugin-template text domain will each be unique to your plugin after you have used the cloning script.

This will register a new post type with all the standard settings. If you would like to modify the post type settings you can use the {$post_type}_register_args filter. See the WordPress codex page for all available arguments.

Registering a new taxonomy

Using the taxonomy API and the wrapper function from the main plugin class you can easily register new taxonomies with one line of code. For exapmle if you wanted to register a location taxonomy that applies to the listing post type then you could do it like this:

WordPress_Plugin_Template()->register_taxonomy( 'location', __( 'Locations', 'wordpress-plugin-template' ), __( 'Location', 'wordpress-plugin-template' ), 'listing' );

Note that the WordPress_Plugin_Template() function name and the wordpress-plugin-template text domain will each be unique to your plugin after you have used the cloning script.

This will register a new taxonomy with all the standard settings. If you would like to modify the taxonomy settings you can use the {$taxonomy}_register_args filter. See the WordPress codex page for all available arguments.

What does this template give me?

This template includes the following features:

• Plugin headers as required by WordPress & WordPress.org
• Readme.txt file as required by WordPress.org
• Main plugin class
• Full & minified Javascript files
• Grunt.js support
• Standard enqueue functions for the dashboard and the frontend
• A library for easily registering a new post type
• A library for easily registering a new taxonomy
• A library for handling common admin functions (including adding meta boxes to any post type, displaying settings fields and display custom fields for posts)
• A complete and versatile settings class like you see here
• A .pot file to make localisation easier
• Full text of the GPLv2 license

See the changelog for a complete list of changes as the template develops.

I've got an idea/fix for the template

If you would like to contribute to this template then please fork it and send a pull request. I'll merge the request if it fits into the goals for the template and credit you in the changelog.

This template is amazing! How can I ever repay you?

There's no need to credit me in your code for this template, but if you would like to buy me some lunch then you can donate here.