Hi; Ugh! It has finally happened. I am being asked to help (specifically) with a Wordpress site. I've got 10 years experience raw-coding with php and have my way of doing things...but this person wants a bunch of the doo-dads that she sees on "cannned" sites. I'm sure WP has its merit (and reason for popularity) but I am hating how it structures the process.

So apparently I need some sort of plugin to permit php scripting to run (or be included). Any suggestions as to which specific plugins I will need to work with?

Thanks.

    I've worked with wordpress once and it took some research to find what I was looking for. But basically you can assign callbacks to what they call events. For example, after post, before footer etc. There should be a list of these events somewhere.

    Depending on what you need to do, you might need to look at writing wordpress plugins to make your code installable through their admin interface.

      Thanks for that reply...but it seems a bit beyond my current comprehension.

      However, I DID find a plugin in the Wordpress catalog of such things. There are a number of php-related ones and I selected and installed one called simply "Insert PHP". With this, when I am writing a wordpress "page" (which is actually more like a subsection of a page), and I get to a place where I want to do a php script like a call for some database records all I have to do is write that script between the tags: [insert_php]...[/insert_php] rather than <?php....?>.

      This appears to work fine, but I have not tried anything fancy yet like creating data entry or selection forms.

      I was just wondering if anyone else has experience/wisdom to share about any of the existing plugins that are currently available.

        I work with WordPress on a daily basis and I am very experienced with it (it gets a lot of hate but I think it's just misunderstood 🙂), so if you have questions feel free to ask.

        To be honest I am not quite sure what you're trying to achieve, but based on your second post here it sounds like you're dealing with a shortcode. Personally I avoid them whenever possible but they are great if they're used correctly. Let me ask you this question: Is this PHP code that you're trying to add in going to be on all pages, just this specific page, etc.? A simple way of solving this (without a shortcode) is to create a template page which is usually based on the general content page. From here you can do whatever you want with it from a developer's standpoint. Then when you create the page in the WordPress back-end you choose the template from the drop down menu on the right side to the one you just created. In some cases the template pages are nearly identical to regular pages but will have some special code running in them (that's how I usually do things).

        Even with a shortcode, you still have to write out what it does, so when WordPress encounters it, it knows what to do. One instance where you would need to use the shortcode is if the client needs the ability to change/add/remove the functionality that you're trying to add right now. Simply put, shortcodes allow the client to add PHP code within the content editor.

        If you have more questions please ask =]

          Thanks for that response. What I am typically doing is displaying reports of various kinds of data held in some background database, (at my former day job it was all kinds of educational and teaching/survey data, and then at home I help my wife with her real estate website) and/or providing users with forms to either input new data or select/filter/sort the specific data they need. I am comfortable doing this on regular html/php pages. I can see certain advantages to WordPress from a layout point of view, but have not had much experience (yet) trying to include my data-related scripting. But before I get too far into Wordpress it looks like I am going to have to get familiar with DMQL type queries. But I am sure I will be back with more WP questions.

          Thanks.

            18 days later

            simply use InsetPHP plugin or few others that are available in WP plugin directory. also if you are up for a few hours of coding, you can add this feature in your theme to utilize it as custom fields or shortcodes.
            if you want there is the possibility of creating a WP integration with your code too, which means your script will work separately from WP but will use it's user table and authentication method to handle users. for example Question2Answer is a platforms that can be integrated with WP and it's pretty cool.

              Write a Reply...