Summary: What I Learned After Checking 983 WordPress Education Themes

My key findings after reviewing available WordPress themes for educational websites at the start of June 2023 are listed here:

• The WordPress themes directory has 511 free education themes
• Free educational themes have 21.24 million downloads in total (WordPress directory of themes)
• The best free WordPress theme for an educational website is Total by HashThemes
• The most popular marketplace for purchasing premium education themes is ThemeForest, with 209 themes available and over 266K purchases made to this date
• The best-selling premium education theme is Eduma, with 39.1K sales
• The cheapest WordPress theme for an educational website is Buntington ($17)
• The most expensive WordPress themes for educational websites are Eduin, Learn, and Edufair ($199)
• The weighted average rating for premium educational themes is 4.62 out of 5 (from 12,709 reviews in the ThemeForest & TemplateMonster)
• Premium educational themes have 275K purchases in total (ThemeForest & TemplateMonster)

Finding WordPress Education Themes

If you are looking for an education theme for WordPress, check these places to download the best options:

Official WordPress themes directory with 511 free education themes

Free WordPress themes are available to download in the official directory of WordPress themes, which has 10,860 themes for all kinds of websites to this date (beginning of June 2023).

The official WordPress themes directory has 511 educational themes available for free download.

Currently, 4.7% of WordPress’s official directory themes are educational.

The only commercial education theme in the official WordPress directory is the FeaturedLite theme which is available to download free but offers more features if you pay the cost ($59 for now, was $89).

ThemeForest with 291 premium education themes for WordPress

ThemeForest is a leading platform for premium WordPress themes, offering over 291 high-quality education themes.

Most of these themes are created to satisfy the needs of educational institutions and individuals who want to create an online presence for their courses, tutorials, or other educational content.

With ThemeForest’s vast collection of education-focused WordPress templates, users can choose from various designs and features based on their preferences. And there is a live demo for themes to preview what you’ll get.

Whether running an e-learning platform or creating an online presence for your school or university department, ThemeForest has everything you need to build a professional-looking website quickly and easily.

The only downside is the pricing, which ranges between $17 to $199, excluding tax and handling fee per order.

The handling fee for orders in ThemeForest is $1 for less than $10 orders, $2 for orders between $10 to $75, and any order above $75 has no fees.

TemplateMonster with 181 premium education themes for WordPress

TemplateMonster is a well-known digital marketplace offering various WordPress themes for various industries.

To this date, TemplateMonster has 181 premium education themes for WordPress that offers to educational institutions such as schools, universities, online courses, and training centers.

These themes are designed to create user-friendly interfaces that can help educators build functional websites without coding or design skills. These themes have a live demo to test and compare themes before purchasing.

The price range for TemplateMonster’s WordPress education themes is between $24 to $109, including tax. And You may be able to get a 10% discount if you send them a message in live chat support. But there is a $2 handling fee for purchases over $10.

Free Themes for WordPress Educational Websites

As I mentioned before, the WordPress themes directory has 511 education themes, and more than half of them (277 themes) were updated or added in 2023:

The most popular free WordPress education themes in 2023 (based on active installs)

Now that we’re in the middle of 2023, these 511 free WordPress education themes have 314,420 active installs in total.

From this number, less popular themes have 102,420 active installs in total (>1k active, 437 themes), and popular themes (<1k active, 71 themes) have 212,000 active installs.

This means 14% of WordPress education themes are responsible for nearly 67.5% of active installs.

Top 10 most popular free WordPress education themes in 2023 (based on active installs)

Here is the list of 10 themes that have the most active installs from the WordPress themes directory (In the below list, `Total` is the name of a theme, not summation):

1. Total (name of a theme): 50K active installs
2. Tempera: 10K active installs
3. TutorStarter: 10K active installs
4. Education Hub: 10K active installs
5. ShoppingCart: 8K active installs
6. Enigma: 7K active installs
7. Catch Responsive: 6K active installs
8. Agama: 5K active installs
9. Education Base: 5K active installs
10. Educational Zone: 5K active installs

The most downloaded free WordPress education themes

To make this more helpful, I compared the download counts for 2023 and all years in two sections:

Most downloaded free education themes in 2023

These themes are the most downloaded WordPress education themes in 2023:

1. Total: 55.8K downloads in 2023
2. PressBook: 41.3K downloads in 2023
3. TutorStarter: 17.6K downloads in 2023
4. eLearning Education: 17.2K downloads in 2023
5. Oceanly: 17.1K downloads in 2023
6. Eduvert: 16.7K downloads in 2023
7. Education Zone: 16.3K downloads in 2023
8. Education Insight: 16K downloads in 2023
9. Author Writer: 12.8K downloads in 2023
10. LMS Education: 12.5K downloads in 2023

Most downloaded free education themes in all years

Here is the list of the most downloaded free education themes of all time (2023 and before):

1. Enigma: 1.25M total downloads
2. Total: 988.5K total downloads
3. Tempera: 690K total downloads
4. Agama: 666K total downloads
5. Catch Responsive: 466.9K total downloads
6. Education Hub: 425.3K total downloads
7. Education Zone: 394.7K total downloads
8. Catch Kathmandu: 363.2K total downloads
9. Catch Everest: 333.2K total downloads
10. Simplify: 326.9K total downloads

My picks for the best free WordPress education themes

Below tables is the list of best WordPress themes for an educational WordPress website. These themes may not be the most downloaded or rated in the WordPress directory, but I still think they are the best.

Premium Themes for WordPress Educational Websites

I checked premium themes in ThemeForest and TemplateMonster. These two marketplaces are very popular when it’s come to premium WordPress themes.

ThemeForest has 291 education themes for WordPress, and TemplateMonster has 181 themes.

Top seller Premium WordPress education themes

ThemeForest has sold WordPress education themes over 266K times. And TemplateMonster has sold education themes over 9K times to this date (June 2023).

Top seller WordPress education themes on ThemeForest

These themes are the top 10 most-sold WordPress education themes on ThemeForest:

1. Eduma: 39.1K sales
2. WPLMS: 27.4K sales
3. Masterstudy: 18.8K sales
4. Coaching: 6.6K sales
5. LMS Education Theme: 6.1K sales
6. University: 5.9K sales
7. Course Builder: 5.1K sales
8. The Keynote: 5K sales
9. Clever Course: 4.7K sales
10. Grand College: 4.6K sales

Top seller WordPress education themes on TemplateMonster

These themes are the top 10 best seller WordPress education themes on TemplateMonster:

1. Innomerce: 622 sales
2. Poket: 584 sales
3. High School: 417 sales
4. Legend: 351 sales
5. School District: 292 sales
6. Themex: 269 sales
7. Happy Learning: 231 sales
8. Englot: 220 sales
9. Educat: 218 sales
10. Education: 208 sales

The average price of premium WordPress education themes in 2023

ThemeForest has higher prices than TemplateMonster. Also, in the below prices, taxation is not included.

TemplateMonster shows the final price for themes, but ThemeForest adds the tax when you want to checkout.

The good thing about ThemeForest is the vast collection of WordPress education themes.

The average price of education themes in ThemeForest

$61 is the average price in ThemeForest for a WordPress education theme (summation of prices/count of themes).

$59 is ThemeForest’s most popular pricing tag for WordPress education themes. I found 69 education themes with a $59 price tag.

After that, $69 is ThemeForest’s second most popular pricing tag for WordPress education themes. I found 49 themes that have a $69 price tag.

The third place of most popular pricing tags is $49, with 48 themes under this price.

The average price of education themes in TemplateMonster

$61.7 is the average price in TemplateMonster for a WordPress education theme (summation of prices/count of themes).

$67 is ThemeForest’s most popular pricing tag for WordPress education themes. I found 37 education themes with a $67 price tag.

Second popular pricing tag is $85 with 24 themes under this price. Third place belongs to $83 with 11 themes.

The maximum price of premium WordPress education themes in 2023

Read below to see the maximum price for education themes and which are the most expensive themes.

The maximum price of education themes in ThemeForest

The highest price for a WordPress education theme in Themeforest is $199. The Learn theme, Edufair Theme, and Eduin theme are priced at 199 dollars. Learn has 305 sales, Edufair has 119 sales, and Eduin has 112 sales to this date (June 2023).

Here is the list of the top 10 most expensive education themes for WordPress in ThemeForest:

1. Eduin: $199 (112 purchases)
2. Learn: $199 (305 purchases)
3. Edufair: $199 (119 purchases)
4. Driving School: $149 (298 purchases)
5. Education World: $129 (85 purchases)
6. Eduvision: $129 (41 purchases)
7. Elms: $129 (35 purchases)
8. LearnPro: $129 (211 purchases)
9. e-Learn: $129 (87 purchases)
10. Nolez: $129 (14 purchases)

The maximum price of education themes in TemplateMonster

These themes are the top 10 most expensive WordPress education themes on TemplateMonster:

1. Education: $109 (4 purchases)
2. School District: $89 (292 purchases)
3. University: $85 (103 purchases)
4. Solid University: $85 (23 purchases)
5. Career & Special Education: $85 (45 purchases)
6. Education Help: $85 (97 purchases)
7. Primary School Responsive: $85 (58 purchases)
8. Education Responsive: $85 (31 purchases)
9. Language School Responsive: $85 (72 purchases)
10. Translation Bureau: $85 (18 purchases)

The minimum price of premium WordPress education themes in 2023

Only with $17, you can buy a premium education theme for WordPress. But which theme? Read below to check the name.

The minimum price of education themes in ThemeForest

The lowest price for a WordPress education theme in Themeforest is $17. The Buntington theme is priced at 17 dollars and has 1.4K sales to this date (June 2023).

The minimum price of education themes in TemplateMonster

Cheapest education themes on TemplateMoster have $24 pricing tag. With $24 you have four options, Daksh, HindPray, Edulab, and Education Pro are the cheapest education themes on TemplateMonster.

The best-rated premium WordPress education theme

Ratings on ThemeForest seem more legit and most of themes have reviews on them. And there are 60 education themes with no reviews on ThemeForest (around 20% of themes). On the other hand, TemplateMonster has 88 education themes with no reviews (around 48% of themes).

The best-rated education theme in ThemeForest

The weighted average rate for all education themes in ThemeForest is 4.62 out of 5 from 12,253 customer reviews.

I excluded any theme with less than 50 reviews in the below list for a better result. Therefore, these themes are the top 10 best rated Education themes with over 50 reviews in ThemeForest:

1. Edubin: Rated 4.97/5 from 177 Reviews
2. Eshkool: Rated 4.9/5 from 67 Reviews
3. MaxCoach: Rated 4.86/5 from 98 Reviews
4. Eduma: Rated 4.86/5 from 2027 Reviews
5. Coaching: Rated 4.85/5 from 219 Reviews
6. EduMall: Rated 4.84/5 from 117 Reviews
7. Enfant: Rated 4.84/5 from 97 Reviews
8. Kiddy: Rated 4.83/5 from 71 Reviews
9. Eikra: Rated 4.82/5 from 90 Reviews
10. Kingster: Rated 4.82/5 from 142 Reviews

The best-rated education theme in TemplateMonster

Average customer rate for education themes on TemplateMonster is 4.66 out of 5 from 456 ratings.

These themes are the top 10 best-rated education themes on Template monster (with 10+ reviews only):

1. Poket: Rated 5.00/5 from 15 Reviews
2. Rainbow Colleges: Rated 4.93/5 from 15 Reviews
3. Englot: Rated 4.92/5 from 24 Reviews
4. Innomerce: Rated 4.90/5 from 31 Reviews
5. Varsity: Rated 4.82/5 from 11 Reviews
6. Jack Baker: Rated 4.75/5 from 12 Reviews
7. Emanuella: Rated 4.75/5 from 12 Reviews
8. High School: Rated 4.65/5 from 23 Reviews
9. ECoursify: Rated 4.30/5 from 10 Reviews
10. School District: Rated 4.07/5 from 14 Reviews

Other Options for Educational WordPress Websites

If you don’t want to purchase an education theme for WordPress, You have three other options:

Using customizable multi-purpose themes to build an educational website

Multi-purpose purpose themes are designed to be versatile and can be customized to fit the needs of any website, including educational ones. These themes offer a variety of features that help create a user-friendly experience for visitors.

For instance, Divi is a multi-purpose theme that is super popular nowadays. This theme has a built-in page builder that allows you to design your pages with its easy-to-use interface. But it’s not free. Divi costs $89 for a one-year subscription, which gives you access to the theme, support, and updates. Or a $249 one-time payment for a lifetime.

Another example of a multi-propose theme is Astra, which is compatible with many third-party website builders like Elementor. Also, this theme offers a free version too.

Hiring a WordPress Developer to build a custom education theme

Hiring a WordPress developer to build a custom education theme can be beneficial in many ways.

Firstly, they have the expertise to create a theme that meets your needs. They will work with you closely throughout developing your theme, ensuring it is tailored precisely to your requirements.

Furthermore, hiring a professional WordPress developer can save you time and money in the long run. Because you may find a user-friendly theme, but if you want to extend your website features, you may find it difficult.

How much does a custom WordPress theme cost for an educational website?

When it comes to creating an educational website, the design of your site is crucial. A well-designed website attracts more visitors, increases engagement, and promotes learning.

However, many educational institutions struggle to decide how much they should pay for a custom WordPress theme. The cost of a custom WordPress theme can vary depending on factors such as the complexity of required features, search engine optimization, and the developer’s experience.

A custom WordPress theme can range from $4K to $100K or sometimes more. This wide range is due to the different levels of customization needed for each website.

Factors like functionality, design elements, and development time are crucial in determining the final price.

For instance, if you want complex features like e-commerce functionality added to your site, you’ll likely pay more than someone who wants basic features like contact forms and image galleries added to their site.

Developing a simple education website will take 100 hours on average, so if an experienced developer’s hourly rate is $40/hr, his quote will be around $4k. But typically, experienced developers will multiply the cost by 1.5x, to be careful.

Where to find a WordPress developer for building an educational website?

Consider using freelance platforms such as Upwork or Freelancer.com for the first option. These websites allow you to post your project requirements and receive proposals from numerous developers. You can also check their portfolios and ratings from previous clients before hiring them.

For the second option, look for WordPress development agencies specializing in building educational websites.

These agencies have teams of developers with extensive experience in creating websites specifically tailored for schools, colleges, or other educational institutions. But the cost of their services is usually higher than a freelancer.

If the two first options don’t work for you, attend WordCamps or WordPress meetups to network with experienced developers or get recommendations on who to hire.

Custom WordPress themes pros

1. Unique design: Custom WordPress themes uniquely align with a website’s brand and business goals.
2. Flexibility: With custom themes, users have more control over the functionality and layout of their website.
3. Improved performance: Custom themes are optimized for speed, efficiency, and search engine optimization (SEO).
4. Reliable support: Users can rely on a team of developers for ongoing maintenance, updates, and technical support.
5. Scalability: Custom themes can quickly scale as businesses grow and expand.

Custom WordPress themes cons

1. Costly: Custom WordPress themes can be expensive to develop compared with pre-made templates.
2. Time-consuming: Developing custom WordPress themes takes more time than pre-made templates.
3. Need for a developer: Finding a good developer is not easy as you think. You may spend lots of time finding an available developer, not only at the start of the project but also to extend the features and fix bugs.

Learning how to build a theme for educational websites

If you’re an educator or someone passionate about education, learning how to build a theme for educational websites can be a valuable skill. Not only will it enhance your web development skills, but it can also help you create a more engaging and effective online learning experience for your students.

Building a theme for educational websites allows you to design and customize the layout of your website according to your needs. This means you can create unique templates that fit your branding, course structure, and teaching style.

Additionally, learning how to personalize themes enables you to experiment with designs that keep learners engaged while effectively conveying important information.

Moreover, building a theme is cost-effective in the long run because no ongoing fees are attached.

If you want to develop features for your educational website, read my tutorial on starting plugin development for WordPress.

The post 983 WordPress Education Themes | June 2023 Compare first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

I recently encountered a situation requiring adding one custom field in multiple WordPress posts simultaneously.

So, I developed a solution that inserts the same meta data for multiple posts.

At this time, I am sharing my code with you here.

Solutions to Add the Same Custom Field for Multiple Posts

If you want to add the same meta data for many posts when developing WordPress, You have two options:

• The first option, with better performance, uses a single database query to add multiple records to the WordPress postmeta table.
• The second option iterates posts and uses add_posts_meta for each item separately.

