I want to start making some WP plugins, any good resources?

If you're into just coding it yourself then this blog post is a great place to start:

How to Create a WordPress Plugin

If you're wanting to outsource it, or at least mix some of it in, then this site has a good product that shows you most everything you need to know, (couldn't find the wso page for it though):

Create WordPress Plugins | How To Create A WordPress Plugin with the WordPress Plugin Business Mechanics Course

Been looking for some info on creating WP Plugins. Thanks for the info. Will check it out.

Thanks for the tip Nebraska.

Any ideas on what an outsourced plugin typically costs? I have a couple of ideas and if reasonable I would contract them out.

Cool bookmarked both those.

Are there any forums dedicated to this?

what about freelancer... Rent a coder...

If you already know how to code you should actually find it quite straightforward to create a plugin.

Start by taking a quick look at the "Hello Dolly" plugin that ships with all WordPress installs. Annoying as it is, it does give you a nice simple example of the basic structure a plugin ought to have.


All your functions and what not will be written just like they would be anywhere else. The only thing you need to learn about is how to make them interact with WordPress.

This is where actions, hooks and filters come in. WordPress fires off events at loads of different points throughout its function, and you need your plugin to listen for those events and call your functions at the appropriate time.

You can't beat the WordPress codex for learning every little thing you need to know about all this:

Main Page « WordPress Codex

And here's a great primer on the plugin API to get you started:

Plugin API « WordPress Codex


There are also a lot of existing WordPress functions you can use in your plugin code should you choose. However a tip I would give, something I learned after a while, is don't assume that in built WordPress functions will be better than your own.

Before you use a WordPress function in your plugin, look it up and check out its contents. You might find you can write your own functions that are more efficient for the purposes of your particular plugin.


My recommendation would be to just jump in and start building whatever plugin you want to make, looking up how to create each element of it as you go.

I've never yet failed to find information online on how to achieve anything I've set out to code up in a plugin, so just moving right ahead is often the most efficient way.