Professional WordPress Plugin Development, 2nd Edition

3Dashboard and Settings

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Creating menus and submenus
• Saving and retrieving plugin settings
• Saving global and per‐user options
• Designing and styling your plugin

CODE DOWNLOADS FOR THIS CHAPTER

The code downloads for this chapter are found at www.wiley.com/go/prowordpressdev2e on the Downloads tab.

Integrating your plugin in WordPress is a critical step in building a professional plugin. WordPress features many different ways to integrate your plugin including adding top‐level and submenu items, creating custom setting pages, and styling to match the existing Dashboard user interface (UI).

In this chapter, you learn how to properly integrate your plugin into the various areas of WordPress. You'll learn how to create a plugin settings pages to save and retrieve data using internal WordPress functions and API. You'll also learn the proper design and styles available that your plugins can take advantage of to provide your users with a consistent UI experience.

ADDING MENUS AND SUBMENUS

Many plugins you create need some type of menu item, which generally links to your plugin's settings page where users can configure your plugin options. WordPress features two methods for adding a plugin menu: a top‐level menu or a submenu item.

Creating a Top‐Level Menu

The first menu method for your plugin to explore in WordPress is a new top‐level menu, which is added to the Dashboard menu list. For example, Settings is a top‐level menu. A top‐level menu ...