1- Add one custom field for multiple posts with a single query

Using a single SQL query, this new custom function simultaneously adds multiple meta data for all post ids.

function add_multiple_posts_meta( $post_ids, $meta_key, $meta_value, $unique = false ){

	// if meta key or post ids are not set, do not continue
	if( !$meta_key || !absint( $post_ids ) ){
		return false;
	}

	//fallback to WordPress default add_post_meta if single post id passed
	if( is_numeric( $post_ids ) || ( is_array( $post_ids ) && count( $post_ids ) == 1 ) ){
		return add_post_meta(
			is_array( $post_ids ) ? $post_ids[ 0 ] : $post_ids,
			$meta_key,
			$meta_value,
			$unique
		);
	}

	global $wpdb;

	$valid_post_ids = array_unique(
		array_filter( $post_ids, function( $post_id ) use ( $wpdb, $meta_key, $unique ){
			//check if the post id exists
			return $post_id &&
				is_numeric( $post_id ) &&
				get_post_status( $post_id ) &&
				(
					!$unique ||
					$wpdb->get_var( $wpdb->prepare(
						"SELECT COUNT(*) FROM $wpdb->postmeta WHERE post_id = %d AND meta_key = %s",
						$meta_key,
						$post_id )
					)
				);
		} )
	);

	//if all post ids had problem, there is no reason to continue
	if( !count( $valid_post_ids ) ){
		return false;
	}

	//sanitize meta key & value
	$meta_key   = wp_unslash( $meta_key );
	$meta_value = sanitize_meta( wp_unslash( $meta_value ), $meta_value, 'post' );

	//create an array of data to be inserted
	$insert_data    = array();
	$insert_formats = array();

	foreach( $valid_post_ids as $post_id ){
		//insert id, key, value in data array (order is important)
		array_push( $insert_data, $post_id, $meta_key, $meta_value );

		//we have one format for all records
		$insert_formats[] = '(%d, %s, %s)';
	}

	//query string with (%d, %s, %s) as value
	$sql_string = "INSERT INTO $wpdb->postmeta (`post_id`, `meta_key`, `meta_value`) VALUES "
		. implode( ', ', $insert_formats );

	//replace (%d, %s, %s) with actual data
	$sql_query = $wpdb->prepare( $sql_string, $insert_data );

	//returns true if succeeded, otherwise false
	return $wpdb->query( $sql_query );

}

It should be noted you better check if this function exists before declaring it.

To do this, our new function will wrap inside an if condition like the below:

if( !function_exists( 'add_multiple_posts_meta' ) ){
    copy above codes here...
}

Do the same when defining a custom WordPress function to avoid future conflicts.

If third-party plugins define this custom function with same name or the WP team decides to add it in the future, You’ll get a PHP error that says this function was defined before.

How to use this custom function

The add_multiple_posts_meta function works with an array of post IDs. Then, I defined an array of 1, 2, 3 post IDs to set a meta value for:

$post_ids = array( 1, 2, 3 );
$meta_key = 'your_meta_key';
$meta_value = 'your desired value';
$dont_add_if_key_exists = false;
add_multiple_posts_meta( $post_ids, $meta_key, $meta_value, $dont_add_if_key_exists );

Explain for this custom function

Our new add_multiple_posts_meta function has a similar syntax to the add_post_meta in WordPress.

The only difference is this function accepts an array of post IDs or a single post ID if you wish.

As a result, It falls back to add_post_meta if you pass a single post ID to it (integer or array with one element).

See your second option if you want core WordPress functions to handle this situation.

2- Iterate post IDs to add the custom field for each post

This solution is easy because you can use add_post_meta and leave it all to this function.

$post_ids = array( 1, 2, 3 );
$meta_key = 'your_meta_key';
$meta_value = 'your desired value';
$dont_add_if_key_exists = false;

foreach( $post_ids as $post_id ){
	add_post_meta( $post_id, $meta_key, $meta_value, $dont_add_if_key_exists );
}

The add_post_meta is responsible for adding a single custom field for one post, and it does not support adding meta data to multiple post items.

Thus, you have no choice but to use a PHP loop (foreach, for, while, do while) to iterate an array of post IDs. Then using add_post_meta on each one of IDs you have in that array.

To make this solution work, I used PHP’s foreach loop to add meta data for every post ID stored in the $post_ids array.

More Information on WordPress Custom Fields

WordPress custom fields hold all the extra information you need to add features to your WordPress website.

Whether you’re looking for a way to store post view numbers, filterable keyword tags, or other extra content pieces, custom fields are a great way to do it.

Fortunately, many sources are available online to learn more about custom fields and how they work in WordPress.

Resources for developing WordPress custom fields

First, The WordPress official website is an excellent place to start, providing detailed information about how the posts work and how meta data can be added or modified.

Second, StackOverflow contains many questions about WordPress’s custom fields feature and related topics.

Last, you may also want to read my tutorial on managing WordPress custom fields through the admin panel or using PHP codes.

With the right guidance from these sources, one can easily use this useful feature in your WordPress site to make it feature-rich.

The post How to Add One Custom Field for Many Posts in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

function set_my_custom_theme() {
    //replace your theme name
    return 'your-theme-name';
}
add_filter( 'template', 'set_my_custom_theme' );
add_filter( 'stylesheet', 'set_my_custom_theme' );

Above code explain

the template and stylesheet filters are responsible to select the activated theme for the visitors.

In line 3 of the above code, we set the returning theme name for visitors to your-theme-name which you can change to your desired theme name.

Copy this code to the PHP file of your custom WordPress plugin to use it.

Why would I want to Switch the Active WordPress Theme?

This function will be useful if you desire to display different themes to different types of users.

For example, if you want to change the displaying theme for logged-in users. Or maybe each WordPress user or user role needs different functionalities available in another theme. You can use this function to switch the WordPress theme for them.

The post How to Switch Theme in WordPress Programmatically first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

$postId = 1;
//note: if you code in single.php, do not need to pass the id
$categories = get_the_category($postId);

//iterate categories and print $category->cat_name
foreach($categories as $category){
    echo '<a href="' . get_category_link($category) . '">' . $category->cat_name . '</a>';
}

Explaining the above code

In the first line, we specified $postId as the post with an ID of 1. But you do not need to specify the post id if you are coding inside the single.php file.

the get_the_category() function will use the global $post object to return categories if you do not pass the post id.

Then in line 3, we retrieved categories using the get_the_category() function.

get_the_category() will return an array of category objects containing the cat_name field, which we are looking for.

We used foreach loop from line 6 to iterate categories and print the $category->cat_name wrapped inside <a> tag.

If you do not need to link the category name to its page, then remove the link tag, like the below example:

$postId = 1;
//note: if you code in single.php, do not need to pass the id
$categories = get_the_category($postId);

//iterate categories and print $category->cat_name
foreach($categories as $category){
    echo $category->cat_name . ',';
}

If you need category names inside an array to use inside custom functions or WordPress plugin development, try the below code:

$postId = get_the_ID();

//retrieve categories for this post
$categories = get_the_category($postId);

//create an array of category names
$categoryNames = array_map( function($category){ return $category->cat_name; }, $categories );

In the above example, we’ve used the PHP array_map function to create an array of category names.

If you are interested in more details about categories in WordPress, I recommend reading my tutorial on Query WordPress Categories.

The post How to Get Category Names by Post ID in WordPress! first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Skip to Copy/Past part, by clicking here.

add_settings_field Function Introduction

Since WordPress V2.7.0, the add_settings_field function in WordPress is responsible for adding a new field to a section in a setting page of the WP admin panel.

add_settings_field() accepts four required and two optional parameters.

Required parameters are for the unique ID of the field, title, name of the callback function to print the field, and the name of the specific settings page you want to put the field in (default pages: general, reading, writing, discussion, and media).

Optional parameters specify the exact section in the setting page and an array of arguments to customize your field (we’ll get into it in the parameters part of this tutorial).

add_settings_field Function Syntax

Look at the syntax carefully; the parameters without = are required.

add_settings_field( string $id,  string $title,  callable $callback,  string $page,  string $section = 'default',  array $args = array() )

add_settings_field Function Parameters

• $id: Unique ID to set of the field. This id will be the value for the id=’your-id’ in the HTML.
• $title: The label to print for this field in settings form.
• $callback: Name of your custom function that you want to print the field in it.
• $page: Slug of the exact setting page you want to print this field in. Default options are general, reading, writing, discussion, and media. If you added a custom settings page, you can use its slug here.
• $section: Slug of the exact section you want to print this field in. The default value for the section is ‘default’.
• $args: Optional array of arguments to customize your output with these keys:
  • label_for: Value of HTML attribute for="your-label_for" of <label> around your input and title.
  • class: Class names for your field.

add_settings_field Function Example

In this example, we’ll use add_settings_field with add_settings_section function to print a section with a field in it.

To save our data, we need to use the register_setting() function of WordPress; otherwise, it will not be saved automatically (the saving code is included below).

To get our Data, We need to use get_option() function (included below on the value attribute of <input> tag).

//callback to print a simple section in general page
function my_custom_section_callback(){
	echo 'This text is inside the callback!';
}

//callback to print a simple input field
function my_custom_field_callback(){
	echo '<input name="my_id_for_setting_field" value="'. get_option('my_id_for_setting_field') .'" />';
}

function add_my_custom_section_to_settings(){

    //register setting to save the data
	register_setting( 'general', 'my_id_for_setting_field' );

	//add the section to general page in admin panel
	add_settings_section(
		'my_id_for_settings_section',
		'A custom title to show',
		'my_custom_section_callback',
		'general',
		array(
			'before_section' => 'Text Before the Section', //html for before the section
			'after_section' => 'Text After the Section', //html for after the section
		)
	);

	//add a sample field to this section.
	add_settings_field(
		'my_id_for_setting_field',
		'A custom field',
		'my_custom_field_callback',
		'general',
		//put the id of custom section here:
		'my_id_for_settings_section'
	);

}
add_action('admin_init', 'add_my_custom_section_to_settings');

After using this code in your WordPress custom plugin or functions.php of the active theme, You can open this URL to see the section:

http://siteurl.com/wp-admin/options-general.php

Look for something like this screenshot:

If you enter a text and hit the Save Changes button, the value will be saved in the database.

The post How to Add a New Field to WordPress Admin Settings! first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

add_shortcode Function Introduction

WordPress introduced the add_shortcode function to let developers register custom shortcodes when developing new features.

When adding a new shortcode, you must specify a tag which is the name of your shortcode, and a callback function to give WordPress your desired content.

Your callback function receives three parameters. First, an array of attributes; second, the user content; and finally, the tag you set when registering this shortcode. (order: 1- attributes, 2- content, 3- tag)

Example of adding a new shortcode that prints “Hello World!” text:

//callback for the shortcode
function hello_world_shortcode_callback( $attributes, $content, $tag ){
	return 'Hello World!';
}

//register the hello world shortcode
function hello_world_shortcode(){
	add_shortcode( 'hello-world', 'hello_world_shortcode_callback' );
}

add_action( 'init', 'hello_world_shortcode' );

Now you can use this shortcode by typing [hello-world] inside the WordPress post editor to try it.

Notice the return in the above code? You must return the value you want to print. So do not echo the value.

If you use echo instead of return, the “Hello World!” text will be printed before the surrounding content.

Note: as a developer mentioned on WordPress.org, you better add your custom shortcodes in a function that is hooked to the WP init hook. This helps WP to have time to initiate your new shortcodes properly.

add_shortcode Function Syntax

add_shortcode( string $tag,  callable $callback )

add_shortcode Function Parameters

• $tag: Name tag for this shortcode. If duplicated, the lastly defined will override others (you can use a prefix to prevent this).
• $callback: Name of the function that returns the value you want to print.

How to Use Shortcodes in the WordPress Post Editor?

To use a shortcode in the WordPress editor (Gutenberg or Classic editor), you must use it inside a bracket.

In our example of adding a ‘hello world!’ text using a custom shortcode, we defined the hello-world shortcode. To use it, we must type [hello-world] in the post editor.

Another option is to write shortcode in complete form, like this:

[hello-world][/hello-world]

How to Use a WordPress Shortcodes in PHP?

You can call shortcodes in PHP codes with the do_shortcode() function of WordPress. Here is an example of the do_shortcode() function using our hello-world shortcode:

do_shortcode( '[hello-world]' )

How to Pass Data from Shortcode to Callback Function?

Option 1: pass data between start and close tag of the shortcode

You can pass a text to the callback function in between of shortcode start and close tag. For example:

[hello-world]from me to[/hello-world]

To use this data, we can do something like this:

//callback for the shortcode
function hello_world_shortcode_callback( $attributes, $content, $tag ){
	return 'Hello '. $content .' World!';
}

//register the hello world shortcode
function hello_world_shortcode(){
	add_shortcode( 'hello-world', 'hello_world_shortcode_callback' );
}

add_action( 'init', 'hello_world_shortcode' );

Now if you type [hello-world]from me to[/hello-world] in WordPress editor, it will print “Hello from me to World!“.

Option 2: pass data as an attribute

Another option is to set attributes in the shortcode and get them in the callback function, for example:

[hello-world from="me" to="world"][/hello-world]

To get the from and to in the callback function, we can use the first parameter in our callback function:

//callback for the shortcode
function hello_world_shortcode_callback( $attributes, $content, $tag ){
	return 'Hello from '. $attributes['from'] . ' to ' . $attributes['to'] . '!';
}

//register the hello world shortcode
function hello_world_shortcode(){
	add_shortcode( 'hello-world', 'hello_world_shortcode_callback' );
}

add_action( 'init', 'hello_world_shortcode' );

Now if you type test [hello-world from="me" to="the world"][/hello-world] inside the WordPress editor, it will print “Hello from me to the world!” for you.

Examples of Adding Custom Shortcodes to WordPress

Here I provided two examples of adding a new shortcode to WordPress. You can use them in the WP post editor to print useful texts when you write a post.

1- New Shortcode for printing the current year

To print current year that will change over time, we will define the current-year shortcode in WordPress, using this code:

//callback for current year the shortcode
function current_year_shortcode_callback( $attributes, $content, $tag ){
	return date('Y');
}

//register the current year shortcode
function current_year_shortcode(){
	add_shortcode( 'current-year', 'current_year_shortcode_callback' );
}

add_action( 'init', 'current_year_shortcode' );

Now you can type [current-year] in WordPress editor to print the current year between your content.

2- New Shortcode for printing list of users

To print list of registered users in WordPress, we will define the users-list shortcode, using this code:

// function that runs when shortcode is called
function my_custom_users_list() {
	$args = array(); //define arguments if you need
	$users = get_users($args);

	$listHtml = '<ul>';
	foreach($users as $user){
		$listHtml .= '<li>' . $user->data->display_name . '</li>';
	}
	$listHtml .= '</ul>';
	return $listHtml;
}

//register my-users-list shortcode
function register_my_users_list_shortcode(){
	add_shortcode('users-list', 'my_custom_users_list');
}
add_action( 'init', 'register_my_users_list_shortcode' );

After defining this in the functions.php file of the active theme, or maybe your custom WordPress plugin, you can open the WordPress post editor to type [users-list] and print all registered users’ names with bullet points.

The post How to Add New Shortcode to WordPress! [+2 Examples] first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

In this tutorial, I introduced two examples of getting WordPress root Path in PHP. These simple codes will retrieve the absolute path to the WordPress home directory when needed.

Getting WP full home directory path is useful when referencing files in PHP.

For example, when you want to use require, require_once, include, and include_once in PHP, The get_home_path function and the ABSPATH constant can be useful for referencing a PHP file.

1- Get WordPress Root Directory Path with get_home_path Function

get_home_path function retrieves the absolute path to the WordPress root directory.

Example of using the get_home_path function:

//example: including update.php file from /wp-admin/ folder:
require_once( get_home_path() . 'wp-admin/update.php' );

The returned string is the absolute path to the WordPress home directory; for example, /var/www/html/ or /home/username/domain.com/public_html/.

If you installed WordPress in a subfolder, it would be like /var/www/html/wordpress/. It depends on your installation.

Note: the trailing slash / is included in the returning string by the get_home_path function of WordPress.

2- Get WordPress Root Directory Path with ABSPATH Constant

There is a constant defined in the wp-config.php file that contains the absolute path to the WordPress home.

ABSPATH is the name of this constant that you can use everywhere you need the absolute path of WordPress.

Example of using ABSPATH contact:

$rootPath = ABSPATH;
//example: including update.php file from /wp-admin/ folder:
require_once( ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/update.php' );

Same as in the previous example, ABSPATH returns the absolute path to the WordPress home directory.

Note: the trailing slash / is included in the returning string by the ABSPATH constant of WordPress.

For instance, this constant will return a string like /var/www/html/ or /home/username/domain.com/public_html/. or the subfolder you’ve used to install WordPress.

Note: Do NOT confuse the WordPress root path with the WordPress home URL. Also you can get the plugin directory path in WordPress using plugin_dir_path function.

The post 2 Simple Ways to Get WordPress Root Path first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

I have provided a list of valid words to help your SEO strategy by making your titles more noticeable in search results.

Try to use these words between 10% to 20% of your headlines. This means one or two per 10 words in your post titles.

List of 53 Uncommon Words to Use in Post Titles

Complete List of Words to Use in Post Titles

I provided three lists of words (4 with this one) for you to use in your headlines. The other 3 lists contain Common Words, Power Words, and Emotional Words.

Each list contains valuable words that can drive more visitors to your posts from google and other search engines.

But remember, there is an optimum usage percentage for each word category that I wrote on the top of their pages. So, do NOT overuse these words.

The post 53 Uncommon Words You Need Insanely in Unique Post Titles! first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Post headlines with between 20% to 30% common words are more likely to get clicks by searchers.

