README

Skeleton for development of Wordpress plugins using the vAF Wordpress Framework

Create a new plugin

To create a new plugin simply run composer create-project vonaffenfels/wp-plugin-skeleton <new-plugin-slug>.

Composer will install all required dependencies for you, ask you some questions about your new plugin and will modifiy/create all necessary files for you.

Vendor prefixing

To counter the dependancy conflict problem when using Wordpress plugins that have composer dependencies, we decided to use a technic called "Vendor Prefixing".

Here we create a new namespace where all dependencies can live in.

Take a look at the file src/Plugin.php so see how it works.

While developing, you MUST NOT use the dependency inside the vendor directory but instead use the dependency inside the vendor_prefixed directory. IDEs will normally show you the namespace the required class is in. Make sure, that it is prefixed with the namespace you selected when creating the new plugin.

Best way to make sure you only used the dependencies inside the vendor_prefixed directory, is to run the command composer install --no-dev after every install. That way all packages will get removed and will not be found by any IDE.

When you install a new package you MUST require it as a development dependency by running composer require --dev <package>.

If you need a development dependency that should not be included in the final plugin package, simply add a new line to the file scoper.inc.php where you mark that packages as ignored. It will then not be prefixed.

Packaging/Deployment

You MUST always commit the cached dependency injection container (which can be found in directory container).

To build the container before committing/packaging, simply run composer build-container. The container will then be updated to the current state.

If you want to deploy your plugin using composer (like in a Bedrock Wordpress environment) you don't have to do anything special.

If you want to deploy your plugin as ZIP file to use in standard Wordpress installations, run the command composer install --no-dev to remove all packages from vendor directory. Then you can ZIP the complete plugin. And don't forget to include the vendor directory. It contains the necessary autoloader files.

Container building

To rebuild the dependency injection container, simply run composer build-container.