Fun with plugins tool
This blog was spawned as a result of a post on my other blog where I asked readers for a steer on my next project. One of the suggestions I received was for a wordpress plugin generator, where you could input the things you wanted your plugin to do, and it would give you a nice handy plugin file with the appropriate functions and hooks already working.
I thought it was a great idea and so I have been working on this for a few weeks.
I still have much work to do on the plugin generator, which I have named, Fun With Plugins, but I think I have got it to a position where it is actually useful and so I am opening it up for use and comments. If I were going to be all 2.0 about it I might call it a beta.
I am hoping to get feedback on features it should have, features that could work better, how well the guidance comments work etc.
The idea was given to me by Ronald Huereca. He has been instrumental in the development of this tool. As part of the Reader Appreciation Project he gave me the idea to ask readers what I should do next, he gave me the actual idea, he also kindly tested the generator at an earlier version, provided me with some sample code, and his series on writing Wordpress plugins on Devlounge was a key source of information, although I did choose to do some things a little differently.
Still to come
Features still to come are:
- Adding CSS files in to the page header (external files or included as part of the plugin file itself)
- Adding client side scripts (external files or included as part of the plugin file itself)
- Ajax functionality
- A wp-extend readme file for added promotional power
- support for more actions and filters (Name your favourites and I will implement them first)
Comments
Other blogs writing about this
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(http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2007/11/08/wordpress-plugin-generator-2/) 09th 11 2007 at 2:22 am
[...] the more advanced things plugin authors take advantage of including localization and admin menus. Future versions promise Ajax support, style support, client side scripting, and an automatically generated WP Extend readme [...]
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(http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/wordpress-plugin-generator-at-fun-with-wordpress/) 09th 11 2007 at 8:56 am
[...] Fun with plugins tool [...]
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(http://www.alltipsandtricks.com/blog/2007/11/09/how-hard-it-is-to-make-100-by-developing-a-wordpress-plugins/) 09th 11 2007 at 2:17 pm
[...] have Wordpress fun? Let’s see how hard it is for you to develop your own plugin, with this plugin making tool: go there, think of a plugin, make it and blog about it with a link to this post, so I get your [...]
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1
Jonic (http://www.100yen.co.uk/) commented at 2:26 am, 11th 11 2007:
Great work man, I can see this being really useful for plugin developers…
I’d like to nomiate the wp_footer hook, or give the user the option to type in a hook/filter of their own. I’m subscribing to your feed to see how this turns out. It seems to be working out great so far
2
Andrew Rickmann (http://www.arickmann.co.uk) commented at 11:17 am, 11th 11 2007:
Jonic, I have added the wp_footer hook.
I have a few people suggest letting people add their own content in different ways. While it certainly makes sense I think that one of the advantages of this is that you can download a plugin that, in theory, should just work. This gives a great baseline and means it is easy to test what is broken.
If people could add their own content that may cease to be the case and it may be difficult sometimes to figure out if there is a bug in the generator or in the content they have typed in.
I haven’t ruled it out, but I am considering it very carefully.
3
Amit Bhawani (http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/) commented at 11:20 am, 12th 11 2007:
Hey, just posted about your plugin generator here - http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/wordpress-plugin-generator-at-fun-with-wordpress/
Amit