{"id":863,"date":"2008-06-30T21:57:15","date_gmt":"2008-06-30T19:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/?p=863"},"modified":"2008-06-30T21:57:15","modified_gmt":"2008-06-30T19:57:15","slug":"wordpress-plugin-coding-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/wordpress-plugin-coding-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"WordPress Plugin Coding Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen, on his geek blog Nerdaphernalia<\/a>, is running a series of excellent posts giving advices to plugin authors for neat subtle effects: adding a "Configure" link<\/a> right next to the "Activate" link on the Plugins page, or how to give credit to your plugin without cluttering the page<\/a> (I'm a big fan of the "Configure" link trick, that I've added to my latest release of Better Feed<\/a> and will definitely implement in all my plugins now)<\/p>\n

What's coming next on Stephen's blog is what seems to be my biggest pet peeve regarding plugins: saving plugin settings without cluttering the option table. I've had a draft post here for about 18 months<\/em> about plugin coding tips and guidelines, and for sure its main point would be: "for f*ck sake, why don't you save all your options into just one array into just one entry<\/em>??"<\/p>\n

Taken from an actual plugin (slightly changed for anonymity) randomly found on my test blog (warning: NSFW)<\/p>\n

\n\n\t\t
\n\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t< View plain text<\/span> ><\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t
php<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t
\n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t
  1. \/*Lets add some default options if they don't exist*\/<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  2. add_option(<\/span>'xxx_email'<\/span>,<\/span> get_option(<\/span>'admin_email'<\/span>)<\/span>)<\/span>;<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  3. add_option(<\/span>'xxx_subject'<\/span>,<\/span> 'From Website'<\/span>)<\/span>;<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  4. add_option(<\/span>'xxx_success_msg'<\/span>,<\/span> 'Thanks, your email has been sent!'<\/span>)<\/span>;<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  5. add_option(<\/span>'xxx_error_msg'<\/span>,<\/span> 'Please fill in the required fields'<\/span>)<\/span>;<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  6. add_option(<\/span>'xxx_error_msg_2'<\/span>,<\/span> 'You have not entered a valid email address'<\/span>)<\/span>;<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  7. add_option(<\/span>'xxx_error_msg_3'<\/span>,<\/span> 'That destination does not appear to exist'<\/span>)<\/span>;<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  8. add_option(<\/span>'xxx_redirect_loc'<\/span>,<\/span> get_option(<\/span>'siteurl'<\/span>)<\/span>)<\/span>;<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  9. add_option(<\/span>'xxx_redirect_time'<\/span>,<\/span> '3'<\/span>)<\/span>;<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  10. add_option(<\/span>'xxx_css_inject'<\/span>,<\/span> '1'<\/span>)<\/span>;<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  11. add_option(<\/span>'xxx_cc_myself'<\/span>,<\/span> '1'<\/span>)<\/span>;<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n
  12. add_option(<\/span>'xxx_user_subject'<\/span>,<\/span> '1'<\/span>)<\/span>;<\/span><\/div><\/li>\n<\/ol>\t<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n

    Arrrgh. When I look at a plugin for the first time, the very first thing I do is literally count the occurrences of "add_option". More than 3 and the plugin is a no-no on my blog.<\/p>\n

    Executive summary: read Nerdaphernalia<\/a> (I mean, if you're not a subscriber of Planet WordPress<\/a> already). And wait a few more months for my "10 stuff to do to write proper plugins" article :\u00de<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Stephen, on his geek blog Nerdaphernalia, is running a series of excellent posts giving advices to plugin authors for neat subtle effects: adding a "Configure" link right next to the "Activate" link on the Plugins page, or how to give credit to your plugin without cluttering the page (I'm a big fan of the "Configure" […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[2,85,76,245],"class_list":["post-863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-published","tag-code","tag-plugins","tag-tips","tag-wordpress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetozh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}