How To Create a WordPress Plugin from Scratch – Part 1

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hey what’s up guys Alex here thank you

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for checking his video and welcome to

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the episode number one of these brand

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new series on how to create a wordpress

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plugin from scratch

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[Music]

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welcome again in this first tutorial

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we’re going to take a look on all the

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basics to setup our first amazing plugin

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in our beautiful wordpress installation

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before starting because we are coding

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and we’re going to code a lot of

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different things remember to set your

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wp-config.php file in your root

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directory installation of wordpress we

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define the WP debug global settings to

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through if it’s not set to true every

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time you have an issue or every time you

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write something wrong like a bad PHP

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code or something like that your entire

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website is just not gonna print you’re

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gonna see a blank page we don’t want

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that because we’re under development so

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we need to get all the debug information

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possible all the information that we

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need to understand what we did wrong and

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how to fix our code so just remember

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this is the only requirement that you

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need for like to follow this tutorial

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set your WP debug to through okay let’s

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get started if we access the

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installation like a regular WordPress

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installation this is the usual structure

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like folder structured are you gonna see

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and as I said at the very first lesson

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of the WordPress 101 the only folder

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that you should care about your

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WordPress installation is the WP content

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everything else all the files WP admin

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that will be includes you should never

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touch those files because those are part

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of the core installation of WordPress so

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by accessing the WP content you’re going

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to have a list of all the folders that

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you can use and you can touch in order

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to create your custom things and I’m

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sure you already guessed that we need to

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create our plugins in the plugins folder

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by default WordPress comes with a

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cassette and Hello Dolly to pre install

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plug-in it they show like a pretty

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regular structure and then the usual

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index dot PHP with an empty comment just

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to avoid the direct axis of the this

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folder there at access of these files if

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the user gains access to your WordPress

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installations through a browser so let’s

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start by creating a new folder and let’s

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name the folder

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with the same name that we want to

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assign to our custom plugin so in my

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case is going to be Alec add – plug in

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something like that and the requirement

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the kind of the only requirement of

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WordPress on how to about creating a

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plug-in is having a unique name for your

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plugin and these unique name has to be

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carried around from the folder to the

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main PHP file if this name is not unique

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your plug-in will have some conflicts of

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updating or versioning with other

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pre-existing plugins so before creating

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your folder name just do a check inside

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the official plugins repository just

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click add new and search for the plug-in

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name that you want to create so in my

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case is going to be a lake add plug-in

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and see if we have any results no

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matching result so that’s perfect that

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plug-in name doesn’t exist and I am safe

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it to use it let’s access this folder

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and let’s open this folder in sublime

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text inside our newly generated plugin

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folder the first file that we need to

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create is a PHP file with the same exact

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name of our plug-in folder so in my case

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is alak add the – plug-in dot PHP and it

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is really important because by default

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WordPress does this wordpress checks all

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the folders inside your plugins

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installation and the text the PHP file

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that has the same name of your folder

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and automatically lists all those things

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inside your plug-in directory but of

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course having an empty file is not

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enough for WordPress to recognize that

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this is a plug-in and you want it to be

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listed in your plug-in directory so

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let’s create let’s open the PHP tags and

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as usual because this is just a PHP file

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we’re not going to have any HTML written

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here we can avoid you close the tags and

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this is actually really recommended not

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closing tags then we define a global

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setting for our package and say that

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these is a package called

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alak add plug-in something like that and

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now we need to define some global

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settings in order for wordpress to

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recognize our plugin and these section

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is pretty much identical to the comment

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section that you write in your style dot

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CSS when you generate a new theme to

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give the wordpress the ability to

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recognize the theme and specify some

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unique attributes to customize the theme

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so we’re going to do exactly the same

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let’s open again our comment block and

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don’t use inline comment but use comment

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block that’s really important and let’s

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write the first is the plug-in name

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attribute and remember to write it

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exactly as I do otherwise WordPress can

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not recognize that specific attribute

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and the plug-in name is Alec add plug-in

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oops

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plug-in then the second attribute is

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plug-in you are I and no URL if you are

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I and here we need to specify the unique

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URL of that plug-in in my case it’s

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going to be just simply HTTP slash slash

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Alec add calm but whatever if you have

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your plug-in hosted on a city file or on

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a github repository you can set up that

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specific URL so if for example I have

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this plug-in in a subdirectory of my

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website I can specify a unique

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subdirectory so if they click to view

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more details about my plug-in they’re

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going to get redirected to that specific

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URL the third parameter is description

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and we can write simply this is my first

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attempt on writing a custom plugin for

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these amazing tutorials series something

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like that do we like it I guess so and

