In this hands-on lab, you and I will walk through the entire process of adding a new feature to an existing WordPress plugin. You’ll start with the Collapsible Content plugin and then add a FAQ feature to it. This feature will require you to plan, think, and execute building a custom post type, custom taxonomy, advanced SQL queries, custom archive, and shortcode.
Labs
Labs are hands-on coding projects that you build along with Tonya as she explains the code, concepts, and thought processes behind it. You can use the labs to further your code knowledge or to use right in your projects. Each lab ties into the Docx to ensure you have the information you need.
Each lab is designed to further your understanding and mastery of code. You learn more about how to think about its construction, quality, maintainability, programmatic and logical thought, and problem-solving. While you may be building a specific thing, Tonya presents the why of it to make it adaptable far beyond that specific implementation, thereby giving you the means to make it your own, in any context.
Test Slow Approach – Part 2
Let’s continue testing the slower approach. In this episode, you will explore the SQL queries when running each WP_Query. This is a fun one. You’ll discover how many queries are generated (i.e. how many times the code hits the database). Then you’ll change the term assignments to discover how the number of queries increases exponentially with the number of terms.
Advanced SQL – Get Posts Grouped by Terms
This hands-on lab teaches you more advanced SQL including table relationship types, how to join multiple tables together, and how to write SQL queries that are faster and more scalable for your WordPress projects. You will use a practical example plugin to test two different approaches to solving the problem of fetching posts that are grouped by each term. You’ll test these approaches, explore the actual SQL queries, and learn about the impact of processing speed, performance, and scalability.