The document discusses using WordPress as a framework to build custom applications and functionalities. It explains that WordPress handles many common tasks out of the box, like user management, databases, caching, and more. Custom functionality can be built as a plugin that takes advantage of WordPress features while keeping business logic separate. The plugin boilerplate provides a structure, and shortcodes, JavaScript files, functions, and admin pages can be used to integrate features. This allows WordPress to be leveraged while keeping code independent and portable.

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Synadakis Angelos
Using WordPress as a Framework

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Contents
What are we going to talk about today

3. 3
Let’s use WordPress as a Framework, but what is
a Framework after all?
Part 1
What is a Framework
A few words about WordPress and Web
Development requests.
Introduction
What are we talking about?
ContentsWhat are we talking about today

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WordPress is handling a lot of things… How to
build the rest?
Part 3
How to build the business logic
Any thoughts? Questions maybe?
Epilogue
Q&A
What can WordPress do as a Framework?
Part 2
WordPress as a Framework

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S
ocial Mind is a unique Digital Marketing agency that
helps businesses drive results. We are doing so by
About Social Mind
creating awesome Websites, eCommerce stores and
mobile applications, by designing and launching online
advertising campaigns, by implementing loyalty systems,
etc.
During the last 5 years we had the great opportunity to
work with more than 150 different companies from
various business sectors and design together digital
strategies and tools that produce traction, sales and
awareness.

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WEB DEVELOPMENT
ONLINE APPLICATIONS

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WEB DEVELOPMENT
WordPress is normally used as a tool to build elegant
websites.
Websites might vary from simple business
presentations to impressive eCommerce stores, but
they might also be complex digital platforms with
custom functionalities and requests.
Such complicated platforms with custom functionalities
are usually built with MVC frameworks such as Laravel,
Yii2, etc but what if WordPress can do the same job
equally done?

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Pre-Built Modules
Frameworks take care of
various common
functionalities.
Stability
Frameworks offer stability
and security.
Speed
Frameworks make coding
fast since we have a very
big code reusability rate.
What is a Framework?
A Framework is a basic platform that allows
us to develop web applications.
In other words, it provides structure. By
using a Framework, you will end up saving
loads of time, stopping the need to produce
repetitive code, and you’ll be able to build
applications rapidly.
Without a Framework in place, it gets much
more difficult to produce applications since
you’ll have to repeatedly code a lot of
functionalities. You’ll also have to execute
the connection between the database and
whatever application you develop from
scratch.
Meanwhile, using a Framework makes it
easier for you to ensure this connection.
Source: https://onextrapixel.com/an-overview-of-php-framework-guides-for-developers/

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What to expect from a Framework
Factor
06 The Framework should be supported
from an active community to help
new users and address issues.
Community
Factor
04 Of course, a Framework should be
secure.
Security
Factor
05 A Framework should be well
documented in order to help the
developer use it.
Documentation
Factor
03 Framework should have a build-in
user management and
authentication system.
User Management
Factor
01 Framework need to take care of the
communication between the DB
and the application.
Database Management
Factor
02 Framework is responsible for
speed, caching, etc.
Performance
Some first thoughts

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WordPress offers extended
tools for media
management.
Media Management
Database management
(CRUD) is handled by
WordPress.
Database CRUD
Tons of themes to choose
from! Also, it is very easy to
alter design at will!
There are a lot of plugins
that take care of Caching.
DesignCaching
WordPress has a powerful
and fully extensible admin
dashboard.
Admin Dashboard
User management and
Authentication can be
handled completely by
WordPress.
User Management
WordPress is SEO friendly
(permalinks, etc). There are a
lot of plugins offering more
SEO tools as well.
The developer can use
hooks, actions and filters to
extend WordPress
functionalities.
SEOFilter and Hooks
WordPress as a FrameworkWhat can WordPress do as a Framework?
Translations, API, Plugins and many, many, many… more!

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How to build the rest?

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How to build the
custom functionalities?
OK, so far WordPress is taking care of a lot of stuff, but how are we
going to implement the rest of the functionalities we need?
Custom functionalities will be implemented as a plugin. A plugin
that will handle and serve all of the project’s custom needs.
While writing the plugin we should have two things in our mind:
1. We’d like to be tied up with WordPress as less as
possible.
2. We’d like to take advantage of WordPress as much
as possible.

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WP Boilerplate Plugin
We are going to use WordPress Boilerplate Plugin.
The steps are:
1. Download the plugin from:
https://github.com/DevinVinson/WordPress-Plugin-
Boilerplate
2. Make all the appropriate changes to give to the
plugin a unique name. For instance, if we want to
rename the plugin to “My Awesome App”, then:
• Rename files from plugin_name to my_awesome_app
• Change plugin_name to my_awesome_app
• Change PLUGIN_NAME_ to MY_AWESOME_APP_
3. Upload the plugin on WordPress and activate it.

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WP Boilerplate Plugin
OR you can use https://wppb.me/ to have all the
renames generated automatically with a form.

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WP Boilerplate Plugin
By default, the plugin comes with the structure shown in
the image on the right.
On the admin folder we are going to write the code that
has to do with the backend, while on the public folder
we will write the frontend. Languages folder will held
our .po/.mo files for the translations and the includes
folder has all the “glue code” that does the magic.
Let’s create a basic functionality
to see how it works!

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Let’s print something
Let’s assume that we have create a code that does some
functionality for us and now we want to print the
outcome to the user.
To do so, the easier way is to register a shortcode and
then use it a page to print the outcome of our
functionality.
This can be done in 4 easy steps!

