Create a custom WordPress Plugin from scratch (2022)

Steps to Create a custom WordPress Plugin from scratch (2022):

Step 1: Plugin Directory Creation
Step 2: Main Plugin File
Step 3: Creating Function
Step 4: Database Table Creation
Step 5: Page view
Step 6: Include view pages
Step 7: Activate Plugin
Step 8: Conclusion

Plugin Directory Creation

Create a new directory inside wp-content/plugins with your plugin name we had called it my-plugin.

Main Plugin File

So, After creating a your plugin directory we will create a main plugin file.

We had called it my-plugin.php inside my-plugin directory.

So Now, We will add some code to make this plugin work add the following code to my-plugin.php file:

/**
 * Plugin Name: LaravelTuts Plugin
 * Plugin URI: https://laraveltuts.com
 * Description: LaravelTuts - Learning Laravel and Other Code Plugin.
 * Version: 1.0
 * Author: LaravelTuts
 * Author URI: https://laraveltuts.com
 * License: GPL2
 */

If your plugin use database then you have to use $wpdb:

global $wpdb;

If you want to create some user defined functions, then create functions.php file and include it.

include "functions.php";

Declare the add_action() function : add_action() function Hooks a function on to a specific action.

//add_action( $tag, $function_to_add, $priority, $accepted_args );
add_action('admin_menu', 'myplugin_menu');

So now, Declare the function which you had create previously.

function myplugin_menu(){
}

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Creating Function

Add the following code to the myplugin_menu() function file.

Declare the add_menu_page() function : add_menu_page() function creates a new top level menu section in the admin menu sidebar and registers a hook to callback your function for outputting the page content when the linked menu page is requested.

//add_menu_page( $page_title, $menu_title, $capability, $menu_slug, $function, $icon_url, $position );
add_menu_page(' My Plugin', ' My Plugin ', 'administrator', 'myplugin_settings', 'myplugin_ menu_page');

Declare the add_submenu_page() function : add_submenu_page() function add a sub menu page.

//add_submenu_page( $parent_slug, $page_title, $menu_title, $capability, $menu_slug, $function );
add_submenu_page('myplugin_settings', 'My Plugin Submenu', 'My Plugin Submenu', 'administrator', 'myproject_submenu', 'myproject_submenu_page');

Database Table Creation

function install_tables()
{
    global $wpdb;
    require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php');
    $table1 = "CREATE TABLE ".$wpdb->prefix."table_name (
         `id` bigint(100) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
         `name` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
         `email` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
         PRIMARY KEY  (`id`)
        ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci";
    dbDelta($table1); 
}

Now declare the register_activation_hook() function and pass the previously declared function into register_activation_hook().

register_activation_hook(__FILE__,'instal_tables');

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Page view

Now, Create a new directory inside your my-plugin folder with a name pages and create a file myplugin_menu_page_view.php inside the folder as shown in the image.

This myplugin_menu_page_view.php file contain menu or submenu page function.

Add the following code inside the file.

<?php
    ob_start();
    //admin menu page function
    function myplugin_menu_page()
    {
        //for db connection
        global $wpdb;
    ?>
        <!-- Page HTML goes here -->
        <h1>This is my LaravelTuts Plugin menu page</h1>
    <?php
    }
?>

Include view pages

Include all files which are contains the menu and submenu page functions.

include "pages/myplugin_menu_page_view.php";
include "pages/myplugin_submenu_page_view.php";

Activate Plugin

Once, Everything is done you can activate the plugin by visiting the plugin page. So, Go to WordPress backend > Plugins. There you will find plugin that we had created. So, just activate it!

Conclusion

We have been completed the custom WordPress Plugin creation tutorials. If you have any query about this tutorial and scripts, feel free to comment here.

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