Chapter 21. Integrating Payments into WordPress, Part 1: Features and Getting Started
I’ve explored a number of ways to integrate the power of the PayPal X Platform into your applications in my DevZone articles over the last few months. Recent installments have shown you how to accelerate your Adaptive Payments development using the Apigee PayPal API Console and how to buy and sell digital goods in data markets using PayPal Embedded Payments and micropayments.
Now I’d like to explore how to use PayPal payment solutions in the world’s most popular blog and content management system (CMS) software: WordPress.
In this article, I’ll introduce WordPress (commonly abbreviated as “WP” by WordPress developers and power users, aka “Pressers”) and then take you on a whirlwind tour through installing and using it. Future articles will introduce the WordPress plugin model, through which you can greatly extend the capabilities of your WP-powered system. They will also discuss PayPal-based WP plugins and how to write your own payments plugins.
What Is WordPress?
WordPress.org, the central WP development and Presser community hub, describes WordPress thusly:
WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog.
In essence, WordPress is a freely available, open source, PHP- and MySQL-based web publishing system. It’s very customizable out of the box, and can be further extended as needed through a little PHP hackery. The WP home page goes on to note:
The core software is ...
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