The Code

Restricting PluginDocumentSettingPanel by post type

Now that the PluginDocumentSettingPanel is in WordPress core, we can add our own panels to the Document Settings panel using the registerPlugin function.

const { registerPlugin } = wp.plugins;
const { PluginDocumentSettingPanel } = wp.editPost;

const MyCustomSideBarPanel = () => (
    <PluginDocumentSettingPanel
        name="my-custom-panel"
        title="My Custom Panel"
    >
        Hello, World!
    </PluginDocumentSettingPanel>
);
registerPlugin( 'my-custom-panel', {render: MyCustomSideBarPanel } );

The above code will insert a new Panel in the Document Sidebar with the title of “My Custom Panel ” and will display “Hello, World!” as it’s content. If we want this panel to appear on every post type registered, then we’re done but what if we want to restrict this panel to just a single post type?

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Resetting $post in WordPress admin

I have run into a bug a few times in the past little while that had me stumped. When creating meta boxes on the admin side of WordPress that contained custom loops, I couldn’t reset $post using wp_reset_postdata() – it just didn’t work.

Originally, I thought maybe I was doing it wrong because I was using get_posts, so I tried WP_Query with the same results. So, thinking I had a legitimate bug, I went to report it and found that there was already a ticket and a patch for it ( gotta love the WordPress community ). The patch is a nice, elegant fix that worked well when I tested it – but until it’s accepted into core it’s not really an option to use because hacking core is bad. So I rolled my own in the meantime. (more…)

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WordPress Plugins and debug mode

Sometimes when we’re developing a plug-in, it’s easy to forget that we’re not building something that is meant to be standalone. What we’re building is going to exist as part of the WordPress ecosystem and as such it should respect it’s configuration. Simply put, if WordPress is in debug mode, than your plugin should be to. (more…)

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Change the WordPress post updated messages

Sometimes it is necessary to modify or remove the default WordPress post updated messages that are displayed when making changes to a Post in WordPress.

One example is when you are creating a custom post type that does not have a permalink. When you save a draft, publish or update a published post, you are presented with messaging that includes a link to the post – which in that case will take the user to a 404 page. (more…)

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Custom post types with no permalinks

When I was at WordCamp Ottawa this year, I was asked a question about how to create custom post types without generating permalinks. This is actually something I do a lot of as I am creating internal content types that are not meant to be viewed individually at their own url.

The snippet below will register the post type and you’ll notice that there is no Permalink line below the title. (more…)

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Creating a skinnable WordPress widget

Building custom widgets is fun, rebuilding them because we need to change the way it looks is not. With that in mind, lets build a skinnable WordPress widget that separates how it looks from what it does. For the purposes of this tutorial, I am assuming that you are comfortable creating a Widget and working with the API. Please refer to the Widget API as needed. (more…)

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getDefinitionByName

I have been creating a code base for a Screen Manager system that I am using for an iOS app I am building in AS3. I wanted to create a dynamic way to reference and instantiate classes that represent each of the Screens in the app so I can reuse this for other applications in the future and to make it a lot less code intensive.

I setup a series of static variables that held string names to represent each of the Screens in the application. Then when I want to create the screen and add it to the stage I use the getDefinitionByName() method and pass the string name of the class. (more…)

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