WPHelper \ PluginCore

Helper class for registering WordPress plugins.

Plugin Boilerplates and boilerplate generator are a hassle. The file structure they impose is way too cumbersome (and redundant) to push into every single plugin. WPHelper\PluginCore replaces boilerplates with one simple class (usually hidden away somewhere in your vendor/ dir).

WPHelper\AdminMenuPage can be used to register and generate admin menus if your plugin requires that.

Requirements

• PHP >= 7.4
• Composer
• WordPress

Installation

Install with Composer or just drop PluginCore.php into your plugin folder and require it.

// Require the Composer autoloader anywhere in your code.
require __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

OR

// Require the class file directly from your plugin.
require_once __DIR__ . 'PluginCore.php';

WPHelper\PluginCore uses PSR-4 to autoload.

Basic Usage

WpHelper/PluginCore replaces the many plugin core skeleton generators out there. Just add these lines of code at the top of your plugin file and you're good to go.

WpHelper/PluginCore will define %PLUGIN%_BASENAME, %PLUGIN%_PATH, %PLUGIN%_URL, %PLUGIN%_FILE constants available to your code.

/*
 * Plugin Name: My Awesome Plugin
 * Description: Plugin's description.
 * Version:  1.0.0
 */

// Import PluginCore.
use WPHelper\PluginCore;

// Register the plugin
$args = [
    'title' => 'My Awesome Plugin', // Optional - will fallback to plugin header Plugin Name.
    'slug' => 'my-awesome-plugin', // Optional - will generate slug based on plugin header Plugin Name
    'const' => 'MYPLUGIN' // Optional - slug used to define constants: MYPLUGIN_DIR, MYPLUGIN_URL etc. (if not provided will use 'slug' in ALLCAPS)
    'activate_cb' => 'activate_callback' // Optional - Provide a callable function to run on activation
    'deactivate_cb' => 'deactivate_callback' // Optional - Provide a callable function to run on deactivation
    'uninstall_cb' => 'uninstall_callback' // Optional - (@todo) Consider using uninstall.php and not this plugin. This plugin can run in the global scope and cause problems
];

// Setup plugin constants and activation/deactivation hooks
new PluginCore( __FILE__, $args );

// Start writing your code here..
include '/foo.php';
add_action( 'plugins_loaded' function() {
    // whatever..
});

Constants

WPHelper\PluginCore defines constants for use in your code. Where __FILE__ is the filename provided to the class and %PLUGIN% is the 'const' option. Like so:

define( '%PLUGIN%_URL', plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) );
define( '%PLUGIN%_FILE', __FILE__ );

These are the constants defined by WPHelper\PluginCore. There are some redundancies to account for different conventions.

• %PLUGIN%_PATH: plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) )
• %PLUGIN%_DIR: plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) )
• %PLUGIN%_URL: plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) )
• %PLUGIN%_BASENAME: plugin_basename( __FILE__ ) )
• %PLUGIN%_FILE: __FILE__
• %PLUGIN%_PLUGIN_FILE: __FILE__

Get Instance

All PluginCore instances can be referenced anywhere in your code using static method get() and the plugin slug. Available on plugins_loaded hook or later.

PluginCore::get('my-awesome-plugin'); // returns PluginCore instance constructed with slug 'my-awesome-plugin'