Using WordPress as your application stack

WHY AND HOW

@meSenior Full Stack WordPress Developer

Plugin author of Author Avatars List http://wordpress.org/plugins/author-avatars/and WP Site Verification tool http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-site-verification-tool/

Slides @ http://www.slideshare.net/pbearne

Why WordPress?

•Stable

•Supported

•Community

•Scales

Why not WordPress?

•Code debt

•PHP

•Has PHP global’s

•Not sexy

23%OF THE SITES IN WHOLE INTERNET

34,000PLUG-INS

2,800THEMES

How

•Actions and filters

•JSON API

•jQuery - Backbone

•Template hierarchy

•Custom post types

Filteradd_filter(‘fliter_name’, ‘function_to_run’);

Function function_to_run( $var ){

$var .= ‘hello world’;

return $var;

}

http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API#Filters

Actionadd_action(‘action_name’, ‘function_to_run’);

Function function_to_run( $var = null ){

echo ‘hello world’;

}

http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API#Actions

Ajax Route/**

* Register a rewrite endpoint for the API.

*/

function prefix_add_api_endpoints() {

add_rewrite_tag( '%api_item_id%', '([0-9]+)' );

add_rewrite_rule( 'api/items/([0-9]+)/?', 'index.php?api_item_id=$matches[1]', 'top' );

}

add_action( 'init', 'prefix_add_api_endpoints' );

https://10up.github.io/Engineering-Best-Practices/php/#ajax-endpoints

Ajax handlerfunction prefix_do_api() {

global $wp_query;

$item_id = $wp_query->get( 'api_item_id' );

if ( ! empty( $item_id ) ) {

$response = array();

// Do stuff with $item_id

wp_send_json( $response );}

}

add_action( 'template_redirect', 'prefix_do_api' );

JSON API wordpress.comPart of the Jetpack plug-in

http://developer.wordpress.com/docs/api/

https://developer.wordpress.com/docs/api/console/

End point

https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1/

e.g.

https://public-api.wordpress.com/rest/v1/sites/authoravatars.wordpress.com/

JSON API wp.org (self host)

Part of next version of core (currently plug-in)

http://wp-api.org/

End point

https://domain.com/wp-json/

JSON API wp-api.org/ v. WP.comWP.com

Caching

Little load on your servers

Access to WordPress.com user and stats

Wp-api.org

On you server

Extendable

More complete

The API’s don’t match (yet)

BackBoneIncluded with WordPress

To just load it

wp_enqueue_script( ‘backbone’ );

Or better still load as a dependency of your script

wp_enqueue_script( ‘myscript’, ‘path/to/script, array( 'backbone' ) );

https://github.com/tlovett1/_s_backbone

Template HierarchyThe order Wordpress load its template files

http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy

Template Hierarchy

Custom post types

The main logical data object in WordPress

The standard types are : post, page, media

http://codex.wordpress.org/Post_Types

add_action( 'init', 'create_post_type' );

function create_post_type() { register_post_type( 'acme_product', array( 'labels' => array( 'name' => __( 'Products' ), 'singular_name' => __( 'Product' ) ), 'public' => true, 'has_archive' => true, ) ); }

Custom metadataThe data linked to a post object

Text or serialized data

Use CMB2 to easily create admin forms

Hide the metadata from admin by starting the id with an “_”

https://github.com/WebDevStudios/CMB2

$meta_boxes[ 'tombstone_page_metabox' ] = array(

'id' => __( 'tombstone_page_metabox',

Config::get_text_domain() ),

'title' => __( 'Tombstone Details',

Config::get_text_domain() ),

'object_types' => array( self::get_tombstone_post_type() ),

// Post types

'context' => 'normal',

'priority' => 'high',

'show_names' => true, // Show field names on the left

'fields' => array(

array(

'name' => __( 'Tag line', Config::get_text_domain()

),

'desc' => __( 'Enter the pull Quote',

Config::get_text_domain() ),

'id' => Config::_get_prefix() . 'tagline',

'type' => 'textarea_small',

'attributes' => array(

'style' => 'width:100%;',

),

),

)

);

Call external API and cacheUse the internal

wp_remote_get() get remote data.

Then cache the data with a

transients cache

or

tlc_transient()

$request = wp_remote_get('http://example.com');$response = wp_remote_retrieve_body( $request );echo $response;

https://github.com/markjaquith/WP-TLC-Transients

<?php// Define your callback (other examples use this)function my_callback() { return wp_remote_retrieve_body(wp_remote_get( 'http://example.com/feed.xml',

array( 'timeout' => 30 ) ) );

} // Grab that feed echo

$data = tlc_transient( 'example-feed' ) ->updates_with( 'my_callback' ) ->expires_in( 300 ) ->get();

If( false != $data ){// show data}?>

Questions?

http://www.slideshare.net/pbearne