Ultimate WordPress Plugin Course

Congratulations on purchasing this course! Let me tell you why you made a great decision and how it's going to change your life!

If you haven't been convinced already, this lesson we'll explain why WordPress Plugins are so great.

Throughout the course I'm going to be developing our WordPress plugin using a local web server. This basically means that I can develop Wordpress plugins offline. Developing plugins offline prevents accidentally taking down a live website due to coding errors and comes with the added benefit of speed since we don't have to rely on an internet connection.. If you'd like to develop locally as well, this lecture will show you how to set up your development environment and install a fresh copy of WordPress. We'll also install and take a look at my favorite code editor. Updated for 2020.

Throughout the course I'm going to be developing our WordPress plugin using a local PHP server called MAMP. This allows me to do development offline and if for some reason I cause a PHP error, it's not going to mess up a live website and deter real web traffic. If you'd like to develop locally as well, this next lesson will show you how to set up your development environment and install a fresh copy of WordPress. We'll also install a free code editor (if you need one) called Adobe Brackets. Feel free to skip this lecture if you're using the tools from the new setup covered in the previous lecture.

In this lesson we find answer the question, 'WordPress plugin anyway?'

In this lesson we look at what a 'WordPress Hook' is and why it's absolutely integral to WordPress Plugin Development.

In this lesson we look at common actions and filters used when developing WordPress plugins.

In this lesson we define WordPress Post Types as well as look at the advantages of using them when developing plugins.

In this lesson we define what a 'Shortcode' is.

It's been said before, failing to plan is planning to fail… So in this lesson we're going to plan the plugin we'll be creating in this course.

Without header data WordPress can't find your Plugin! In this lesson we learn what header data is and how to use it to get our very own plugin to appear in the WordPress Plugin admin.

It's time to make our Plugin do some work! In this lesson we learn about Shortcodes and then we make our own to display our email capture form.

In this lesson we learn how to create custom post types without writing a single line of code using the Custom Post Types UI plugin.

In this lesson we learn how to make custom fields without writing any code using the Advanced Custom Fields plugin.

In this three-part lecture we'll learn how to add custom fields from scratch using the best practices outlined in the WordPress Codex.

In this three-part lecture we'll learn how to add custom fields from scratch using the best practices outlined in the WordPress Codex.

In this three-part lecture we'll learn how to add custom fields from scratch using the best practices outlined in the WordPress Codex.

In this lesson we learn what admin columns are and then we add a few of our own.

In this lesson we make our email capture form work by writing custom functions for adding new subscribers.

In this lesson we continue writing functions for handling email capture form submissions.

In this lesson we continue writing functions for handling email capture form submissions.

In this lesson we continue writing functions for handling email capture form submissions.

In this lesson we add some form validation and error handling for our new add subscription action.

In this lesson we make our email capture form more user friendly by writing custom javascript that handles our form posts and responses.

In this lesson we make our email capture form look good by writing custom CSS and including enqueueing it in the header.

In this lesson we learn how to include the Advanced Custom Fields plugin within our plugin directory so we can take advantage of ACF's awesome features wherever our plugin goes.

In this lesson we learn how to include our custom post types in our plugin so we can relinguish our dependance on the Custom Post Types UI plugin.

In this lesson we're going to learn about WordPress admin pages and how to create our own.

In this lesson we're going to learn about Admin Menus and we're going to add three admin menus for the Admin Pages we just created in our previous lesson.

In this lesson we're going to update our plugin options page with a form for managing default plugin options.

In this lesson we're going to learn how to save plugin options.

In this lesson we're going to create an unsubscribe feature so if our email list sucks people have a way to opt out of it.

In this lesson we learn how to send automated emails through WordPress's built-in wp_mail function.

In this lesson we're going to update our subscription process to require new subscribers to opt-in through a unique opt-in link we generate and include in their initial subscription email.

In this lesson we're going to create a new automated email that get's sent out once a subscriber has confirmed their subscription.

In this lesson we're going to use the Advanced Custom Fields plugin again to create new custom fields for adding optional reward files to our email lists.

In this lesson we're going to learn how to add a custom database table to the WordPress database.

In this lesson we're going to create unique reward links that we will then email to new subscribers when they opt-in to an email list.

In this lesson we're going learn how to expire our reward links after "x" number of downloads, "x" being equal to the user defined "Reward Download Limit" we set up in our plugin options page.

In this lesson we're going to learn how to export our subscriber data as a CSV file. The great thing about this file is it can be used to import our subscribers into other email platforms like MailChimp.

In this lesson we're going to update our Subscribers list page to include a new "Subscriptions" column. In this column we're going to display the number of active subscribers a list has a we're going to add a new link for exporting those subscribers.

In this lesson we're going to complete our custom admin page called "Import Subscribers". This page will eventually include a dynamic import process that allows users to upload a CSV file and then select which data they wish to import as well as which list they wish to import to.

In this lesson we're going to learn how to read a CSV file in PHP and convert the results to a PHP array that we can later user to import new subscriber data.

In this lesson we're going to complete our import feature and learn how to programatically insert new subscribers into the database.

In this lesson we're going to learn how to check the current WordPress version on plugin activation. If the version isn't one we've tested we're going to display an admin message on the plugins page.

In this lesson we're going to learn how to cover our tracks when a plugin is uninstalled. Leave no 1 behind! …or 0, don't leave those either.