These common words are stop words that should NOT be included in your post URL.

Common words will increase your headline’s readability, but they are not meaningful themselves.

List of 59 Power Words to Use in Post Titles

More Words to Use in Headlines

I provided three other word lists for Uncommon Words, Power Words, and Emotional Words.

Each of these lists contains useful words to drive more visitors to your posts from search engines. Especially, power words are the most useful for SEO post titles.

The post 59 Common Words You Want in the Attractive Post Titles! first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

You need at least one power word in your post headline.

You can use more, but you may want to reserve the place for common, uncommon, and emotional words.

What are Power Words, and How Can They Help My SEO?

A “power word” is interesting enough to attract the user’s attention between other results on the search page.

Users constantly scroll from top to bottom of the search page and look for an eye-catching title that matches their needs.

So what makes a page worthy enough to click on it?

First, the title must be relevant to the search query.

Then, there must be something, like a Hook, that grabs them and makes them stay and read more.

Power Words are the Hook for the eyes that forces them to read the title at least.

How are power words relevant to SEO?

Power words can increase your CTR by attracting users to read your post title. They shine like an invitation between your words.

What is CTR?

It stands for Click Through Rate, a metric demonstrating how many clicked on your post per 100 searchers.

For example, if you got 4 clicks when there were 100 impressions of your post in searches, your CTR will be 4%.

What is a good CTR?

It’s an interesting question that does not have a simple answer.

Because a good CTR can vary from position to position.

But I can say that anything above 30% for general topics is above average if you ranked #1 in search results.

CTR expectations will decrease if you are not on the list.

For the page with a 30% CTR in the #1 position, we can expect a 3% CTR if it is in the #10 position.

There is an article published on backlinko.com about this subject that can answer your question with details, have a look at that.

Now if you are interested in words that can help you increase your CTR, look at my list of power words.

List of 171 Power Words to Use in Post Titles

Are you Looking for More Words that Can Help your SEO?

After this long list, If you are reading this, it’s a huge chance that you do!

To find more words helpful for SEO-concerned post titles, you may look at the list of Common Words, Uncommon Words, and Emotional Words after this one.

The post 171 Power Words You See in the Innovative Post Titles! first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Use at least one of these 267 emotional words I provided in this list when writing your next post’s title.

List of 267 Emotional Words to Use in Post Titles

Learn 300 More Words that Can Help Your SEO

There are more than 300 words in 3 articles in my blog; you may look at them in Common Words, Uncommon Words, and Power Words to read the complete list of these words.

The post 267 Emotional Words You See in the Popular Post Titles! first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Code to Fix the No Thumbnail Support Problem

There is a common problem for beginner developers when developing a new theme for WordPress.
You need to register some features for your theme to use them in your theme. One of them is post thumbnail support which can be added using the below code in the function.php file:

function my_theme_register_post_thumnails(){
    add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails' );
}
add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'my_theme_register_post_thumnails' );

After copying the above code to the functions.php file of your custom theme, you can visit the post editor to see the Set featured image box in the sidebar under the Featured image headline.

Why did this problem happen?

Not all WordPress features are usable directly in custom themes. You may need to register some features for themes to use them.

Here is the list of features you must register before using them in your custom theme:

• admin-bar
• align-wide
• automatic-feed-links
• core-block-patterns
• custom-background
• custom-header
• custom-line-height
• custom-logo
• customize-selective-refresh-widgets
• custom-spacing
• custom-units
• dark-editor-style
• disable-custom-colors
• disable-custom-font-sizes
• editor-color-palette
• editor-gradient-presets
• editor-font-sizes
• editor-styles
• featured-content
• html5
• menus
• post-formats
• post-thumbnails
• responsive-embeds
• starter-content
• title-tag
• wp-block-styles
• widgets
• widgets-block-editor

The post How to Add Thumbnail Support to the WordPress Theme first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

add_theme_support Function Introduction

WordPress asks developers to register features for their custom theme in the function.php if they want to use them.

add_theme_support function in WordPress is responsible for registering features in themes.

For example, using thumbnails in a theme requires registering the post-thumbnails feature for that theme with this code:

function my_theme_register_post_thumnails(){
    add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails' );
}
add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'my_theme_register_post_thumnails' );

Did you notice the after_setup_theme hook in the above code? I used it because It’s important to register the feature at the right time (hook).

In my examples at the end of this article, you can see a few features registered for a custom theme using the after_setup_theme hook.

Features that a custom theme needs to register before using them are listed below:

• admin-bar
• align-wide
• automatic-feed-links
• core-block-patterns
• custom-background
• custom-header
• custom-line-height
• custom-logo
• customize-selective-refresh-widgets
• custom-spacing
• custom-units
• dark-editor-style
• disable-custom-colors
• disable-custom-font-sizes
• editor-color-palette
• editor-gradient-presets
• editor-font-sizes
• editor-styles
• featured-content
• html5
• menus
• post-formats
• post-thumbnails
• responsive-embeds
• starter-content
• title-tag
• wp-block-styles
• widgets
• widgets-block-editor

The most useful features inside the list, in my opinion, are post-thumbnails, post-formats, widgets, title-tag, and menus. But if you want to develop a theme with visual page builder support, you will use it much more!

add_theme_support Function Syntax

add_theme_support( string $feature,  mixed $args )

add_theme_support Function Parameters

• $feature: Name of the feature you want to add to the theme.
• $args: Some features can be customized using this argument.

add_theme_support Function Result

If there is a problem in adding the requested feature to the theme, add_theme_support function will return false. Otherwise, there is no return.

add_theme_support Function Examples

Here are three examples of using the add_theme_support function to register features for your custom theme:

1- Add support for post thumbnails to your custom theme

function my_theme_register_post_thumnails(){
    add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails' );
}
add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'my_theme_register_post_thumnails' );

After putting the above code in your theme or custom plugin, you can see the Featured Image box in the post editor of the WordPress admin panel.

To get the URL of your thumbnails, Use this code:

$postId = 1; //or get_the_ID() for current post
$thumbnailSize = 'thumbnail';
$thumbnailUrl = get_the_post_thumbnail_url( $postId, $thumbnailSize );

2- Add support for uploading a custom logo to your theme

To add support for a custom logo with defined width of 400px and height of 100px, use this code:

function my_theme_register_custom_logo(){
    $logoOptions = array(
        'height'               => 100,
        'width'                => 400,
        'flex-height'          => true,
        'flex-width'           => true,
        'header-text'          => array( 'site-title', 'site-description' ),
        'unlink-homepage-logo' => true,
    );
    add_theme_support( 'custom-logo', $logoOptions );
}
add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'my_theme_register_custom_logo' );

Now you can upload the logo from Admin Panel -> Appearance -> Customize -> Site Identity -> Logo.

To print the logo in your theme, use the_custom_logo() function. This function has its HTML markup implemented.

If you want only the logo URL without any additional markup, use this code:

$customLogoId = get_theme_mod( 'custom_logo' );
$logo = wp_get_attachment_image_src( $customLogoId, 'full' );
$logoUrl = 'put your default logo url here';
if( !is_empty( $logo ) )
    $logoUrl = $logo[0];

3- Add support for a custom background for your theme

To register support for a custom background color and image, you must use the add_theme_support('custom-background') code. Like below:

function my_theme_register_custom_background(){
    $customBackgroundOptions = array(
        //default color for custom background (this is black)
        'default-color' => '000000',
        //default image url (this is the background.jpg image 
        'default-image' => '%1$s/assets/images/background.jpg',
    );
    add_theme_support( 'custom-background', $customBackgroundOptions );
}
add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'my_theme_register_custom_background' );

Now you can change the background color from Admin Panel -> Appearance -> Customize -> Colors.

And upload the background image from Admin Panel -> Appearance -> Customize -> Background Image.

To use this background option, make sure you have the body_class() function in <body> tag of your theme:

<body <?php body_class(); ?>>

If you still do not see the background (not even in the codes), it’s maybe because you did not include the wp_head() function in <head> tag of your theme.

The post How to Use add_theme_support Function in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

add_settings_section Function Introduction

Since WordPress V2.7.0 The add_settings_section Function is responsible for adding a new section to the settings page inside the WordPress admin panel.

To add a new section to the settings page, you need to give this function an ID to set on the section, a title to display for the admin, a callback function to print what you need in this section, and the slug of the settings page.

The last parameter in the add_settings_section is an optional array you can use to customize your settings section. This array was introduced in WordPress V.6.1.0.

Basic usage of add_settings_section function:

add_settings_section(
	'id_for_settings_section',
	'A custom title to show',
	'my_custom_section_callback',
	'general',
	//since V6.1.0
	array(
		//prints before the section
		'before_section' => '<div class="before-section">',
		//prints after the section (does not print in empty section)
		'after_section' => '</div>', //html for after the section
	)
);

Note: please update WordPress to the latest version before using this function. Because there was a major change in the add_settings_section() since WordPress V.6.1.0.

add_settings_section Function Syntax

Look at the syntax below; there are four required string parameters and an optional array accepted by the add_settings_section function:

add_settings_section( string $id,  string $title,  callable $callback,  string $page, array $args )

add_settings_section Function Parameters

• $id: ID string to set for this section. Use a hyphenated string (slug).
• $title: this string is used to show a heading title for the new section.
• $callback: to print the content of this section. (Not the form fields. They are added using the add_settings_fields function)
• $page: default options are: general, reading, writing, discussion, and media. If you added a custom settings page, you can use its slug here to add a section. (add new page using add_options_page())
• $args: This array was recently introduced (since WordPress V6.1.0) to add HTML codes before or after the section by these array keys:
  • before_section: HTML code to put before the section content
  • after_section: HTML code to put after the section content. (does not print for empty sections)

add_settings_section Function Example

In this example, we’ll use add_settings_section with add_settings_field to print a section with sample fields.

//callback to print a simple section in general page
function my_custom_section_callback(){
	echo '
This text is inside the callback!
';
}

//callback to print a simple input field
function my_custom_field_callback(){
	echo '';
}

function add_my_custom_section_to_settings(){

	//add the section to general page in admin panel
	add_settings_section(
		'id_for_settings_section',
		'A custom title to show',
		'my_custom_section_callback',
		'general',
		array(
			'before_section' => 'Text Before the Section', //html for before the section
			'after_section' => 'Text After the Section', //html for after the section
		)
	);

	//add a sample field to this section.
	add_settings_field(
		'id_for_setting_field',
		'A custom field',
		'my_custom_field_callback',
		'general',
		//put the id of custom section here:
		'id_for_settings_section'
	);

}
add_action('admin_init', 'add_my_custom_section_to_settings');

After using this code in your WordPress custom plugin or functions.php of the active theme, You can open this URL to see the section:

http://siteurl.com/wp-admin/options-general.php

Look for something like this screenshot:

The post How to Add a Custom Section to Settings Page in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Scroll to the bottom of the tutorial to see examples (or click here).

In this WordPress tutorial, we’ll review the activate_plugin function and teach you how to activate a plugin in WordPress using PHP, not the admin panel.

activate_plugin Function: Activates a Plugin in WordPress

This function is useful when activating a plugin using PHP codes when developing WordPress.

The activate_plugin function in WordPress accepts one required parameter and three optional parameters.

The required parameter is the path to the main file of the plugin.  the other three are just for customizing your activation request.

Nothing would be returned if there were no errors in the plugin activation. If you specify a redirection URL, this function will redirect the browser to the URL on success.

In case of failure, the activate_plugin will return WP_Error.

This is the basic usage if you want to activate ‘my-custom-plugin’ from the plugins directory:

activate_plugin( 'my-custom-plugin/my-custom-plugin.php' );

Keep reading for the complete usage guide if you need more information about the optional parameters and use cases.

If you do not know how to create a WP plugin, read my creating a WordPress plugin tutorial.

activate_plugin Function Syntax

As I mentioned above, activate_plugins accepts one required parameter, which is the path to the main PHP file of your plugin. The other three parameters are optional:

activate_plugin( string $plugin,  string $redirect = '',  bool $network_wide = false,  bool $silent = false )

activate_plugin Function Parameters

• $plugin: The relative or full path to the plugin’s main file.
• $redirect: The URL you want to redirect to on success. Do not specify or set '' if no redirection is needed.
• $network_wide: Activate the plugin for the current website or all websites in WP multisite installation. Do not specify in a normal WP or set false.
• $silent: If set to true, activation hooks will not fire. The default value is false.

activate_plugin Function Result

In case of failure, the WP_Error object will return. This way, you can detect failure using the is_wp_error() function of WordPress.

Do NOT use the result of the activation_plugin function solely in a condition because there is no return if the process is successful.

Use is_wp_error( activate_plugin( $plugin ) ) to check if there was any problem in the activation process.

Examples of Activating Plugins in WordPress Programmatically

I have two examples for you:

A basic example of using activate_plugin to activate a plugin in WordPress

//if you try activate_plugin() outside of function.php or activation hooks, you need to include these fule before.
	if ( ! function_exists( 'activate_plugin' ) ) {
		include_once( ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/plugin.php' );
	}

	//you may get error that wp_redirect does not exist (which activate_plugin relies on)
	if ( ! function_exists( 'wp_redirect' ) ) {
		include_once( ABSPATH . 'wp-includes/pluggable.php' );
	}

	//use the relative or full path to the plugin's main php file (not only plugin name!)
	$pluginToActivate = 'my-custom-plugin/my-custom-plugin.php';

	//set the url for redirection (no need to set it if you do not want to redirect)
	//calling activate_plugin() from register_activation_hook of another plugin will not redirect.
	$redirectUrlOnSuccess = site_url( '/my-success-url' );

	//useful for WP multisite. set true if you are using WP multisite (i guess you're not!).
	//if you set true for normal WP, activate_plugin() will not work.
	$networkWide = false;

	//prevents execution of activate_plugin hook for this plugin.
	$silentActivation = false;

	//try to activate the plugin
	$tryToActivate = activate_plugin( $pluginToActivate, $redirectUrlOnSuccess, $networkWide, $silentActivation );

	//catch errors if activation failed
	if ( is_wp_error( $tryToActivate ) ) {
		var_dump( $tryToActivate );
	}

Activating another plugin programmatically when activating a plugin in the admin panel

Scenario: you have two plugins, my-first-plugin and my-second-plugin. You want to activate my-second-plugin when the my-first-plugin is getting activated through the admin panel.

Pu the below codes inside the plugins/my-first-plugin/my-first-plugin.php file (first plugin’s main file).

//my-first-plugin activation callback.
//plugins/my-first-plugin/my-first-plugin.php
function myFirstPluginActivationCallback(){
	
	//activate my-second-plugin 
	$tryToActivate = activate_plugin( 'my-second-plugin/my-second-plugin.php' );

	//catch errors if activation failed
	if ( is_wp_error( $tryToActivate ) ) {
		var_dump( $tryToActivate );
	}
	
}

register_activation_hook( __FILE__, 'myFirstPluginActivationCallback' );

Now, if you activate my-first-plugin inside the WordPress admin panel, the my-second-plugin is getting activated automatically.

The post How to Programmatically Activate a Plugin in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

absint Function Introduction

The absint() function in WordPress accepts a number and returns the absolute value for that number. The number can be negative or positive, defined as an integer, float, or string.

There is also the possibility of passing an array, boolean or null to this function. In such cases, absint() somehow manages to return a legitimate value in return (keep reading for the examples).

How does the absint function work in WordPress?

Since WordPress V2.5.0, The absint function is declared in wp-includes/function.php file, so it’s available everywhere when developing the front end or admin panel of WordPress.

This function uses the PHP abs() function under the hood. But before passing the number to PHP abs(), WordPress absint() converts the given value to an integer.

Because of this conversion, there is no possibility of getting a float value in return. Only returning an Integer is expected from the absint() function.

Another important thing to note is that only the integer part of a giving decimal is considered by absint(). And it does NOT round your number to the nearest integer.

For example, -3.99 is treated the same as -3.33; both will be considered -3, the integer part of both decimals.

What is the absint function use case in WordPress development?

If you have a number with the possibility of wrongly being declared negative, it’s wise to use absint() to ensure it will be positive regardless.

But this function also returns legitimate values if you pass non-integers.

If you know the returning possibilities, you can use the absint() function in other scenarios.

One good thing about using the absint function is that the return value is always an integer.

Also, if your giving data type is String (containing only a number), you do not need to worry about converting it to an actual numerical type before passing it to the function.

absint Function Syntax

The syntax is clear. absint() only accepts one parameter, which can be an integer or not. So they’ve called it $maybeint, because it may be an integer, or maybe not!

absint( mixed $maybeint )

absint Function Parameter

$maybeint parameter is required by the absint function to calculate the returning value based on it.

You can pass a negative or positive integer, a negative or positive float, a string containing a number (or not), an array, a boolean, etc.

But maybe, in some cases, the absint() does not return value you expect if you pass non-numerical data types.