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Create a page and use
the shortcode.
Create a page
Register a JS file that
includes (maybe) some of
the functionality.
Register a JS file
Register a shortcode that
calls a function.
Register a Shortcode
Create the function that
does the magic and
returns the outcome.
Create a function
Print Something!How to print the outcome of our functionality

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Register a shortcode
A. Go to the file includes/class-plugin-name-loader.php and add the following code:
protected $shortcodes;
Public function __construct () {
// …
$this->shortcodes = array();
}
public function add_shortcode( $tag, $component, $callback, $priority = 10, $accepted_args = 2 ) {
$this->shortcodes = $this->add( $this->shortcodes, $tag, $component, $callback, $priority, $accepted_args );
}
public function run() {
//…
foreach ( $this->shortcodes as $hook ) {
add_shortcode( $hook['hook'], array( $hook['component'], $hook['callback'] ), $hook['priority'],
$hook['accepted_args'] );
}
}
Source: https://github.com/JoeSz/WordPress-Plugin-Boilerplate-Tutorial/blob/master/plugin-name/tutorials/register_a_shortcode_in_plugin.php

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Register a shortcode
B. Go to the file includes/class-plugin-name.php and add the following code:
private function define_public_hooks() {
$this->loader->add_shortcode( "shortcode-name", $plugin_public, "shortcode_function", $priority = 10,
$accepted_args = 2 );
}
Source: https://github.com/JoeSz/WordPress-Plugin-Boilerplate-Tutorial/blob/master/plugin-name/tutorials/register_a_shortcode_in_plugin.php
C. Go to the file public/class-plugin-name-public.php and add the following code:
function shortcode_function( $atts ) {
ob_start();
include_once( 'partials/plugin-name-myfile.php');
return ob_get_clean();
}

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Register a JS file
A. Go to the file public/class-plugin-name-public.php and add the following code:
public function enqueue_scripts() {
wp_enqueue_script( $this->plugin_name, plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) . ‘js/plugin-name-public.js', array(
'jquery' ), $this->version, false );
}
Source: https://github.com/JoeSz/WordPress-Plugin-Boilerplate-Tutorial/blob/master/plugin-name/tutorials/register_a_shortcode_in_plugin.php

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Create a Page
A. Go to WordPress Dashboard and add a new page. Or edit an existing one. Then, add the
shortcode to the page.
[shortcode-name]

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Create a Function
A. Go to the file partials/plugin-name-myfile.php and add create your function:
echo “Hello World!”;
Here, you can build all the business logic of your project. You can:
• echo things if you want to print something
• use the js files you have included in the previous steps
• use all WordPress functionalities!
require_once("../../../../../wp-load.php");
$currentUser = wp_get_current_user();
echo $currentUser->user_firstname;

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Good Practice
In the public folder, create a file called my-plugin-name-functions.php and add all the custom functions you will need.
function print_my_name($name) {
if ($name) {
echo $name;
} else {
echo “How are you?”;
}
}
and then, use these functions to all your other files.
include_once('my-plugin-name-functions.php’);
echo print_my_name(‘Angelos’);

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Admin Panel Page
Sometimes we need a backend functionality as well.
Maybe to give to the admin some settings or maybe
display some stats or whatever.
Easily enough, we can create a backend page as well.
Simply create the appropriate files to the admin folder.
These files will handle all the business logic and the
interconnection with WordPress.
If you want to add the settings page in the Dashboard
menu, then simply go to admin/class-plugin-name-
admin.php file and add the desired menu items in the
display_admin_page() function.
//Add a menu item at the WP dashboard
public function display_admin_page() {
add_menu_page(
‘My Settings Page’, //page_title
‘My Title’, //$menu_title
‘manage_options’, //$capability
‘my-slag-admin’, //$menu_slug
array($this, ‘showPage’), //function
‘my_icon.png’, //$icon_url
‘81.0’ //$position_on_menu_from_top
);
}

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What about the database?
Working with the database is pretty easy since WordPress is doing most part of the job! Let’s see a quick example:
global $wpdb;
$rows = $wpdb->get_results(“SELECT * FROM my_table");
return $rows;
We just declare the $wpdb global item and it takes care of all the rest! We only need to prepare our
SQL Queries depending on the database structure, the data we need, etc.

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Good Practice
Since we need to be as less depended on WordPress as possible, it is highly recommended to create some extra tables
on the database to store our data and don’t use the default ones (even though we can).
In this way, at any time we decide to take our project elsewhere (than WordPress) we can just export our tables from the
database and import them to the new one and continue from there. The only thing that we’ll have to do is change the
wpdb functions with the corresponding one from our new Framework.

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WordPress Functions
Full access to WordPress
funcitions.
Independent
Business logic is separated
from WordPress. They only
connect on WordPress
functions.
Custom Needs
PHP, HTML, CSS, JS – Use
everything you need to
build the required custom
functionalities.
Conclusion
In this way you can build all the custom
functionality – the business logic – using
PHP, HTML, CSS, JS or whatever else you
need.
You can still use WordPress to handle all the
rest such as user management, db handling,
etc.
In this way, your code is “WordPress
independent” meaning that you only use
WordPress’s functions. At anytime, you can
take your code some-platform else, change
the “glue code” and you are ready-to-go!
Source: https://onextrapixel.com/an-overview-of-php-framework-guides-for-developers/

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Thank you!
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info@socialmind.gr