In between other things this week, I have been learning how to put together complex WordPress plugins, to help with a project that I am working on with some other people. And I must say, it’s been a pretty good experience.
Coming from the world of .Net, you get used to certain things being available (such as a decent IDE!) which in PHP might not be there, but the wealth of support sites for PHP is just incredible. Anytime I had a syntax issue, where something didn’t match what I expected (what me? Read a manual?), a quick Google revealed all I needed.
The result is that I have a plugin which does a number of things:
- It allows you to store multiple records of 10 or so columns in the Options table.
- Using a WordPress shortcode, these records can be referenced independently from a post or page template.
- It routes the users through a four step process, any deviation routes back to the start
- At two points in the process an XML fragment is created and appended to, based on user form entries or what links a user clicked on.
- An email response is sent to me at the end of the process.
Now this isn’t perfect. For step 1, I want to look at creating and updating my own MySQL table, so that I don’t overload the Options table, and can have more control over things. Likewise for step 5, I might still want the email, but ideally I want to store this in a database table as well.
Overall, as a proof of concept for the project that this would be for, I’m quite pleased. When the project gets a name and a full plan behind it, then I’ll be sure to mention it here!
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