It goes without saying that plugins are different from themes, but a lot of things concerning them share the same ground. If you simplify things, you could say that when you’re adding functionality to your theme by adding code to the functions.php template file, you’re actually writing a plugin. But there is a huge difference. Themes are there to display the WordPress site, using the tools available. Plugins, on the other hand, are used when you need to extend the WordPress functionality with additional features. You should remember that, because bloating your theme’s functions.php with features sometimes isn’t the way to go.
In this article we’ll look at plugins from a slightly different standpoint than we did with the themes articles previously. The reason for this is simple: your plugin can do anything. It is basically a way for you to add whatever feature you want; compare that to doing funky stuffwith a select few template tags, and you see the difference. With plugins, it is not a matter of what you can do, it is more a question of why. So that’s where we’ll start.
A plugin’s essentials don’t differ too much from a theme’s essentials. Instead of the necessary style.css stylesheet file with its theme-identifying top header, you have an aptly named PHP file with a similar header. Then you can expand by adding even more functionality outside of the main plugin PHP file if you want, just like you add template files to the child theme’s style.css. Start from the beginning: the main plugin file. There are just two things to observe here:
Giving your plugin a unique filename or folder name is very important, since plugins reside in wp-content/plugins/ and you wouldn’t want any weird conflicts. Name it appropriately, and in such a way that there is no doubt which plugin it is should someone need to find it using FTP but only know it by the name it is displayed with from within the WordPress admin interface. The identifying plugin header block will look familiar.
Actually, you don’t need all that; only the plugin name line, the first one within the comment notations, is mandatory. The rest should be there, however, so that the user knows what the plugin is, where to get updates, version numbering, who made it, and so on. You should include licensing information as well. This is the standard GPL licensing dummy that is recommended in the WordPress Codex.
Naturally, you’d want to change YEAR and PLUGIN AUTHOR E-MAIL to the correct information. You can also include the full license as a text file, aptly named license.txt of course. Obtain the license from www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html. And that’s about it. All you need for WordPress to find the plugin is this, one single file with an identifying top. Dropping it in wp-content/plugins/ will result in it being listed in the Plugins section within WordPress. Activate it, and it will be available to you in your theme, and from WordPress’s actions themselves. This is where the fun part begins, because this is where you have to figure out what you need to do, and how you’ll accomplish it. Whether you’re planning on writing the plugin you think will change the way you use WordPress, or just need some extra functionality for your latest project, you should go through the plugin checklist before getting started. It may just save you some time and headaches.
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