Here are the possibilities of return value based on the passed data type:

absint Function Result

If you pass one of the below data types to the absint function, you’ll get:

• Integer:
  • Positive integer   -> the same passed number.
  • Negative integer -> the passed number converted to positive.
• Float: integer part of the passed number (ex: 3 from 3.99), converted to positive if negative.
• String:
  • Numerical only string -> the same as passing integer or float.
  • Non-Numerical string -> 0.
  • String starting with a number -> the starting number will be used as passed value.
  • String with number in between characters -> 0.
  • Math operation strings -> not supported, then 0.
• Array:
  • Array with elements -> 1.
  • Empty array -> 0.
• Boolean:
  • True -> 1
  • False -> 0
• Null: returns 0.
• Object: PHP warning with the text ‘Warning: Object of class …….. could not be converted to int’.

I tried passing all these data types to the WordPress absint function and analyzing the return value in each case.

Continue reading for the result I got from each test (I have surprises for you!).

If you want to try the examples yourself, you better create a plugin and copy these PHP codes inside it. Check out my tutorial on how to create a hello world plugin for WordPress.

absint Function Examples in WordPress Development

Here are seven examples (actually a lot more!) of using absint function in WordPress development, with each data type:

Integer value for absint function

In case of passing a positive integer to WordPress’ absint(), You’ll get the same integer you passed as a return. But a negative integer will be converted to a positive in return.

So this way absint() enforces integer numbers to be positive regardless of their original definition. Example:

//defining a negative integer
$negative = -5;

//defining a positive integer
$positive = 7;

//defining a zero integer
$zero = 0;

//defining a variable based on math operation
$multiply = $negative * $positive;


/*now we check above variables in absint():*/

//prints 5
echo absint($negative) .'<br>';

//prints 7
echo absint($positive) .'<br>';

//prints 0
echo absint($zero) .'<br>';

//prints 35
echo absint($multiply);

Float value for absint function

absint() function will convert the given float number to an integer and return it as a non-negative.

The below example is important. Especially because of unexpected behavior reported in absint by Joel James.

//defining a negative float
$negative = -5.99;

//defining a positive float
$positive = 7.99;

//defining a variable based on math operation
$multiply = $negative * $positive;


/*now we check above variables in absint():*/

//prints 5
//-5 is the integer part of -5.99, then it converts to positive
echo absint($negative) .'<br>';

//prints 7
//7 is the integer part of 7.99
echo absint($positive) .'<br>';

//prints 47
//-5.99 x 7.99 = -47.8601 -> -47 converts to 47
echo absint($multiply).'<br>';

//👇
//****unexpected behaviour****//
//reported by Joel James: https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/absint/#comment-3310
//because of percision settings, below example returns 1998 instead of 1999
echo absint(-19.99 * 100);

//👇
//But if you increase float data percision, problem will be fixed (if it is a problem for you!)
//example below prints 1999
echo absint(-19.999 * 100);

One thing to remember is that there is no exact 1, 2, 3, 4, … in float numbers. Instead, there is 1.9999999999999, then it goes to 2.0000000000001 (the ‘2’ number is not in between).

Note that the precision needed to go to the next integer differs based on operating systems and PHP settings.

You can try this in below example (it’s fun :)):

//prints 1
echo (int) 1.999.'<br>';

//again prints 1
echo (int) 1.999999.'<br>';

//still prints 1
echo (int) 1.999999999.'<br>';

//now prints 2 (you may need different precision)
echo (int) 1.9999999999999999.'<br>';

//prints 1 again!
echo (int) 1.9999999999999998.'<br>';

String value for absint function (This one can be surprising!)

If the string contains only a number, integer, or float, it will be treated the same as int or float.

But if you pass a character-based string without numbers, absint() will return 0.

What if a number is presented in the string, mixed with non-numerical characters? well… it depends on the position of that number!

If a number is at the beginning of the passed string (ex: ‘-123 text text’), absint() will consider the starting number as the passed number (in our example, 123 will be returned.

On the other hand, If a number is mixed in between the passed string (ex: ‘text -123 text’), absint() will return 0. same result for a number appending at the end of the string (ex: ‘text text -123).

//defining a string value
$stringOnly = 'this is a test';

//defining a string value mixed with a number in between
$stringWithNumberInBetween = 'this 123 is a test';

//defining a string value mixed with a number at beginning
$stringWithNumberAtBeginning = '-123 is a test';

//defining a string value mixed with a number at the end
$stringWithNumberAtTheEnd = 'this is a 123';

//defining a string of negative integer
$negativeIntegerString = '-123';

//defining a string of positive integer
$positiveIntegerString = '123';

//defining a string of negative float
$negativeFloatingString = '-5.99';

//defining a string of positive float
$positiveFloatingString = '7.99';

//defining a string containing a math operation
$mathOperationString = '-5 * 7';

//defining a string containing a math operation with Parenthesis
$mathOperationStringWithParenthesis = '(-5 * 7)';


/*now we check above variables in absint():*/

//prints 0
echo absint($stringOnly) . '<br>';

//prints 0
echo absint($stringWithNumberInBetween) . '<br>';

//prints 123
echo absint($stringWithNumberAtBeginning) . '<br>';

//prints 0
echo absint($stringWithNumberAtTheEnd) . '<br>';

//prints 123
echo absint($negativeIntegerString) . '<br>';

//prints 123
echo absint($positiveIntegerString) . '<br>';

//prints 5
echo absint($negativeFloatingString) . '<br>';

//prints 7
echo absint($positiveFloatingString) . '<br>';

//prints 5 (you expected 35, didn't you? 😆)
//it seems that absint() does not handle math operations inside string!
echo absint($mathOperationString) . '<br>';

//prints 0 (still waiting for 35? 😂)
//absint() does not handle math operations inside string even with parenthesis (now its 0!)
echo absint($mathOperationStringWithParenthesis) . '<br>';

Array value for absint function

If you pass an array with elements inside it, absint() will return 1. But passing an empty array will get 0 in return. Example:

//defining an empty array
$emptyArray = array();

//defining an array containing numbers
//Note it does not matter! I just want to show you.
$arrayOfNumbers = array(-1, 0, 1, 2, 3);

//defining an array containing characters (not different anyway!)
$arrayOfStrings = array('test', 'another test');


/*now we check above variables in absint():*/

//prints 0
echo absint($emptyArray) .'<br>';

//prints 1
echo absint($arrayOfNumbers) .'<br>';

//prints 1
echo absint($arrayOfStrings);

Boolean value for absint function

//prints 0
echo absint(false) . '<br>';

//prints 1
echo absint(true);

Null value for absint function

//prints 0
echo absint(null);

Object value for absint function

//defining the object to be tested if absint()
$object = new stdClass();
$object->test = -6.99;

//passing the object itself throws PHP warning:
//Warning: Object of class stdChjlass could not be converted to int in ...
echo absint($object);

//note that if you pass test field of $object to absint(), it will not throw warning
//it will be converted to positive integer (6 in this example)
echo absint($object->test);

The post How to Use absint Function in WordPress [7 Examples] first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

This article does not contain any affiliate links. Thus, this is an honest review for my developer friends.

To be clear, I split the tools into two types, coding and UX/UI tools.

Top 6 Coding Tools for WordPress Developers and Designers

Here are the leading six software that can help your coding efficiency and accuracy.

1- PhpStorm: the most helpful tool overall

PhpStorm is an integrated development environment, in short, IDE.

If you are not aware, IDE is software that helps developers code faster and more accurately.

IDE provides an easy-to-use coding environment with shortcuts, auto-complete, etc. Thus, if you want to code faster, you must use an IDE.

I chose PhpStorm, the most popular IDE among PHP developers, for my daily coding.

With a long history of creating IDE, JetBrains, the creator of PhpStorm, is this market leader.

Unfortunately, the PhpStorm awesomeness comes with a price. and it is not that cheap!

The pricing, after 30 days trial, for individuals is $89 in the first year. After that, the price drops to $71 for the second year. Finally, $53 is the price for the third year. Hence, PhpStorm is regarded as a pricey product.

It’s important to know that JetBrains gives the product with a discount to those who fit into discount plans. For more details, visit the Pricing page on the official JetBrain website.

JetBrains knows how many WordPress developers are using the PhpStorm. Hence, they provided a specific WordPress-friendly environment for WP projects. This environment can assist you in developing WordPress plugins and themes faster.

Another awesome thing about PhpStorm is the plugin marketplace section. Marketplace offers you a hand full of plugins that make PHP development faster.

However, for those interested, other options are Visual Studio Code, Eclipse, Apache NetBeans, etc.

2- WebStorm: JavaScript development environment

WebStorm is another JetBrains product that is useful when coding JavaScript functionalities.

This software is also an IDE. But this one is designed primarily for JavaScript coders.

Because WebStorm offers fewer functionalities than PhpStorm, it has a cheaper price tag.

In the first year, after 30 days trial, pricing for individuals is $59. then the price drops, just like PhpStorm, to $55 for the second year. finally, $41 is the price for the third year.

Like PhpStorm, JetBrains has discount plans for WebStorm too. Those who fit into the discount plans can download WebStorm free or half-priced. For more details about the pricing plan, visit the WebStorm Pricing page on the official JetBrain website.

Note: PhpStorm offers all WebStorm capabilities, PHP assistance, and Database management.

While creating themes, there are times when UI needs complex JavaScript coding. If you did not buy PHPStorm, WebStorm is your friend.

Especially if you are building a JavaScript library, this IDE can make your job easier. Automating tasks and auto-complete options are parts of the aid you get.

Note that, WebStorm can detect JavaScript functions and objects better than PhpStorm.

Also, the WebStorm marketplace has JavaScript coding plugins to help you enhance efficiency.

3- Visual Studio Code: the free option for IDE

If you are shocked by JetBrain’s pricing, consider using Visual Studio Code, in short, VScode.

A free IDE is like a dream in this world of high prices. So, after JetBrains’s price, you can agree that VSCode is like a steal.

Visual Studio Code software is under Microsoft License. But the source code is free and available on GitHub under the MIT license.

To use visual studio code for free, you can download the VSCodium binaries or create a binary version of the source code yourself.

Visual Studio Code offers the same features as PHPStorm (almost!). But there are differences between them.

First, VSCode is an IDE for many languages like C++, C#, Python, Java, etc. Not only PHP!

On the other hand, PHPStorm is famous for being easy to use with no time spent on configurations.

VSCode can perform better than PHPStorm if you install extensions and spend time making configurations based on your preferences. But it requires knowledge of what you are doing with the IDE.

4- Postman: API design and testing platform

Postman is a feature-rich and powerful API testing tool I regularly use when creating a REST-based application or website.

This testing tool thought of every possible situation that you may encounter when testing your API endpoints.

Postman supports any authentication methods you may use in an API communication with the server.

To give you full control of the testing flow, Postman provides the ability to write JS scripts to manipulate the process.

Postman is the standard tool for API testing, and many resources are available to find the solution to your issues with the tool.

5- Chrome DevTools: built-in chrome tools for developers

Chrome is the most popular browser, with nearly 66% market share. Hence, Chrome Developer Tools is the most popular option for web developers.

The chrome DevTools is a set of useful tools built-in chrome browser when installing it. So, you do not need to install the plugin separately.

To use Chrom DevTools, right-click on the page and select Inspect. This will open up a box on the bottom of your chrome browser window (if you did not change its settings).

Another way to access the DevTools is to press ctrl+shift+i or F12 (win), cmd+opt+i or fn+F12 (mac) on your keyboard. This will open up your last activated tab on DevTools.

You may want to use ctrl+shift+c (win), cmd+opt+c (mac) to open the Elements tab. or ctrl+shift+j (win), cmd+opt+j (mac) to open the Console tab of the DevTools.

Using the chrome browser’s menu to open up the DevTools box is also an option. To do this, click on the three vertical dots on the top right of the Chrome window, then hover over More tools. from the submenu, choose Developer Tools.

From the opened box, you can use the web development features implemented for developers.

In the Elements tab, you can see the website’s HTML code on the left side and CSS properties on the right.

Each tab in the DevTools box contains a useful feature for developers. as you can see, many tabs are available. And you can add to them by clicking the three vertical dots on the top right side of the DevTools box, then hovering over the More tools option.

There is the ability to change the box’s position in the DevTools panel. To do that, you must click on three vertical dots on the top right corner of the box and use the Dock side options as you desire.

Find more information about Chrome DevTools on the official Chrome website.

6- Firefox DevTools: built-in firefox tools for developers

I prefer the firefox developer tools over google chrome. That’s because of firefox DevTools’ simplicity.

Previously known as firebug (discontinued from firefox v57), the Firefox DevTools has an engaging UI with needed features.

You can access the Firefox DevTools by pressing F12 on the keyboard or right-clicking on the page and selecting Inspect (Q) option from the context menu.

Other options to access Firefox Devtools are pressing the ctrl+shift+i (windows) cmd+opt+i (mac) shortcut on the keyboard or using the top menu to select Tools -> Browser Tools -> Web Developer Tools.

Like the chrome developer tools, the default tab is the Inspector, which shows the HTML codes on the left side and CSS properties on the right.

The UI is completely customizable with mouse clicks and pressing F1 on the keyboard for other possible UI improvement options.

More or less, the features of Firefox DevTools are the same as Chrome Developer Tools. But the ease of use in Firefox DevTools is the main reason behind my preference.

Also, when developing a Theme, you must always check all major browsers to find design issues and incompatibilities. So it is important to work with Firefox and Chrome tools simultaneously.

Find more information about Firefox DevTools on the official Firefox website.

Top 4 UX/UI Tools for WordPress Theme Designers

UX/UI designers can empower themself with these four special products of Adobe:

1- Adobe Dreamweaver: UI-based website creation tool

With over 25 years of being in the market, Dreamweaver is one of the oldest web development software available.

Adobe acquired the owner company of Dreamweaver, Macromedia, in 2005. and since then, Dreamweaver has been a product of Adobe.

Dreamweaver has a set of useful tools for developers who prefer using visual handlers over coding. But PHP, JavaScript, ASP.net, HTML, CSS, and many other languages are still available in Dreamweaver.

I do not use this tool myself, but I know some developers use it and are satisfied with the features.

One of the most useful features of Dreamweaver for web development is that this software has a real-time preview. This feature saves you time because you do not need to switch to another software to check the results.

Dreamweaver, like other Adobe software, is not free. The subscription price for this tool is $20.99 per month if you want an annual subscription (paid monthly). It hikes to $31.49 per month if you need it for less than a year. And $35.99 per month for businesses.

You can also get the Dreamweaver as an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription which costs $59.99 monthly for over 20 adobe apps.

2- Adobe XD: rapid prototyping tool for designers

Adobe XD app helps you to preview your work for customers and team members as fast as possible.

For example, displaying the user’s interaction with your design is possible with Adobe XD before the actual product is available.

This is a good tool for website or mobile application development teams, especially when the designer wants to specify the user interactions with the design elements for the coder.

This way, the coder will have a much better understanding of user experience before coding the actions and elements.

The price to get the Adobe XD is $9.99 per month for individuals if prepaid for an annual subscription. This product is also a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

3- Adobe Photoshop: powerful photo editor

Photoshop is Adobe’s most known software among people, Not just photographers or designers.

Adobe Photoshop has a set of features that is useful for graphic and web designs as well as photo editing and retouching.

Images are one of the main elements on every web page. And editing images in photoshop is easy and fun.

So if you are a web designer and do not know how to work with photoshop, you better start now! This software also has useful features that can help you preview your design before making it a reality.

The stand-alone Photoshop app pricing plan for individuals is $20.99 monthly (annual subscription, paid monthly). But if you get the Photography subscription, it costs $9.99 per month! (it’s a crazy way of pricing, right?). A Photography subscription also includes the Adobe Lightroom app.

Adobe Photoshop is also a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

4- Adobe Illustrator: vector designing and illustrations

Illustrator is the most useful Adobe app for web designers.

Adobe Illustrator is used widely in the industry as a tool for creating vectors, icons, and even characters of a custom font!

This software has the ability to save graphic elements in SVG format, which is widely used in web development these days.

Learning Adobe Illustrator can empower your web design skills and also makes a bridge for you to other graphic fields like animation and font design.

Illustrator’s pricing starts at $20.99 monthly for individuals in an annual subscription (paid monthly). If you prepay for the whole year, it will get to $19.99 monthly ($239.88 in total payment).

With a subscription, You’ll get the illustrator app for Desktop and iPad + 100G cloud storage to save your work.

Like the other 3 in the list, Adobe Illustrator is also included in the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

10 Extra tips for those who want to choose tools for web development and designing

Now that you made it down here continue reading for ten extra tips to select the best tool for your job.

1. Compare the pricing, but higher prices always do not mean more features
2. Free options attract developers, so it means a crowded community to support you and answer your questions
3. Adobe creative cloud subscription is more suitable than a license per Adobe apps
4. A free trial is essential if you are using premium software for the first time
5. Black Friday is the best time to purchase subscriptions for any tools
6. Good tools can save you time, which means more money
7. Read the copyright policy of software and tools carefully
8. Stay updated; new products coming to market every year
9. Search Youtube for software reviews
10. Check if additional plugins are available for your selected tool or not

The post 10+ Powerful Tools for WP Developers in the Year 2023! first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

With the year 2023 getting closer and closer, many developers are wondering about the state of web frameworks for the following year.

