DEAR READER, thank you for picking up this book! You have probably heard about WordPress
already, the most popular self - hosted content management system (CMS) and blogging software in
use today. WordPress powers literally millions of Web sites on the Internet, including high profi le
sites such as TechCrunch and CNN ’ s blog. What makes WordPress so popular is that it ’ s free, open
source, and extendable beyond limits. Thanks to a powerful, architecturally sound, and easy - to - use
plugin system, you can customize how WordPress works and extend its functionalities. There are
already more than ten thousand plugins freely available in the offi cial plugin repository, but they
won ’ t suit all your needs or client requests. That ’ s where this book comes in handy!
As of this writing, we (Brad, Ozh, and Justin), have publicly released 50 plugins, which have been
downloaded nearly one million times, and that ’ s not counting private client work. This is a precious
combined experience that we are going to leverage to teach you how to code your own plugins for
WordPress by taking a hands - on approach with practical examples and real life situations you will
encounter with your clients.
The primary reason we wanted to write this book is to create a preeminent resource for WordPress
plugin developers. When creating plugins for WordPress, it can be a challenge to fi nd the resources
needed in a single place. Many of the online tutorials and guides are outdated and recommend
incorrect methods for plugin development. This book is one of the most extensive collections of
plugin development information to date and should be considered required reading for anyone
wanting to explore WordPress plugin development from the ground up.