I have recently (in the past few months) purchased a few excellent books on WordPress, WordPress development, and web development in general. I must say that after reading these, I am a little embarrassed at some of the code I’ve put out there in older plugins and themes.
I recently had the privilege of rebuilding the website for Minnesota Voters for Animal Protection, and developing the site in WordPress opened my eyes to a lot of tricks, shortcuts, and standards that I hadn’t used before.
In the spirit of learning new WordPress development techniques, I thought I’d share the ten resources I use the most. These cover a lot of best practices that are a great baseline for solid plugin & theme development. Here they are, in no particular order:
1. WordPress Template Tags
This might be the most-clicked bookmark on my computer. It’s such a fantastic, quick reference to look up the arguments/syntax/existence of almost any WordPress function.
2. WordPress Coding Standards
I feel lucky that my coding style matches that of the WordPress team almost completely; I had very few adjustments to make. Developing for WordPress in their coding style makes your code easier for others to read and modify later (if you’re making open-source stuff). Also, if your style is all over the place, this will help you achieve consistency.
3. Plugin Resources (from the WordPress Codex)
I keep this bookmarked because it links to the pages in the codex I refer to the most. The list of filters & hooks, and examples of their syntax, is especially helpful for me.
4. Best practice for adding JavaScript code to WordPress plugins
This is the most concise and easy-to-follow guide on this topic that I’ve seen.
5. Advanced Power Tips for WordPress Template Developers
Smashing Magazine is a fantastic place for finding useful, plug-and-play code snippets that might change the way you develop forever.
6. Advanced Power Tips for WordPress Template Developers: Reloaded
More great stuff from Smashing Magazine, this time focusing mostly on the admin area.
7. Posts tagged “WordPress” on Smashing Magazine
I wanted to list a lot of these posts, but then my entire list would have been Smashing Magazine articles! Here’s their list of WordPress posts.
8. WpRecipes.com
Like Smashing Magazine, there are a lot of code snippets here that work very well for specific things.
9. Digging into WordPress
This website is a great resource for unlocking more advanced, CMS-like functionality in WordPress. Their book is one of those I mentioned at the beginning of my post.
10. Google
This might be how I learned 99% of what I know about WordPress development, whether directly or indirectly. You’d be surprised at how quickly you can find what you need by searching for a function name or throwing “wordpress” in front of your keywords.
Refer back to these sites often! The blogs update frequently, and the codex entries are great standards to keep bookmarked in your browser.
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