What is the Event Management System within the Plugin API? It is the system that allows you and I, as developers, to extend, customize, and enhance the website and user experience (UX). It allows you to register your code to specific events and then get called for your code to do its thang. WordPress provides us the ability to hook into Core, plugins, and the theme in order to run our code when some event occurs. Think about that. WordPress Core loads and runs in a specific order. It allows the plugins and theme at different points in that sequence. […]
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.
WordPress Plugin API – Introduction & Registering Event Hooks
The Event System in WordPress Plugin API is the cornerstone for developers, as it allows you to extend, enhance, and change the behavior of WordPress. In this lab, you will be introduced to the event-driven mechanism. Then you’ll get to work registering callbacks for events (actions and filters) to help you know this important API. Let’s dig into add_filter and add_action.
Code Tip: Specify a default for get_option()
In this quick tip, you will see that you can specify a default return value for the WordPress function get_option(). When the option does not exist in the database, such as you are setting up a theme options page, then you can specify a return value as the default. Otherwise, you will get “false” back.
WordPress Tip: Do You Have to Specify all the Arguments for add_action and add_filter?
The question I often get is: If I only need a couple of the arguments that a filter or action makes available, do I have to specify all of them in the callback function for add_filter() and add_action(). For example, if a filter, such as shortcode_atts_{$shortcode} has 4 arguments, but I only need 3, do I have to wire it up for all 4? In this video, Tonya explains why you have control over what you want to receive by looking into WordPress core at apply_filters().
WordPress Tip – Put in the Shortcode Name for shortcode_atts
Help out your fellow developers and put the shortcode name as the third parameter in the function shortcode_atts(). Why? To allow other developers to modify the default attributes you specify with your shortcode. Tonya shows you how this works and the benefit to the site owner.
WordPress Tip – Match Arguments and Parameters When Calling Functions
You have to match the number of arguments to the number of required parameters for a PHP function. A common error is when you forget to specify the number of arguments to send when wiring up an event callback for add_action() or add_filter(). In this video, Tonya shows you why you have to specify this number.
WordPress Tip – Linking Taxonomy to Custom Post Type
Do you need to include the optional parameter taxonomies when registering the custom post type register_post_type()? How do you link the taxonomy and post type? In this quick tip, Tonya shows the how and why of the `taxonomies` optional parameter.