The two giants in the war of PHP frameworks, WordPress and Laravel, are the main focus regarding comparison.

What is the outcome of this war in 2023? Will we see one of them lose, or will new competitors join the fight in the end?

That’s what I’m going to review in this article.

But do not think of me as a biased WordPress developer because I love Laravel and have used it in many projects.

I love Laravel as much as WordPress, if not more. But today, I’m going to review both of these friends of mine to see which one is more useful in 2023.

When to Use WordPress and Laravel in your Web Development Projects?

WordPress CMS is simple, and it has an admin panel. Besides, thousands of plugins and themes are ready to install with a single click.

On the other hand, Laravel is better structured for developers. Also, It does not limit you in any way and has a massive community of helpful developers ready to help beginners.

From my point of view, If you want an effortless website ready to go, you better choose WordPress.

But, If you have the time and knowledge to develop a feature-rich website, Laravel can utilize you.

To sum up, when you want just a blog or a simple website, do not waste your time with Laravel. Choose WordPress for its cost efficiency.

On the contrary, when you have too many features in your plan, do not limit your abilities with WordPress. Choose Laravel because of its scalable structure.

The State of WordPress CMS in 2023

I started using WordPress for my websites in 2009 after losing belief in Joomla! CMS.

What is a CMS? It stands for Content Management System. in other words, CMS is a web-based software that controls a website’s content.

With this definition, WordPress is created for content managers to write and modify articles and other types of content.

Yet, WordPress has a great set of useful functions that can help developers to build any type of website they want, related or unrelated to content.

So, you can create a feature-rich website or web application using WordPress, even if it was initially a blogging platform.

Considering a WordPress website’s simplicity and cost efficiency, it’s no wonder this platform powers more than 43% of the global web today (64.3% of websites with a CMS).

Also, over 70,000 plugins are ready to install on WordPress with a single click. This enormous directory enables you to create an innovative website as fast as possible.

Moreover, WordPress has nearly 10,000 themes provided by creative designers in the wordpress.org directory until the last days of the year 2022.

It’s important to know there are over 60,000 themes available for free download or purchase in all directories.

With this in mind, we can guess that WordPress will still be super popular next year too.

What are the priorities of the WordPress development team for the year 2023?

In summary, the WordPress development team focused on implementing effortless visual tools, improving agility, encouraging creativity by pushing boundaries, and increasing security.

To get more information about WordPress’s development ideology, I recommend watching this awesome video on youtube:

Matt Mullenweg on How WordPress Continues to Thrive

In this video, Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress, talks on the “This Week in Google” podcast about WordPress visionaries and other subjects unrelated to WP.

So, before watching the video (If you did not already!), let’s review WordPress priorities for 2023 with details:

1- Implementing easy to use web design interface with visual blocks, handlers, and drag & drop ability

The WordPress development team and the CEO, Matt Mullenweg, are focused on implementing an effortless visual builder for the platform.

Considering the popularity of the Elementor plugin, you can guess WordPress itself lacks a helpful tool for creating a customized page using visual handlers.

Still, we can credit the WordPress developers for introducing Gutenburg, a block-based editor that can help you create pages in a more manageable approach.

Yet, a WordPress admin will feel limited when using WordPress’s page editor with zero coding knowledge.

To overcome this, Matt Mullenweg suggested revising how WordPress’s default page builder works for future updates.

2- Improving agility by providing more ready-to-use functionalities

It’s noticeable that WordPress developers are concerned about the agility of creating a website and being ready for competition without wasting time on development.

They created WPVIP, a premium CMS for enterprises based on open-source WordPress.

While WordPress is easy to install and ready to use, It looks simple after a fresh installation.

As a matter of fact, after installation, a WordPress developer must add essential plugins, design a theme, and do the SEO configuration.

Now you can guess why a WP website takes more time than expected by clients.

The WordPress development team constantly works on ready-to-use features. For this reason, I guess there will be many more features after an installation next year.

3- Increasing security by implementing website protection features, releasing security patches, and forcing older version updates

WordPress is an open-source platform, which makes it vulnerable. So, security updates are super crucial for such a system.

Hackers can do the same as long as developers can read WordPress core codes.

A developer reads the codes to implement new features, and a hacker reads them to find vulnerabilities.

WordPress, like other open-source platforms, had security issues fixed after platform updates. I can imagine there are more vulnerabilities available to use by hackers right now.

Also, Keep this in mind, with this CMS getting bigger and bigger, maintaining security will be much more challenging for the development team.

As a result, I guess I will receive security updates every once in a while, like in previous versions of WordPress.

Note: remember not to miss any WordPress updates. Equally important, update WP plugins as soon as possible. For the last tip, make sure automatic update feature is enabled on your website.

What I predict for WordPress CMS in the year 2023

Now with WordPress stats and development priorities in mind, I can state that WordPress is not standing any competition in the CMS war.

No other platform is that widely used, and no other competitors are this simple and popular at the same time.

But there are storms nearby, and WordPress developers must be ready to protect what they’ve built against it.

Cost efficiency comes with simplicity. On the other hand, agility requires more complexity. So I can guess this paradox will be a challenge for the WordPress development team in 2023.

I guess WordPress will still thrive in the CMS market. And we can expect to see WordPress taking bigger bites of the CMS market cake.

But in the whole global web market, considering frameworks like PHP Laravel, Javascript Node.js, Python Django, and JAVA Spring, I guess WordPress can lose a little bit of its share.

Smaller websites are using WordPress because of its simplicity and cost efficiency. But bigger fishes in the pond need much more utilization and scalability.

Thus, in the 100,000 top websites of the web, we can see a drop in interest for WordPress. In my opinion, this drop will continue in 2023.

WordPress pros

1. WP is easy to install
2. Developers love WordPress
3. It has a painless admin interface
4. It provides default themes (but simple!)
5. It survived many winters and delivered stability
6. It has a vast directory of free and premium plugins and themes
7. and much more!

WordPress cons

1. WP standard development approach is not following the popular MVC
2. WordPress is not scalable as much as other frameworks like Laravel
3. WP has security risks due to encouraging third-party plugins
4. It lacks an effortless default page builder in the editor
5. Not all enterprises favorite WP as the CMS
6. WP is not that agile for enterprises

The State of Laravel PHP Framework in 2023

My history with the Laravel framework started in 2014.

Since then, I’ve used this framework in almost all of my web applications, except for websites & blogs.

Why not websites and blogs? Because of WordPress’s rapid prototyping and its cost efficiency in small projects.

I think Laravel is the better option for implementing more complicated functionalities.

For example, I’ve successfully used Laravel as the central part of CRMs, Data Analysis, Reporting Dashboards, Financial Management Systems, and other feature-rich web applications.

Eather if Laravel was handling the UI or I used it as the API for dynamic UI frameworks, It worked as expected.

If it weren’t for Laravel, some of these projects would take much longer to complete. That means I would be a rich freelancer with unhappy clients if Laravel did not exist.

Laravel is still pushing forward by releasing newer versions, and some of the introduced features are still exciting.

Not to mention, upgrading an older version of Laravel is not a brainers.

The latest version of Laravel is v9, and the Laravel team will release version 10 is next year in the middle of spring.

The current market share for Laravel is around 8% in the last days of 2022, but the growth history promises more for the following year.

What makes Laravel a fantastic framework for web developers?

First, the way you code in Laravel is much cleaner, rememberable, and understandable for teammates.

With the decoupling coding structure that Laravel provides, you can categorize your codes into different files and directories.

This way, you can always find what you need without scrolling through thousands of lines.

Second, this framework helps you connect with other developers to share codes and experiences. This feature promises a helpful community to grow among professionals.

When the community members help each other, projects get done rapidly, and issues vanish with just a google search.

Last but not least, Laravel handles the repeating functionalities of any project quickly.

For example, user authentication is a breeze in the Laravel development process.

This way, instead of spending time on recurring functionalities, you can focus on essential parts of your project.

What are the priorities of the Laravel development team for the year 2023?

Considering the market share of around 8%, Laravel still has a long road to conquer territories of other frameworks. But it’s the goal of this fantastic developer-friendly framework.

I expect that in 2023, we’ll hear much more from the Laravel developer team’s accomplishments.

Here are the priorities of the Laravel development team for the year 2023:

1- Laravel 10, the foremost two-digits version of Laravel

Laravel 10 is still under development today. As I mentioned, the Laravel team will release the v10 in February 2023.

Laravel 10 will be the main branch of the framework until August 2024. And it will receive security updates two years after the initial release of this version.

It’s important to mention that the Laravel team set February 2024 as the end-of-life date for version 9.

Note: January 2023 will be the Laravel 8 end of life date. Thus, if you are still using Laravel 8, and you are concerned about security, you must upgrade it quickly.

Will the next version of the Laravel framework introduce a new cornerstone feature? Because of the almost perfect structure of the framework and what it has accomplished until today, I’m not that positive about that. But there is still a chance to experience significant changes in the framework’s next release.

Laravel 10 will require PHP 8 or higher to run, just like Laravel 9. But it’s set to drop PHP 8.0 in the Laravel 10 and rely on PHP 8.1 entirely.

According to Laravel’s GitHub pull requests, version 10 will adapt more with PHP type declaration and other server-side technology updates.

2- Introducing more out-of-box functionalities to help developers get the job done faster

Laravel makes the developer’s jobs more manageable; it has been the primary goal of Laravel development since the first initial release.

In almost all updates, the Laravel team replaced a few repeated codings with default options to make it faster for developers to implement functionalities.

As I witnessed in Laravel’s GitHub, the tradition is honored by making path parameters optional in Filesystem methods.

From a developer’s point of view, It’s satisfying when you only focus on functionalities, not minor details, while implementing them.

I predict Laravel 10 will have much more to offer to make coding faster and more efficient. After all, we’re using frameworks to save time.

3- Implementing cleaner code structures and decoupling functionalities

Professional developers always simplify classes and methods and decouple their codes to make them reusable. It’s a part of the coding principles we know as SOLID.

Not to mention, Laravel has a perfect coding structure that makes this framework perfect for attracting community-lover developers.

With a clean code base, Laravel developer can share their experience and make other developers’ jobs easier.

As I mentioned, the purpose of using a framework is to save time. Therefore, sharing codes honor its spirit.

4- Providing security updates for previous releases

Laravel 8 will stop receiving security updates from the 24th of January, 2023. But the Laravel team will still provide security updates for Laravel 9 until February 2024.

Thus, we will see a few updates in 2023 for Laravel v9 centered around security issues. Also, we can expect bug-fixing releases for this version until August 2023.

5- Energizing the Laravel community to stay fateful

Laravel successfully attracted a large community of developers worldwide. Therefore Laravel’s team’s responsibility is to energize this community to stay there. And also attract more developers to make the community even more extensive.

I expect Laravel’s founders to manage news attracting official conferences in 2023 (Laracon).

For Indian developer friends, there is a Laracon event scheduled for 25-26 February 2023 at Ahmedabad, Gujrat (Unfortunately, I’m not an Indian, but I love you guys).

What I predict for Laravel Framework in the year 2023

As the perfect PHP framework for many web projects, Laravel is so damn popular among developers.

If the Laravel development team becomes better at advertising the framework, I predict a larger market share for Laravel in 2023.

Why would anybody use other frameworks while Laravel does the job much faster and more securely? The answer is the advertisement of different frameworks.

As can be seen, Laravel needs more news attention and cornerstone features.

One of the primary issues with Laravel is that the framework lacks an easy-to-install user interface like WordPress offers. As a result, it will repel beginners or users with zero knowledge of web development.

What if non-developer users of the web could use Laravel? They could potentially become a developer at the end when they need to implement custom features.

It is not one of the developer team’s concerns right now. But in 2023, attracting non-developers can be the game changer for the Laravel framework.

Laravel pros

1. Laravel’s decoupled structure makes it easier for developer team members to focus on their jobs without concern
2. Laravel framework makes coding faster by providing default values for recurring parameter initiations
3. Managing database functions using Laravel’s Eloquent is satisfying for developers
4. Thousand of packages are ready to include in development using composer
5. Laravel framework constantly adapts to the latest technologies of the web
6. The large community of Laravel developers is heartwarming
7. and much more!

Laravel cons

1. Laravel is concerned about developers and neglects users with zero web development knowledge.
2. The Laravel development team stops updating previous releases of the framework after 2-3 years.
3. It’s challenging for beginner developers to develop web applications using Laravel
4. Learning to develop the Laravel framework requires time and effort.

Will Other Competitors Surprise WordPress and Laravel to Take a Big Bite of Market Share?

I do not see this happening in 2023, at least in the PHP language. Yet, Considering the growth history of Node.js projects, the JavaScript world shows that it can be surprising anytime.

It’s important to mention, according to w3techs, JAVA usage in server-side is surprisingly increased in 2022.

Who are the direct competitors to WordPress CMS right now?

WordPress’s market share is enormous, but competitors are still alive.

Between frameworks, there are a bunch of CMSes that compete with WordPress right now:

• Joomla!
• Drupal
• Magento (e-commerce)
• Prestashop (e-commerce)
• Shopify (Not open source)
• Squarespace (Not open source)
• WIX (Not open source)
• Weebly (Not open source)
• Ghost (JavaScript)

Who are the direct competitors to Laravel Framework right now?

Laravel is a backend framework with many competitors in different languages. Some of them are:

• Symphony
• CodeIgniter
• Zend
• CakePHP
• Yii 2
• Aura
• Slim
• Phalcon
• Fuel PHP
• FatFree
• Django (Python)
• Spring (JAVA)
• Next.js (JavaScript)
• Meteor (JavaScript)

Is there a reason to believe in other competitors?

In the PHP world, I must say NO!

But in other languages, due to differences in processing performances, there can be reasons to believe in the competitors.

For example, if we consider JavaScript’s ability to process functions Asynchronously, We can believe in a bright future for JavaScript platforms.

Same for JAVA, when we consider the user-friendliness of JAVA syntax, besides asynchronous processing, we can believe JAVA can be surprising regarding web development.

In case of a new competitor attacking the market, which one is a safer bet, WordPress or Laravel?

I believe the tree with deeper roots is safer in storms.

I am considering the initial release date, market share, available plugins, community, etc. WordPress is the safer bet for developers who do not want to take the risk.

Conclusion: the Summary of Comparing WordPress vs. Laravel for the Year 2023

WordPress and Laravel are not direct competitors due to differences in functionality. Yet, they will clash with each other at some points.

Even though WordPress CMS is a PHP framework, considering the user interface and default database structure, It’s a CMS. In comparison, Laravel is only a PHP framework that can build a CMS.

WordPress will still be the best CMS out there in 2023. Yet, the platform needs a much better visual editor to compete with WIX, Weebly, and Squarespace and not lose market share.

To compete with Laravel as a PHP framework, WordPress needs a better developer-friendly structure, maybe MVC or other options.

On the other hand, Laravel needs a user interface and a better installation approach to compete with WordPress.

Also, to compete with other PHP frameworks for market share, Laravels needs more public events and not just implementing out-of-box features.

As a developer, if you want just a simple website, choose WordPress because of its cost-efficiency.
But if publishing a feature-rich website or web software is what you’ve planned, you better choose Laravel for that project.

The post WordPress vs. Laravel: The Most Promising in the Year 2023! first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Read this WordPress tutorial for experienced developers if you want to learn how to join data from a table that does not exist in the WP default database with posts query.

It’s a long article with four chapters covering all information about the Posts Query topic.

Tutorial Roadmap: Head Straight to the Point!

Here is the table of content; select a topic to begin with, while you can keep scrolling for the beginner’s starting point.

• Chapter 1: WP Way of Handling Post Storage in Database
• Chapter 2: Extend and Modify Posts Query in WordPress
• Chapter 3: Build a Post View Counter by Extending Posts Query
• Chapter 4: Tips for Extending WordPress Posts Query
• Final Chapter: Resources to Learn about the Posts Query

Chapter 1: How does WordPress Store the Data for each Post in the Database?

Despite the fact that you can create your own tables, The WP development team planned a database table structure to store data for all the possible scenarios.

As you can witness on the database, WordPress has a posts table that contains essential information about each post.

As well as a postmeta table to store extra related information.

Part 1: WordPress table structure for post entity and post meta data

WordPress has a main table to store post entities and another to store the related metadata.

posts table (wp_posts with default prefix) is the main table of post entities in the WordPress database.

postmeta table (wp_postmeta with default prefix) is the storage for the metadata related to posts.

What can’t store in the posts table, will store in postmeta table.

By “can’t be stored in the posts table” I meant we do not have columns for it on the post table.

Table #1: posts table in the WordPress database

This screenshot shows columns in the posts table, however, you can check it from your database manager:

Table #2: postmeta table in the WordPress database

WordPress stores Non-essential information for each post in postmeta table.

Therefore, information other than title, content, date, etc., goes into postmeta table.

For example, all custom field data for each post are in postmeta table of your WordPress database.

postmeta table in WordPress has four columns that you can see in below screenshot:

Part 2: What if we have a custom table to join with the default WP Posts Query?