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here you can write HTML just really

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simple HTML you can have like strong

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bold italic underscore like underline

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all this kind of stuff like really

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really simple HTML don’t use like crazy

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HTML markups are not recognized then we

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need to specify the version and my

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version is the 1.0.0 then we need to

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specify the author the author is

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alessandro

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double-quote Alec had castellani is my

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name and then the author URI also in

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this case and this is gonna basically

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redirect the user whenever they click on

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the name or the author of the plugin so

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in this case on my name then you need to

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specify the license of this plugin and

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usually the plugins are all open-source

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license like releasing a plug-in on

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WordPress on your future repository of

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WordPress that is not open source is

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really hard I don’t think it’s like

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recognized of stuff like that is like

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not allowed to publish a plug-in that is

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not under open-source license so usually

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when you’re building a plug-in always

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set at GPL v2 or later that’s my kind of

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my favorite open-source license

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otherwise there’s like apache license

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MIT license just check in the new

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official documentation to see which

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license matches properly your needs and

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just use that and then we need to

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specify liking the theme the text domain

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of our plug-in in my case is going to be

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other CAD plug-in I’d save it let’s go

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back in our WordPress installation let’s

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access our plug-in directory let’s

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refresh and look what we have here that

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is pretty amazing right we have Alec hat

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plug in the description the link to

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click visit the plug-in side and if we

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visit the plug-in side we’re going to go

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to these fake URL that doesn’t exist I

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like add slash plug-in I don’t have

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anything but it goes to my website and

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if I click on the my name it goes

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actually to my website so I click on the

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other name and then we have the version

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and we have by default all the native

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links of WordPress of a plug-in so to

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activate edit or delete the plug-in and

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of course if we click Edit WordPress

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automatically goes inside the editor of

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the plug-in lists all the files that we

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have here so we could potentially also

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write our own Pauline directly inside

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WordPress but that would be kind of

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crazy right and of course if we try to

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activate it it’s gonna be activated but

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there’s pretty much nothing here

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because we didn’t write anything so we

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can activate and deactivate the plug-in

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and nothing is going to break our

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website to work if i refresh I’m using

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the latest 2017 theme of WordPress and

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nothing is happening because of course

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it’s an empty plugin but hey we few

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lines of code we generated a pretty

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legit first plug-in installation isn’t

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that great the last thing that I want to

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do before concluding this first episode

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is screening a really important and

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really necessary file in order to have a

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little bit of security in your plugin

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and this file is the standard index dot

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PHP inside your installation because if

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someone tries to access directly your

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plug-in folder it will not go into all

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the available files that you have

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because you cannot access and see all

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the files but it will be redirected just

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in case that happens it will be

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redirected to the index file and in the

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index file what we want to do you want

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to just print an empty PHP we’d silence

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is golden and is the same technique used

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in another PHP file here like in the

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index dot PHP in the default plugins and

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if you know this it’s also in the index

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dot PHP in the wp-content folder and

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that’s how wordpress deals like in a

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super quick and dirty way unlike direct

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access into folders that we don’t want

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to really give to read access to it

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because it’s kind of catchy right the

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last thing that you could do you could

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simply in the main PHP file of your

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plug-in just print right after the basic

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attribute of your plugin just by leaving

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an empty row the license that you’re

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actually using and I grab these license

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directly from the new website and the

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license that is described here is GPL

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version 2 this is not 100% required

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especially when you’re building a

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plug-in but it’s it’s absolutely

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required if you decide in the future to

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publish your plug-in into the WordPress

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official plugins repository so why not

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put in it by default as the first thing

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so we will

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not forget in the future and that’s

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pretty much it this is the very first

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and very very simple video about the

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plug-in development series in the next

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video we’re going to spend a little bit

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of time on tackling all the security

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precaution and safety precaution in

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order to start developing a plug-in

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without worrying too much of exposing

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vulnerabilities or leaving backdoors

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open to our WordPress installation or

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whatever the WordPress installation

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we’ll use our word plug-in so next

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lesson is going to be way more awesome

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than this one I really hope so well it’s

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pretty much it for this video hope you

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enjoyed if you did please give it a

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thumbs up or subscribe to my channel and

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if you want you can spend a couple of

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minutes on the support me page of my

12:09

website where you can find all the

12:10

different ways and methods to support me

12:13

support my channel and help me to do

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better videos and better tutorials for

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you thank you again guys and until the

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next lesson has usual happy coding

 

Have a great day!

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If you have any question feel free to leave in the comment section below. Thanks for watching and stay tuned

 

 

How To Create a WordPress Plugin from Scratch - Part 1#WordPressPlugins