Plugin Handbook

Welcome to the WordPress Plugin Developer Handbook; are you ready to jump right in to the world of WordPress plugins?

The Plugin Developer Handbook is a resource for all things WordPress plugins. Whether you’re new to WordPress plugin development, or you’re an experienced plugin developer, you should be able to find the answer to many of your plugin-related questions right here.

1. If you’re new to plugin development, start by reading the introduction and then move on to the basics.
2. Section 3 will introduce you to plugin security.
3. Hooks are what make your plugin interact with WordPress. Learn all about them in section 4.
4. To find out more about WordPress’ built-in functionality that you can use in your plugin, check out sections 5 – 11: administration menus, shortcodes, settings, metadata, custom post types, taxonomies, and users.
5. Learn about getting data using the HTTP API in section 12.
6. If you’re using JavaScript, jQuery or Ajax in your plugin, you’ll find the information you need in section 13.
7. To learn about time-based WordPress tasks using Cron, check out section 14.
8. Sections 15-17 will introduce you to internationalizing your plugin, preparing it for release on WordPress.org, and some developer tools you might find useful.

The WordPress Plugin Developer Handbook is created by the WordPress community, for the WordPress community. We are always looking for more contributors; if you’re interested, stop by the docs team blog to find out more about getting involved.