Professional WordPress: Design and Development, 3rd Edition

14 Application Framework

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?            

• Understanding an application framework
• Reviewing application framework features
• Using WordPress as an application framework
• Common WordPress framework features

Over the years WordPress has grown from a simple blogging platform to a full-fledged content management system. In the past few years, a new trend has emerged—using WordPress as an application framework. Matt Mullenweg, the co-founding developer of WordPress, has often referred to WordPress as a web operating system. With that in mind, it’s important we stop thinking of WordPress as a specific type of platform, but rather a framework that can be used to build any type of web application imaginable.

This chapter reviews what an application framework is and how you can leverage WordPress to create amazing web applications.

WHAT IS AN APPLICATION FRAMEWORK?

An application framework consists of a software framework used by software developers to implement the standard structure of an application. More simply, a framework consists of a set of conventions used to easily build applications for the web.

For example, let’s assume you are going to build a customer relationship management (CRM) application. Your application would require a database abstraction layer for storing and retrieving the data from your CRM. Your application would also require an application layer with flexibility to extend the framework to fit your CRM application’s requirements. The final ...