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Learn to create custom WordPress plugins with these plugin development tutorials. Get code examples, best practices, and tips to develop useful, popular plugins.

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Plugin Development

Using bbPress as a Support Forum

Tutorial • Intermediate

bbPress is a tremendous plugin that provides a complete forum system done the WordPress way. Along with simply providing a great forum system for discussion...

Pippin Williamson • 24 Dec 2012
Plugin Development

Adding a Syntax Highlighter Shortcode Using Prism.js

Tutorial • Intermediate

Syntax highlighting has become pretty standard on most tutorial sites (as you can see below) and there are many options available, all depending on what...

c.bavota • 19 Dec 2012
Plugin Development

Creating Customized Comment Emails: Building a Plugin

Tutorial • Intermediate

In the first post in this series, we took a look at the variety of emails that WordPress sends depending on how it's used. We also discussed how it's...

Tom McFarlin • 17 Dec 2012
Plugin Development

Custom Database Tables: Importing Data

Tutorial • Intermediate

In the last tutorial we looked at exporting data from a custom table. Of course this is only half the story - we obviously need to provide a way of importing...

Stephen Harris • 16 Dec 2012
Plugin Development

Custom Database Tables: Exporting Data

Tutorial • Intermediate

As mentioned in the very first article of this series, one of the major problems with custom database tables is the fact that they are not handled by...

Stephen Harris • 13 Dec 2012
Databases & SQL

Custom Database Tables: Maintaining the Database

Tutorial • Intermediate

Over the lifetime of your custom table you will probably find that you need to make changes to what it stores, or how it stores it. This may be in response...

Stephen Harris • 10 Dec 2012
Plugin Development

Custom Database Tables: Creating an API

Tutorial • Intermediate

In the first part of this series we looked at the disadvantages of using a custom table. One of the major ones is the lack of an API: so in this article...

Stephen Harris • 6 Dec 2012
Plugin Development

Custom Database Tables: Safety First

Tutorial • Intermediate

This is part two of a series about custom database tables in WordPress. In part one we covered the reasons for, and against, using custom tables. We looked...

Stephen Harris • 3 Dec 2012
Plugin Development

Custom Database Tables: Creating the Table

Tutorial • Intermediate

In this series we'll be looking at using custom database tables. We'll cover how to create, maintain and remove the table, as well as how to safely, and...

Stephen Harris • 29 Nov 2012
Plugin Development

Two Ways to Develop WordPress Plugins: Functional Programming

Tutorial • Beginner

This part two of a series looking at two different programming styles (sometimes called programming paradigms) that you can use when writing WordPress...

Stephen Harris • 21 Nov 2012
OOP

Two Ways to Develop WordPress Plugins: Object-Oriented Programming

Tutorial • Beginner

When it comes to writing WordPress plugins, there are generally two ways to go about doing so: Object-Oriented Programming and Functional Programming (with...

Tom McFarlin • 15 Nov 2012
Plugin Development

WordPress Custom Post Types: Taxonomies, Admin Columns & Filters

Tutorial • Intermediate

Before diving into this tutorial please go through my first tutorial on Custom Post Types, where I have explained some of the important aspects of CPTs...

Soumitra Chakraborty • 1 Nov 2012