Add Custom Links to User Row Actions

While working on a user badge system for the CG Cookie network, I came across the need to add a custom link to the action links, such as Edit and Delete, present for each user on the WordPress Users page. After a quick google search, I was able to find a simple filter than can…

Jobs Posting with Easy Content Types and Gravity Forms

There are several plugins and “app” themes available for job board / job posting websites, but what if you want to roll your own? A lot of people would go about thinking that building such as system would be extremely complex and expensive, and some of the time they would be right. However, if we…

Add Screen Options Tab to Your WordPress Plugin

You have probably noticed the Screen Options tab in the top right corner of many WordPress admin pages. This tab brings down a configuration panel that you can generally use to control what elements are displayed on the current amin page. One of the really great things about the Screen Options tab is that which…

Get the Name of the Current Action or Filter

After watching a Twitter discussion this morning (shown in the image below), Helen Hou-Sandi, a WordPress developer and core-committer mentioned a function I had never heard of that can be used for finding the name of the current action or filter hook. It is called current_filter() and is extremely useful. Check out the snippets below…

Check for Existence of Action Hook

Action hooks allow us to make our plugins much more extensible, and some times we need to be able to check whether a hook exists, or has been registered. We might need to check that a hook exists for a variety of reason, and thankfully WordPress gives us a really easy way to do that.…

Admin Notices in the Network Admin

Admin Notices provide a an easy to use tool for plugin and theme developers to show messages and warnings in the WordPress Dashboard. The admin_notices hook is what we use to display our messages, however, this hook will only display messages in the regular Dashboard and not the Network Admin dashboard for multi site installs.…

Creating a Simple Events System with Easy Content Types

Event calendars are pretty complex and difficult systems to build. There are lots of plugins that provide a range of functionality, everything from really, really simple events management, to full blow event calendar layouts, ticket purchased and more. A lot of people, however, are very unsatisfied with the available options, either because they are too…

Quick Introduction to Action Hooks

Action hooks are used in WordPress to perform functions, or “actions”. They are used throughout many plugins and themes to provide an easy way for users of the theme or plugin to modify the output or the way it functions. This quick tutorial will give you a good introduction into how action hooks work.

Introduction to Using Nonces for Form Validation

Nonces are used to add an extra layer of security to WordPress. They are typically used when submitting form data to ensure that the form is being submitted from where it’s supposed to. Nonce fields help us protect our forms from malicious attacks and non-authorized submissions. This tutorial will introduce you to using nonces in…

A Quick Introduction to Using Filters

Filter hooks are one of the the more powerful WordPress features that help to provide a huge amount of flexibility when it comes to modifying WordPress, including custom themes and plugins. There could easily be hundreds of different unique tutorials on how to use filters in themes and plugins, simply because of the huge array of…

Check if Theme Supports Post Thumbnails

A lot of plugins use the Featured Image feature for showing post thumbnails. My Better Recent Posts Widget Pro is a perfect example. It uses the Featured Image to display small thumbnails of the recent posts in widget areas. There’s one problem though. This feature only works if the currently active theme supports post thumbnails.…