Sometimes, a developer may need to include custom tables in the default WordPress database structure.

For example, when the data existed before installing WordPress.

Similarly, when the table is extracted from another database and cannot integrate into WordPress’s default database structure.

Of course, we have a solution to include information from the custom table in our posts query for each post.

How to modify Posts Query in WordPress to include information from a custom table?

WordPress lets developers modify the actual MySQL query that will execute for posts.

Therefore, a few hooks are available for modifying each part of the posts query:

1. posts_distinct
2. posts_fields
3. posts_where
4. posts_orderby
5. posts_groupby
6. post_limits
7. posts_join

I listed post_join as the last, because we must use other filters to see a meaningful result when joining a custom table to the query.

Likewise, our examples in this tutorial are in the same order to understand them better.

If you are working on a caching plugin, read Tip #7 in the Chapter 4 of this tutorial for list of hooks available to use by caching plugins.

The below SQL Query is the final query that executes to fetch posts in WordPress, so look at it before continuing:

SELECT $found_rows $distinct $fields FROM {$wpdb->posts} $join WHERE 1=1 $where $groupby $orderby $limits

Source: wp-includes/class-wp-query.php

Did you notice these variables inside the query string?

$found_rows, $distinct, $fields, $join, $where, $groupby, $orderby, $limits

We have hooks in WordPress to use when we want to extend or modify each one.

Despite that, $found_rows can NOT be modified.

Chapter 2: Extend Posts Query in WordPress by Modifying All 7 Parts of the Query!

First, look at the default executed MySQL query before modifying it:

SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_posts.ID FROM wp_posts WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish') ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0, 10;

Part 1: Modify DISTINCT in Posts Query

DISTINCT is the keyword in MySQL queries responsible for filtering duplicated rows. thus, when we use DISTINCT in our queries, results will only contain unique values.

posts_distinct filter hook in WordPress will enable us to modify the DISTINCT part of the wp posts query, In case of need for enabling DISTINCT.

Example: Enabling DISTINCT in posts query using posts_distinct filter hook

The default posts query has no DISTINCT in it, But you can add it if you need, using the posts_distinct filter hook.

// add DISTINCT to eliminate duplicated rows
if(!function_exists('my_added_distinct_to_posts_query')) {

	add_filter( 'posts_distinct', 'my_added_distinct_to_posts_query', 10, 2 );

	function my_added_distinct_to_posts_query($distinct, $wp_query) {
		return "DISTINCT";
	}

}

Result: MySQL query after modifying DISTINCT with posts_distinct filter hook

SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS DISTINCT wp_posts.ID FROM wp_posts WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish') ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0, 10;

The DISTINCT keyword presents after SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS keyword.

Part 2: Modify SELECT in Posts Query (filter data and add extra fields)

When we need to filter the selected columns or request new fields in MySQL query, we can use posts_fields filter hook in WordPress.

Example: Requesting an additional field for posts using posts_fields filter hook

in order to try this hook, we can extend SELECT part of the query and request an extra field.

Using $wpdb->posts is the same as typing actual posts table name.

In this example, we’ll add a field to post items containing a text: concatenation of ID and post_title columns.

//Add another field to retrieved records
//Concatenation of two columns ID and post_title used in this example
if(!function_exists('my_selected_fields_in_posts_query')) {

	add_filter( 'posts_fields', 'my_selected_fields_in_posts_query', 10, 2 );

	function my_selected_fields_in_posts_query($fields, $wp_query) {
		global $wpdb;

		//we used concat
		return $fields
		       . ", concat({$wpdb->posts}.ID, 
		                    ' has title: ', 
		                    {$wpdb->posts}.post_title)
		                    as id_title_text";
	}

}

Result: MySQL query after modifying SELECT with posts_fields filter hook

SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_posts.*, concat(wp_posts.ID, ' has title: ', wp_posts.post_title) as id_title_text FROM wp_posts WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish') ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0, 10;

Did you notice the below part in the above query?

concat(wp_posts.ID, ' has title: ', wp_posts.post_title) as id_title_text

Obviously, my_selected_fields_in_posts_query function did this modification in the posts query.

As a result, you can use id_title_text field for each post to access it.

So then, the id_title_text field for a post with ID equal to 1 and “Hello World!” as the title will be:

[id_title_text] => "1 has title: Hello World!"

Part 3: Modify WHERE in Posts Query (set conditions for query)

Using the posts_where filter gives WP developers the ability to modify Posts Query’s WHERE condition.

Example: Setting conditions for posts query using posts_where filter hook

In order to try this hook, we’re going to fetch only posts with comments.

// set WHERE conditions in this example
if(!function_exists('my_where_conditions_in_posts_query')) {

	add_filter( 'posts_where', 'my_where_conditions_in_posts_query', 10, 2 );

	function my_where_conditions_in_posts_query($where, $wp_query) {

		global $wpdb;

		//we'll get 404 error on single post
		//we want only list items to affect, disable this feature for single posts:
		if(is_single())
			return $where;

		//always start with AND because we have a default WHERE 1=1 in the query
		//try only fetching posts with comments on them:
		return $where. " AND comment_count > 0";
	}

}

The return $where. " AND comment_count > 0" is telling MySQL that we only need records with at least one comment.

Result: MySQL query after modifying WHERE with posts_where filter hook

SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_posts.ID FROM wp_posts WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish') AND wp_posts.comment_count > 0 ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0, 10

Part 4: Modify ORDER BY in Posts Query (sorting)

posts_orderby filter hook is available to use when we want to set the sort order of WordPress post items in posts query.

Example: Setting sort order for posts query using posts_orderby filter hook

This example forces the posts query to retrieve more commented records at first positions. therefore, we set the sort order of posts query as comment_count, DESC as the order direction.

// set ORDER BY column and direction in this example
if(!function_exists('my_orderby_in_posts_query')) {

	add_filter( 'posts_orderby', 'my_orderby_in_posts_query', 10, 2 );

	function my_orderby_in_posts_query($orderby) {

		global $wpdb;

		//DESC means from high to low, use 'ASC' for reverse
		$orderDirection = 'DESC';

		//we removed default sort order and set comment_count DESC as new one
		return "{$wpdb->posts}.comment_count {$orderDirection}";
	}

}

Result: MySQL query after modifying ORDER BY with posts_orderby filter hook

SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_posts.ID FROM wp_posts WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish') ORDER BY wp_posts.comment_count DESC LIMIT 0, 10

ORDER BY wp_posts.comment_count DESC string presents in the Posts Query.

Part 5: Modify GROUP BY in Posts Query

GROUP BY in Posts Query is useful when you want to join other tables with posts table to use aggregate functions.

For example, when you need to count records from another table associated with each post, you must group records by post ID.

Aggregate functions in MySQL let developers calculate something based on a group of values available in different records.

MySQL supported aggregate functions to use on table columns

To understand the WP posts_groupby filter’s functionality, we skipped aggerate functions in the following example (read part 7 for aggeration function usage example along with GROUP BY).

Example: Setting Post ID as GROUP BY using posts_groupby filter hook

//Setting {$wpdb->posts}.ID for GROUP BY in Posts Query
if(!function_exists('groupby_post_id_in_posts')) {

	add_filter( 'posts_groupby', 'groupby_post_id_in_posts', 10, 2 );

	function groupby_post_id_in_posts( $groupby, $wp_query ) {
		global $wpdb;

		return "{$wpdb->posts}.ID";
	}
}

This example does not make any difference when we did not join any other table and use aggerate functions.

To see the actual result, check out part 7 of this chapter (counting postmeta records for each post as an example).

Result: MySQL query after modifying GROUP BY with posts_groupby filter hook

SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_posts.ID FROM wp_posts WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish') GROUP BY wp_posts.ID ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0, 10

GROUP BY wp_posts.ID string presents on Posts Query now.

Part 6: Modify LIMIT in Posts Query

Limiting the number of posts to fetch is possible when using the post_limits filter hook to modify the LIMIT part of the MySQL query.

Example: Setting fetching limit to 100 records with post_limits

In this example, we will set the fetch record limit to 100 rows.

//Set post limits to 100 rows
if(!function_exists('limit_number_of_posts_in_query')) {

	add_filter( 'post_limits', 'limit_number_of_posts_in_query', 10, 2 );

	function limit_number_of_posts_in_query( $limit, $wp_query ) {

		return 'LIMIT 0, 100';
	}
}

Result: MySQL query after modifying LIMIT with post_limits filter hook:

SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_posts.ID FROM wp_posts WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish') ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0, 100

LIMIT 0, 100 is the string responsible for commanding MySQL to fetch only 100 rows from the posts table.

Part 7: Modify JOIN in Posts Query

This part of our tutorial is the most crucial.

If we use JOIN without GROUP BY, and not requesting fields in SELECT, We’ll end up with incorrect data.

We must use LEFT JOIN, GROUP BY and also SELECT together to have a meaningful set of fields and correct data.

Example: Join postmeta table with posts table to select a postmeta_counter field for each post entity

To see the result in this example, we will try SELECT, GROUP BY, and also JOIN together.

At this point, You don’t need to create a new table. In order to postpone this matter, we’ll use existing postmeta table to join with posts for a test.

We’ll try CUSTOM tables in the “build a post view counter example” on Chapter 3 of this tutoruial.

Read Chapter 3 for a real case scenario of joining NON-WP tables with Posts Query.

When implementing the below example, as result, it gives us an additional postmeta_counter field for each post.

Using $wpdb->postmeta is the same as typing actual postmeta table name.

Obviously, additional postmeta_counter field represents the number of available metadata for that post.

We also set postmeta_counter as the ORDER BY for our posts query to sort results based on the number of metadata available for each post.

// the actual JOIN of postmeta with posts query
if(!function_exists('join_postmeta_to_posts')) {

	add_filter('posts_join', 'join_postmeta_to_posts', 10, 2);

	function join_postmeta_to_posts($join, $wp_query) {
		global $wpdb;

		//we need LEFT JOIN, other JOINs does not work in this case
		return $join . " LEFT JOIN {$wpdb->postmeta} as postmeta
					   ON postmeta.post_id = {$wpdb->posts}.ID";
	}

}

// select data we need from postmeta by modifying SELECT
if(!function_exists('select_postmeta_count_in_posts')) {

	add_filter('posts_fields', 'select_postmeta_count_in_posts', 10, 2);

	function select_postmeta_count_in_posts($fields, $wp_query) {
		//postmeta defined at JOIN.
		return $fields . ", COUNT(postmeta.meta_id) postmeta_counter";
	}

}

// Group by ID of posts gives us details of post + additional field
// It tells MySQL that we need all data for posts as main information, not other way around.
if(!function_exists('groupby_post_id_in_posts')) {

	add_filter( 'posts_groupby', 'groupby_post_id_in_posts', 10, 2 );

	function groupby_post_id_in_posts( $groupby, $wp_query ) {
		global $wpdb;
		$comma = " ";
		if ( $groupby ) {
			$comma = ", ";
		}

		return $groupby . $comma . "{$wpdb->posts}.ID";
	}
}

Result: MySQL query that executes after using these filter hooks together:

SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS DISTINCT wp_posts.*, COUNT(postmeta.meta_id) postmeta_counter FROM wp_posts LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta as postmeta ON postmeta.post_id = wp_posts.ID WHERE 1=1 AND wp_posts.post_type = 'post' AND (wp_posts.post_status = 'publish') GROUP BY wp_posts.ID ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC LIMIT 0, 10

, COUNT(postmeta.meta_id) postmeta_counter string is for selecting postmeta_counter as an extra field for posts. (posts_field hook adds this)

Note that the LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta as postmeta ON postmeta.post_id = wp_posts.ID string is responsible for joining postmeta with posts table. (posts_join hook adds this)

Also ON postmeta.post_id = wp_posts.ID tells MySQL to join the postmeta table with posts and match records using the post_id column of postmeta table.

This means when the post_id column value in the postmeta table is equal to the ID column of posts table, postmeta entity will combine with post entity.

Undoubtedly, GROUP BY wp_posts.ID in the above query is crucial to get the data based on the post entity. (Along with LEFT JOIN)

GROUP BY wp_posts.ID adds the postmeta_counter field to the post entity, along with other post fields. (posts_groupby hook adds this)

Chapter 3: Build a post view counter functionality by joining a custom post views table with Posts Query

At this point, you have enough information to go to the real case example part without guilt (copy past part!).

For a helpful example, I will add a post view counter for each post, using a custom-made table populated with fake data.

Step 1: Create a table with sample data for post views in the WordPress database

To begin with, you need a database table and sample data.

Hence, you must use a UI-based database management software or run direct Mysql Queries that I provided below.

regardless of the fact that the following two parts contain useful details, you can Skip them by using alternative PHP code.

Before going further, note that I assumed Database Prefix is wp_ as the default WordPress setting.

So if you’ve changed your installation’s prefix, replace wp_ in all of below MySQL queries with your prefix (see names of your wp tables for a hint)

First, Connect to WP database using a database management software, such as phpMyAdmin or PostgreSQL.

However, you can connect to the database and run queries directly from the command line, But it requires advanced OS knowledge.

If you see table names like abc_posts, abc_postmeta, and abc_comments in WP database, means abc_ is your table prefix.

Replace the wp_ in this tutorial with your actual WP prefix. But if you do not have a prefix, remove it from MySQL queries below.

Then, Create the wp_post_views table with four columns: id, post_id, user_id, user_ip.

You can create the wp_post_views table, and also insert the sample data for it using database management software UI.

In that case, skip the following two parts. Because these MySQL commands are for creating the table and its sample data.

Part 1: Creating the wp_post_views table

In case you did not use database manager UI to create the table, run the below query to create the wp_post_views table:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `wp_post_views` ( 
	`id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
	`post_id` INT(11) NOT NULL,
	`user_id` INT(11) NULL,
	`user_ip` VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL,
	PRIMARY KEY  (`id`)
);

Remember to replace wp_post_views with abc_post_views if abc_ is your table name prefix instead of wp_.

Part 2: Generate sample data in wp_post_views table

You can generate this sample data using database manager UI too. but if you want to use MySQL query, execute this:

INSERT INTO `wp_post_views`
			(`id`, `post_id`, `user_id`, `user_ip`)
			VALUES 
			(NULL, '1', NULL, '184.55.55.55');

Again, remember to replace wp_post_views with abc_post_views if abc_ is your table name prefix instead of wp_.

Alternatively: Use WordPress PHP functions to create the wp_post_views database and sample data in one step

Use WP functions to create the table and its sample data if you don’t want to connect with the database and run queries yourself.

You can copy this code in your plugin, functions.php of the activated theme, as well as any file that can execute WP functions.

I recommend creating a simple mu-plugin, which is short for Must Use Plugin.

First, create this file in the specified directory:

wp-content/mu-plugins/my-post-views-setup.php

Create the mu-plugins inside wp-content directory if not already exists!

Then, Copy/Past this code into it:

<?php

if(!function_exists('myPostViewsPluginSetup')){

	//we used init hook because mu-plugins does not support register_activation_hook().
	add_action('init', 'myPostViewsPluginSetup');

	//setup function for our plugin. this function only runs once.
	function myPostViewsPluginSetup() {

		//check if post view plugin is activated
		if(get_option('my_post_views_plugin_activated') === '1')
			return;

		global $wpdb;

		$sql = "CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `{$wpdb->prefix}post_views` ( 
						`id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
						`post_id` INT(11) NOT NULL,
						`user_id` INT(11) NULL,
						`user_ip` VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL,
						PRIMARY KEY  (`id`)
					);";

		require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php');
		dbDelta($sql);

		//add a sample visit for all posts when activating
		$posts = get_posts(array('posts_per_page' => -1));
		foreach($posts as $post){
			$wpdb->insert("{$wpdb->prefix}post_views",
							array('post_id' => $post->ID,
								  'user_id' => null,
								  'user_ip' => '::')
						 );
		}

		//set activation option to 1, so we do not execute this function again.
		//if we could use register_activation_hook() in mu plugins we had no such problem.
		update_option( 'my_post_views_plugin_activated', '1');

	}

}

MU-Plugins in WordPress are enabled by default. So you do NOT need to enable it on the admin panel.

After this, I can imagine that the wp_post_views table is in the WP database with a sample visit saved for each post on your website.

Step 2: Join the wp_post_views table with WordPress Posts Query

To join our wp_post_views with posts query, use the below code:

// select data we need from custom table by modifying SELECT
if(!function_exists('add_my_post_views_to_fields')) {

	add_filter('posts_fields', 'add_my_post_views_to_fields', 10, 2);

	function add_my_post_views_to_fields($fields, $wp_query) {
		return $fields . ", COUNT(post_views.id) view_counter";
	}

}

// join our custom table with posts query
if(!function_exists('join_my_post_views_to_query')) {

	add_filter('posts_join', 'join_my_post_views_to_query', 10, 2);

	function join_my_post_views_to_query($join, $wp_query) {
		global $wpdb;

		//we need LEFT JOIN, other JOINs does not work in this case
		return $join . " LEFT JOIN {$wpdb->prefix}post_views post_views 
					   ON post_views.post_id = {$wpdb->posts}.ID";
	}

}

// if did not set groupby, records will be disappeared
if(!function_exists('groupby_my_post_views_in_query')) {

	add_filter('posts_groupby', 'groupby_my_post_views_in_query', 10, 2);

	function groupby_my_post_views_in_query($groupby, $wp_query) {
		global $wpdb;
		$comma = " ";
		if ($groupby)
			$comma = ", ";

		return $groupby . $comma . "{$wpdb->posts}.ID";
	}

}

After this, If you check the posts array in detail, you can find our view_counter as a new field.

Step 3: Try printing the post views number for each post

To print post views numbers, you can use a content modify hook to add view_counter any spot you want.

My cheatsheet when I need a filter is this file: wp-includes/default-filters.php, But not just for posts.

For example, the_excerpt is a hook to modify post content. therefore, you can use it and add view_counter to the post excerpt.

Likewise, the_content is the modifier hook for the post’s content.

Furthermore, the_title is a clear name for the post title filter hook.

I used these three options to print the post view counter in the below example. But you better select one and remove others.

// append view_counter field after post excerpt
if(!function_exists('append_post_views_to_post_excerpt')) {

	//Note: use get_the_excerpt if get_the_title() prints the excerpt in your theme.
	add_filter('the_excerpt', 'append_post_views_to_post_excerpt', 10, 2);

	function append_post_views_to_post_excerpt($excerpt) {
		global $post;

		if($post && isset($post->view_counter))
			return "{$excerpt} 
(Post Views: {$post->view_counter})
";

		return $excerpt;
	}

}

// append view_counter field after post content
if(!function_exists('append_post_views_to_post_content')) {

	//Note: use get_the_content if get_the_title() prints the content in your theme.
	add_filter('the_content', 'append_post_views_to_post_content', 10, 2);

	function append_post_views_to_post_content($excerpt) {
		global $post;

		if($post && isset($post->view_counter))
			return "{$excerpt} 
(Post Views: {$post->view_counter})
";

		return $excerpt;
	}

}

// append view_counter field after post title
if(!function_exists('append_post_views_to_post_title')) {

	//Note: use get_the_title if get_the_title() prints the title in your theme.
	add_filter('the_title', 'append_post_views_to_post_title', 10, 2);

	function append_post_views_to_post_title($title) {
		global $post;

		if($post && isset($post->view_counter))
			return "{$title} 
(Post Views: {$post->view_counter})
";

		return $title;
	}

}

First, use get_the_excerpt hook when echo get_the_excerpt() prints the post excerpt.

Second, use get_the_content filter when echo get_the_content() prints the post content.

Lastly, use get_the_title filter when echo get_the_title() prints the post title.

After this, check your posts list or single post page, and you can view Post Views: x where you requested.

Step 4: Save actual post visits in our wp_post_views table

There are two options available when you want to save post view record on the database table after each visit.

One for the websites without cache plugins and another if the cache is enabled.

Option #1: Save visits when page caching is NOT enabled

Use this code to get the visitor’s IP address and current user’s ID (if available), then save the data to the post views table in case of a visit.

After this, a record inserts into the post views table when a visitor visits a post page.

If not, it may be a problem with page caching plugins. In such a case, use option 2 to save the visits.

Option #2: Save visits when page caching is enabled

Because cache plugins ditch filter hooks, you must create a special URL to save page visits with JavaScript AJAX requests.

You need a <script> tag in post pages, containing a JavaScript function for sending an AJAX request to save visits for the current post.

Step 5: Wrap all these functionalities into a DIY Post View Counter Plugin

Even though you can use previous steps to utilize the post view counter, I’ll teach you to create a plugin out of what you’ve learned.

WP plugins are simply functional by enabling them from the admin panel, so you can employ this functionality for any website you want with a few clicks.

Part 1: Create the plugin’s folder and main PHP file

Plugins are stored in the wp-content/plugins directory inside WordPress folder structures.

To create the my-post-view-counter plugin, create this file in the specified directory:

wp-content/plugins/my-post-view-counter/my-post-view-counter.php

Part 2: Append all functions in the plugin’s main PHP file

To do this, simple Copy/Past these codes into the my-post-view-counter.php file:

<?php
/**
 * My Post Views
 *
 * @package     MyPostViwes
 * @author      Mehdi Nazari
 * @copyright   2022 Mehdi Nazari
 * @license     GPL-2.0-or-later
 *
 * @wordpress-plugin
 * Plugin Name: My Post Views
 * Plugin URI:  https://mehdinazari.com/join-custom-tables-with-wordpress-posts-query/
 * Description: This plugin saves post views on a custom table and then prints it on posts.
 * Version:     1.0.0
 * Author:      Mehdi Nazari
 * Author URI:  https://mehdinazari.com
 * Text Domain: my-post-views
 * License:     GPL v2 or later
 * License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.txt
 */


if (!function_exists('myPostViewsPluginSetup')) {

	add_action('init', 'myPostViewsPluginSetup');

	register_activation_hook( __FILE__, 'myPostViewsPluginSetup' );


	//setup function for our plugin. this function only runs once.
	function myPostViewsPluginSetup() {

		global $wpdb;

		$sql = "CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `{$wpdb->prefix}post_views` ( 
						`id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
						`post_id` INT(11) NOT NULL,
						`user_id` INT(11) NULL,
						`user_ip` VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL,
						PRIMARY KEY  (`id`)
					);";

		require_once( ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php' );
		dbDelta( $sql );

		//add a sample visit for all posts when activating
		$posts = get_posts( array( 'posts_per_page' => - 1 ) );
		foreach ( $posts as $post ) {
			$wpdb->insert( "{$wpdb->prefix}post_views",
				array(
					'post_id' => $post->ID,
					'user_id' => null,
					'user_ip' => '::'
				)
			);
		}

	}

}

// select data we need from custom table by modifying SELECT
if(!function_exists('add_my_post_views_to_fields')) {

	add_filter('posts_fields', 'add_my_post_views_to_fields', 10, 2);

	function add_my_post_views_to_fields($fields, $wp_query) {
		return $fields . ", COUNT(post_views.id) view_counter";
	}

}

// join our custom table with posts query
if(!function_exists('join_my_post_views_to_query')) {

	add_filter('posts_join', 'join_my_post_views_to_query', 10, 2);

	function join_my_post_views_to_query($join, $wp_query) {
		global $wpdb;

		//we need LEFT JOIN, other JOINs does not work in this case
		return $join . " LEFT JOIN {$wpdb->prefix}post_views post_views 
					   ON post_views.post_id = {$wpdb->posts}.ID";
	}

}

// if did not set groupby, records will be disappeared
if(!function_exists('groupby_my_post_views_in_query')) {

	add_filter('posts_groupby', 'groupby_my_post_views_in_query', 10, 2);

	function groupby_my_post_views_in_query($groupby, $wp_query) {
		global $wpdb;
		$comma = " ";
		if ($groupby)
			$comma = ", ";

		return $groupby . $comma . "{$wpdb->posts}.ID";
	}

}

//get visitor's ip address
if(!function_exists('getVisitorIPAddress')) {
	function getVisitorIPAddress(){

		if (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP']))
			$ip = $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'];
		elseif (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']))
			$ip = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'];
		else
			$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];

		return $ip ? $ip : "::";
	}

}

//add visit record to post views table
if(!function_exists('addPostVisitsToMyPostViewsTable')) {
	function addPostVisitsToMyPostViewsTable(){

		global $wpdb;

		//define visit data array
		$visitData = array();

		//get the post ID
		$visitData['post_id'] = get_the_ID();

		//get user ID (if available)
		$userId = get_current_user_id();
		if($userId)
			$visitData['user_id'] = $userId;

		//get visitor IP
		$visitData['user_ip'] = getVisitorIPAddress();

		//insert visit, then return number of rows on success, or false if failed.
		return $wpdb->insert("{$wpdb->prefix}post_views", $visitData);
	}

}

//trigger addPostVisitsToMyPostViewsTable() in case of post visit, using the_content hook
if(!function_exists('add_visit_to_my_post_views_trigger')) {

	add_filter('the_content', 'add_visit_to_my_post_views_trigger');

	function add_visit_to_my_post_views_trigger($content){

		//check if it's a post, then save the visit
		if (is_single())
			addPostVisitsToMyPostViewsTable();

		//let WP continue without modifying post content
		return $content;
	}

}


// append view_counter field after post excerpt
if(!function_exists('append_post_views_to_post_excerpt')) {

	//Note: use get_the_excerpt if get_the_title() prints the excerpt in your theme.
	add_filter('the_excerpt', 'append_post_views_to_post_excerpt', 10, 2);

	function append_post_views_to_post_excerpt($excerpt) {
		global $post;

		if($post && isset($post->view_counter))
			return "{$excerpt} (Post Views: {$post->view_counter})";

		return $excerpt;
	}

}

// append view_counter field after post content
if(!function_exists('append_post_views_to_post_content')) {

	//Note: use get_the_content if get_the_title() prints the content in your theme.
	add_filter('the_content', 'append_post_views_to_post_content', 10, 2);

	function append_post_views_to_post_content($excerpt) {
		global $post;

		if($post && isset($post->view_counter))
			return "{$excerpt} (Post Views: {$post->view_counter})";

		return $excerpt;
	}

}

// append view_counter field after post title
if(!function_exists('append_post_views_to_post_title')) {

	//Note: use get_the_title if get_the_title() prints the title in your theme.
	add_filter('the_title', 'append_post_views_to_post_title', 10, 2);

	function append_post_views_to_post_title($title) {
		global $post;

		if($post && isset($post->view_counter))
			return "{$title} (Post Views: {$post->view_counter})";

		return $title;
	}

}

Part 3: Activate the plugin from the WP admin panel

Open your WordPress admin panel and enable your plugin from the plugins->installed plugins page.

That’s it, and now you have the post view counter functionality on your website.

Try it by visiting a post in the frontend, then check the counter to see if it works or not.

Chapter 4: Tips to keep in mind when you want to join custom tables in WordPress Posts Query

Now that you have come to this point, get ready for your mastering degree in 3…2…1

Oh, please wait a minute; I guess I forgot something important.

Finally, read these seven tips to master Posts Query in WordPress.

Tip #1: Backup, Backup, Backup, and again, BACKUP!

I can’t tell you how many times I got out of trouble because I had a recent backup available.

Believe me, the most necessary step when developing software is backing up files and databases.

Remember to store backup files somewhere safe. Because backups often include sensitive data, usable by hackers.

You can find the best backup management plugins when visiting the wordpress.org plugins directory.

Tip #2: Understand the difference between different types of JOIN

In SQL queries, you can use JOIN to combine multiple tables and then make a mixed result based on specified relationships.

For example, you have posts and postmeta tables in the WP database.

The postmeta table has a post_id column that binds the relationship between postmeta and the posts table.

When we want to add meta information for a post with ID equal to 1, we can create a record in the postmeta table and set post_id=1 for it.

Because of this approach, MySQL knows which postmeta belongs to which post entity in posts table.

When we want to retrieve information of a post and include data stored for that post in postmeta table, we can join the two tables and make a mixed record of their columns.

Though, we have multiple options to tell the database how to combine tables:

1. JOIN: Asks for records with matching values in both tables. therefore, If a match does not exist, the result is null.
2. LEFT JOIN: Asks for records from the first table mixed with matched records from the second. therefore, If a match does not exist in the second table, information on the first table will return.
3. RIGHT JOIN: Asks for records from the second table mixed with matched records from the second table. accordingly, If a match does not exist in the first table, information on the second table will return.
4. FULL JOIN: Asks for records mixed together; hence, the first or second table does not matter.

I guess LEFT JOIN is helpful in many scenarios.

However, I will not explain more about possible join options. Because you need a full-length tutorial on this topic.

A picture worth a thousand words, So look at this one:

Tip #3: Group By {$wpdb->posts}.ID is an essential part of our code when using aggeration functions along with joining tables

Obviously, Post ID is a unique key for each post.

Also, GROUP BY keyword is for grouping records based on a column.

Aggregation Functions are helpful when performing calculations on multiple records in tables.

When we want to perform an aggeration function on associated values to a post, we need to group records by Post ID.

This way, we tell the database: “We need to calculate something based on available values for each post item. Please do the calculation, then specify which value is for which post item. Thank you!”.

Tip #4: Find solutions to store your data in postmeta table instead of creating new tables

In chapter 1 of this tutorial, I told you this:

The WP development team planned a database table structure to store data for all the possible scenarios.

in case you did not encounter any performance issues, you better trust the WordPress structure.

The posts and postmeta tables can offer a solution to store different entities, NOT only Posts, but any type of data.

Consider these two tables your primary way of storing data when developing plugins or themes.

Therefore, custom post types are the solution for offering content storage to users.

Plus, WordPress preserved functionalities that developers can execute on the post items.

For example, you can create a slideshow plugin and save the slides with a custom post type.

You can also create custom taxonomies to categorize items of custom post types.

Always think twice before making new tables and messing up the WordPress database.

Tip #5: Choice a unique and understandable name for your new fields and database columns

When using the posts_filter hook to request new fields, or create new tables in the database, always use comprehensible name keys.

For one thing, separate different words in the key with underlines to increase the readability.

As an example, do NOT use postid, or postId (better choice, by the way), use post_id instead.

Another developer can read the name at first sight when using underline as the separator.

Tip #6: For testing proposes, do not execute get_posts() in the functions.php directly

At least use a hook with a suitable execution time.

When trying to execute get_posts() directly in your functions.php file, posts query modifier hooks will not affect the result.

template_redirect hook can be a good choice when you want to try if your codes work as expected or not.

This hook indeed executes after posts query modifier hooks.

add_action('template_redirect', 'my_test_function_name');
function my_test_function_name(){
    // run your codes, but it is not a cool way to test!
    print_r(get_posts());
}

Tip #7: Append _request at the end of hook names if you are building a caching plugin (ex: posts_join_request instead of posts_join)

For one thing, cache plugins will save a static version of your pages someplace on the disk.

If a user visits those cached pages, WP serves that static file containing pure HTML code instead of connecting to the database.

When you are working on building your caching plugin, you can append _request to posts query modification hooks.

Using this approach, undoubtedly, WordPress ensures that your query modifier functions are executing.

Because the coding chapters of this tutorial are finished, you can travel back to chapter 1.

However, you can continue scrolling to the final chapter for the top learning resources.

Final Chapter: Never Stop Learning, My Developer Friend, NEVER!

In case you missed that, I was shouting the “NEVER” in the title.

Ok, Now, It’s the final chapter.

But only if you consider this section a chapter or if learning somehow had a final chapter.

Then, I hope this is not the final chapter of learning for any of you developers; I just finished my work in this section.

Keep reading the perfect resources available to learn more about Extending WordPress Posts Query.

Continue learning by visiting the list of resources for the brilliant developers who never get satisfied by one tutorial (even if it’s a long tutorial like this one!).

Part 1: Top resources to learn about WordPress Posts Query Development

Of course, I did not cover every part of this topic. Nobody can do it alone.

I tried to include everything I learned over the years in this tutorial. Although, It would be best if you continued exploring; When there is more stuff to know.

Visit places on the internet that can help you a lot more than I can:

Source #1: WordPress official pages about Posts Query hooks:

WordPress’s official website has the best tutorials for developers. Then, If you are interested in being a WP developer, visit the developers section of the WordPress.org website to try out tutorials.

I recommend these pages for you to learn Posts Query development on the official WP website:

• WP_Query class page
• get_posts function page
• posts_distinct hook page
• posts_fields hook page
• posts_join hook page
• posts_where hook page
• posts_groupby hook page
• posts_orderby hook page
• post_limits hook page

Source #2: StackExchange and StackOverflow questions on Posts Queries topic

Search any keyword you’ve encountered in my tutorial on StackOverflow, then you will be surprised to witness developers helping others.

Visit the wp_query search page on StackOverflow for related topics regarding querying WP posts.

The list of frequent questions tagged with wp-query on wordpress.stackexchange.com also contains many frequently asked questions you may encounter in the future.

StackOverflow is a site in the network of StackExchange that contains programming questions, while wordpress.stackexchange.com is a site about WordPress-only topics.

Part 2: Where to ask questions about challenges you are facing

StackOverflow is always the best place to ask your questions about programming issues.

Don’t forget wordpress.stackexchange.com, which has a truly active community of brilliant WordPress developers, humble enough to help beginners.

WordPress’s official support team has a forum for WP developers that you can visit to ask questions about WordPress development.

Part 3: My top recommended list of tutorials for interested WordPress developers

Learn more about WP development by reading seven must essential WordPress tutorials on my blog; however, I did not include any external links in the list (I’m sorry about that ):

1. Learn how to build a plugin for WordPress
2. Learn how to use action and filter hooks in WordPress
3. Learn how to retrieve WordPress posts with desired filters
4. Learn how to query WordPress categories, tags, and custom taxonomies
5. Learn how to register custom shortcodes in WordPress
6. Learn how to get comment details in WordPress
7. Learn how to get the list of users in WordPress

Repeat this tutorial from chapter 1, or continue scrolling to see a list of the latest WordPress tutorials on my blog.

The post How to Extend WordPress Posts Query and Join New Tables first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

There is a function in WordPress that can retrieve a post’s publish date.

get_the_date() is the function responsible for getting the publish date of a post.

get_the_date() accepts an optional ‘format’ parameter, which is helpful when you want to customize the output string.

If you do not specify the date format, get_the_date() will get it from WordPress settings (Path: Admin Panel -> Settings -> General).

Get the Active Post Publish Date in WordPress

To retrieve the Publish Date of the current queried post in WordPress, use this as an example:

$postDate = get_the_date();

//printing the active post date with WP setting's format:
echo $postDate;

To specify the date format, use this example for Active Post:

//Storing a few possible date formats in an array:
$postDateFormats = [
            'F j, Y', // ex: September 1, 2022
            'jS M Y', // ex: 1st Sep 2022
            'Y/m/d g:i:s A', // ex: 2022/09/01 6:09:06 AM
            'Y/m/d \a\t g:i A', // ex: 2022/09/01 at 6:09 AM
            'Y/m/d g:i:s A', // ex: 2022/09/01 6:09:06 AM
            'c', // ex: 2022-09-01T06:09:06-04:00(ISO format for schema)
            'r', // ex: Thu, 01 Sep 2022 06:09:06 -0400 (RFC 2822)
            'u', // ex:  1662027259 (Unix timestamp)
];

//print post date using them in different lines:
foreach($postDateFormats as $format){
	echo get_the_date($format)." 
";
}

The above example used a loop to go through each post format and print the date.

You can select one of them and use it; for example, to use September 1, 2022 output format, use: get_the_date('F j, Y').

Get the Post Publish Date for Specified Post ID in WordPress

To specify the post ID, Use the second parameter of the get_the_date function.

For example, to get the publish date for a post with ID = 1, Use this code:

$postId = 1;

$postDate = get_the_date('',$postId);

//printing the post date with WP setting's format:
echo $postDate;

To specify the date format and the Post ID at the same time, use this example (we used post ID = 1):

//define post ID you want the date for:
$postId = 1;

//Storing a few possible date formats in an array:
$postDateFormats = [
            'F j, Y', // ex: September 1, 2022
            'jS M Y', // ex: 1st Sep 2022
            'Y/m/d g:i:s A', // ex: 2022/09/01 6:09:06 AM
            'Y/m/d \a\t g:i A', // ex: 2022/09/01 at 6:09 AM
            'Y/m/d g:i:s A', // ex: 2022/09/01 6:09:06 AM
            'c', // ex: 2022-09-01T06:09:06-04:00(ISO format for schema)
            'r', // ex: Thu, 01 Sep 2022 06:09:06 -0400 (RFC 2822)
            'u', // ex:  1662027259 (Unix timestamp)
];

//print post date using them in different lines:
foreach($postDateFormats as $format){
	echo get_the_date($format, $postId)." 
";
}

The above example used a loop to go through each post format and print the date for the specified post.

You can select one of them and use it; for September 1, 2022 output format, use: get_the_date('F j, Y', $postId).

Printing the Post Publish Date Using a Shortcode

To print the publish date with a shortcode, first, we have to define the shortcode and then use it in the WordPress editor.

Step 1: Register the [my-post-date] Shortcode in WordPress

open the functions.php file of your active theme or your custom-made plugin main PHP file, and copy/paste this snippet into it:

Step 2: Use the [my-post-date] Shortcode in WordPress

Open a post or create a new one. in the editor, just write [my-post-date] in the content part. This will print the active post date with the default format on that post page.

If you want to print the date in a special format, use the post-format attribute for the shortcode. (Ex: [my-post-date date-format='F j, Y'])

If you want to print the date for a specific post ID, use the post-id attribute for the shortcode. (Ex: [my-post-date date-format='F j, Y' post-id=1])

The post How to Get Post Date with Custom Format in WordPress [Shortcode] first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

What WordPress Function is Responsible for Checking if the Current Page is a Single Post?

The WordPress is_single function can determine a post’s page in an active visitor’s browser.

Using the is_single function, you can execute blocks of codes only if the current page is a single page (post page) in WordPress.

This function returns a true value if the current page is a post of any type (default and custom types).

Look for a false value if the current user is on a “page” (not a wp post = false value).

Note: is_single() will be true for attachments (usually). detect attachments, use is_attachment() to be sure.

is_single function syntax

This WP function accepts an optional parameter $post.

If you want to check if the current page displays a specific post, determine what post you want to check. You can use an integer value for a specific post ID or an array of Integers for multiple post IDs.

The is_single function also accepts string values for $post to check the post status by post title, slug, or an array containing these values.

Look at the below example to understand what this function is doing.

Check if the current page is a single page using the is_single function

We used the is_single function in three examples of different situations:

Only check if the current user is on a post (just check if it’s a general WP post, ID is not necessary)

is_single() with no argument will detect posts in general.

if(is_single()){
	echo "This is a Post of any type!";
}
else{
	echo "This is a NOT a Post!";
}

Check if the current user is on a specific post using Post ID

If you specify an integer for is_single(), this function will accept it as a Post ID.

// int for post id, string for title and slug
$postId = 1;
if(is_single($postId)){
	echo "This is the Post you Specified!";
}
else{
	echo "This is a NOT the post, It can be another post, or not a post!";
}

Check if the current user is on a post that is one of the specified posts

Specify an array containing mixed values of Post IDs, Slugs, and Titles to check if the current page does belong to one of them.

// int for post id, string for title and slug
$postsToCheck = array(1,"slug-here","the title of a post");
if(is_single($postsToCheck)){
	echo "This is one of Posts you Specified!";
}
else{
	echo "This is a NOT any of these posts, It can be another post, or not a post!";
}

The post How to Check if the Current Page is a Post in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Check if the current page is a Search Page using the is_search function

Since WordPress v1.5.0, developers can execute the is_search function to determine if the current user is viewing the search page or not.

This function checks if the global wp_query is for a search or not, which helps you detect the search page of WordPress.

is_search function syntax

This function does not accept any parameter and returns true if a search query is detected on the current page.

is_search()

is_search function example

In this example, we’ll check if the current page in the browser is the WordPress search page.

“We looked at every article and found these results for you.” will be printed for the visitor If the search page is presented.

if(is_search()){
    echo "We looked at every article and found these results for you.";
}

If you need to get the searched query, you can use $_GET['s'] variable available from the current URL.

Example of printing searched query if it is the search page:

if(is_search() && isset($_GET['s'])){
    echo "We looked at every article for `".$_GET['s']."` and found these results for you.";
}

The post How to Check if the Current Page is Search Page in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Not every WordPress administrator has noticed the ugly text on the top right corner of the WP admin panel, even if it’s an odd text and has a fixed position on the screen.

I guess this text does not bother everybody, but I have a solution for those who do not like this way of WordPress greeting admins.

Change the WordPress ‘Howdy Admin’ text to what you desire

A filter hook in WordPress can modify the admin bar menu.

The admin_bar_menu filter hook has the ability to modify or remove items in the admin panel bar of WordPress.

Use this code in your functions.php of your active theme or your custom-made plugin:

add_filter('admin_bar_menu', 'change_howdy_in_toolbar', 20);
function change_howdy_in_toolbar($wp_admin_bar){
    //set your desired text to replace
    $replaceWithThis = "Hi Admin";

    //we need to modify my-account node in the toolbar
    //'id' key is flag for replace action
    $node = array(
        'id' => 'my-account',
        'title' => $replaceWithThis
    );

    //add_node will REPLACE the title
    $wp_admin_bar->add_node($node);
}

As you see in the comments above, we need to modify the my-account node in the toolbar.

If you are already familiar with WordPress filters, you know a filter gives you a variable to use when you are modifying WP core content.

This parameter in the admin_bar_menu filter is an instance of class WP_Admin_Bar that contains useful methods to add or modify content. we named it $wp_admin_bar like WP core function.

add_node() method available in $wp_admin_bar can add or modify a node in admin toolbar.

Two useful methods available by this variable are add_node which can add or modify a node, and remove_node, used in deletion.

add_node() method accepts an array of information to add as new node or modifies an existing node if the id key is used before.

Remove the ‘Howdy Admin’ from the WordPress admin bar completely

To remove the box and the text together from the admin bar, you can use this code in your functions.php of your active theme or your custom-made plugin:

add_filter('admin_bar_menu', 'remove_howdy_from_toolbar', 20);
function remove_howdy_from_toolbar($wp_admin_bar){
    $wp_admin_bar->remove_node('my-account');
}

The post How to Change or Remove ‘Howdy Admin’ in WordPress Toolbar first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Check if the current page is a tag page, using the is_tag function

Tag is one of WordPress’s default taxonomies, like categories, post formats, and many other classifications.

When a user visits an archive page, developers can detect if that page is a tag page by using the is_tag function of WordPress.

is_tag function syntax

The syntax has everything you need to know about what it does and what it needs to get the information:

is_tag(int|string|int[]|string[] $tag = '')

$tag parameter is optional; if you do not specify it, is_tag() will return true for all tag pages.

You can check if the current page is a specified tag by declaring the target tag with ID, Name, or slug.

is_tag function also can check if one page belongs to any of multiple declared targets with an array of IDs, Names, and slugs.

Keep reading for examples…

Check if the current page is a tag page (not specified)

To check if a page is a tag page (not specified tag, just tag page in general), you can just use this function in a condition as it is:

if(is_tag()){
	echo "This page is a tag page in general";
}

Check if the current page is a SPECIFIED tag

is_tag function accepts Integer for tag ID and String for tag name or slug.

in the next three examples, we’ll check the current page for a specified tag with ID, name, and slug:

Using is_tag with tag id:

Because tags are WP terms, tag id is the term_id of a tag (Integer).

In this example, We’ll check if the current page in the user’s browser is the tag with term_id = 5:

$targetTagId = 5; //Tag with term_id = 5
if(is_tag($targetTagId)){
	//this page is the exact tag

}
else{
	//this page is NOT the specified tag page
	//but it can be another tag, or not a tag page

}

Using is_tag with tag name:

is_tag function accepts a string to check the page for a tag with specified name (or slug).

$targetTagName = "My Tag"; //"My Tag" as tag name
if(is_tag($targetTagName)){
	//this page is the exact tag

}
else{
	//this page is NOT the specified tag page
	//but it can be another tag, or not a tag page

}

Using is_tag with tag slug:

Slug is a little different from the name. Slug does not contain any spaces or capital letters in it.

In this example, we’ll check if the current page does blog to a tag with the “my-tag” slug:

$targetTagSlug = "my-tag"; //"my-tag" as tag slug
if(is_tag($targetTagSlug)){
	//this page is the exact tag

}
else{
	//this page is NOT the specified tag page
	//but it can be another tag, or not a tag page

}

Check if the current page belongs to one of the multiple tags

WordPress developers can determine an array of mixed-type values to check if the current page belongs to one of them or not.

$targetTags = array(1, 'my-tag', 'My Tag');
if(is_tag($targetTags)){
	//this page belongs to one of these tags

}
else{
	//this page does NOT belong to any of these tags
	//but it can be another tag, or not a tag page

}

The post How to Check if the Current Page is a Tag in WP (+Example) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

How to check if the current user is logged in when developing WordPress?

WordPress introduced is_user_logged_in() in version 2.0 to let developers determine if the current visitor is registered or is a guest.

is_user_logged_in function syntax

The function has clear syntax and does not accept any parameter so that you can use it directly in your conditions:

is_user_logged_in()

The result of executing this function is a boolean value that replicates the visitor’s registration status.

The is_user_logged_in() uses wp_get_current_user() under the hood.
is_user_logged_in() gets the user object from wp_get_current_user(), if the object exists, it returns true; otherwise, false.

is_user_logged_in function usage

In this example, we’ll use the is_user_logged_in() to print an invitation to register on our website for visitors:

if(is_user_logged_in()) {
    echo 'You can use our features, because you are registered!';
}
else {
    echo 'welcome to our website, register to use our features!';
}

The post How to Check if the Current User is logged in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Introducing get_current_user_id function

Since WordPress v2.0.3, developers can use a dedicated function to retrieve the current user’s ID. Before that, they need to get the whole user object first, then extract the ID from it.

get_current_user_id() function introduced to help developers write fewer lines of code when they want to retrieve the current user’s ID.

get_current_user_id function syntax

You do not need to specify anything for this function to get the current user’s ID. The function will detect the current user itself.

get_current_user_id()

After execution, the get_current_user_id() returns the current user’s ID, or if the user is not logged in, it will return 0.

get_current_user_id function example

If this example, we’ll check the current user ID, and if it is equal to what we determined (ID 1), a text message will be printed on the screen:

Another way to get the current user’s ID (Not Recommended for cleaner code)

The get_current_user_id() function is running wp_get_current_user() under the hood. You can directly get the current user with all information, then try to extract the ID from the returned WP_User object.

For a cleaner code, you better use the get_current_user_id().

If you are still interested, you can get the current user’s object from WP and then try to extract the ID from it using this code:

$targetUserId=1;

//get the current user as WP_User object
$currentUser = wp_get_current_user();

//check if current user is available with isset() and then check if it's our targeted user
if(isset($currentUser->ID) && $currentUser->ID === $targetUserId){
	//current user id is matching our target user's id
	echo "Wellcome to our website, You are a special customer to us";
}

The post How to Get the ID of Current Logged in User from WordPress! first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Check if the current page is the WP home page (is_home vs is_front_page)

The is_home function was introduced in WordPress v2.1 to help developers detect the Home Page when a user is visiting.

But it has a con; is_home() does not detect the main page of your website if you set a static front page in WordPress settings. use the is_front_page() function to detect the front page regardless of settings.

is_home and is_front_page function syntax

These two functions need no arguments, and they will return a Boolean value as the result.

is_home()

is_front_page()

What is the difference between is_home and is_front_page functions in WordPress?

From WordPress v2.1, the administrator can set a static page as the website’s front page; and also a “posts page” to show your website’s post list.

is_home() function will return a false value when you set a static page for the WP front. In the case of setting a “posts page” in WP settings, this function will return true on that page.

This setting is available in WordPress Admin Panel -> Settings -> Reading page.

is_front_page() was introduced later to detect the wp front page regardless of settings.

is_home() actually detects the WP home’s posts query. It means if you have a different page for your blog posts and you’ve set a static page for home, it will return a false value.

is_home() vs is_front_page(): is_home detects your posts page. is_front_page detects WordPress’s home page anyway.

The post How to Detect WP Home Page [Default or Static Front Page] first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Check if the current page is a category using is_category function

The is_category function can check if the current page is a category page or not.

The syntax has everything you need to know:

is_category(int|string|int[]|string[] $category = '')

This function only accepts a single argument to specify the category (or categories) you want to check if the current page is presenting.

The $category can be a single value of type integer or string. If a single value is declared (not an array), WP will check if the current page is a category matching the given slug, name, or ID.

If you have multiple values, to check if the current page is a category matching any of the given array values, you can declare an array of IDs (integer), category names (string), or slugs (string). It is possible to use them mixed together.

Keep reading to find examples for each use case…

Check if the current page is a category page (not specified)

//just use the function with no argument
if(is_category()){
	//this page is a category page

}
else{
	//this page is NOT a category page

}

Check if the current page is a specified category

Providing a single value of type Integer to String for the is_category function will result in checking the current page for a specified category.

Check by category ID:

Using integer value will result in checking the current page for a specific category by ID.

$categoryId = 7; //Category with term_id = 7
if(is_category($categoryId)){
	//this page is the exact category

}
else{
	//this page is NOT the specified category page
	//but it can be another category, or not a category page

}

Check by category slug:

Developers can use String value to check the current page for a specific category by slug (or name in the next example).

In this example, we checked if the current query belongs to a category with a specific slug (uncategorized):

$categorySlug = "uncategorized";
if(is_category($categorySlug)){
	//this page is the exact category page

}
else{
	//this page is NOT the specified category page
	//but it can be another category, or not a category page

}

Check by category name:

Category names can have spaces, and their letters are not forced lower case, which makes them different from slugs.

If you declare the category you want to check with a String, WP also will check the page for a category with the given name (besides slug).

In this example, we checked if the current query belongs to a category with a specific name (Uncategorized):

$categoryName = "Uncategorized";
if(is_category($categoryName)){
	//this page is the exact category page

}
else{
	//this page is NOT the specified category page
	//but it can be another category, or not a category page

}

Check if the current page is at least one of multiple categories

We are declaring an array for the is_category function. Using this array of values (IDs, Names, or Slugs), WordPress will check if the current page is at least one of the specified categories.

You can use mixed-type values for the array. It means each array value will be checked by the is_category function individually. It returns a true value when encountering the FIRST match.

In this example, is_category determines if the current page is a category page matching one of the given array values (ID, slug, and name mixed together):

$categories = array(7, 'my-category-slug', 'My Category Name');
if(is_category($categories)){
	//this page belongs to one of these categories

}
else{
	//this page does NOT belong to any of these categories
	//but it can be another category, or not a category page

}

The post How to Check if the Current Page is a Category in WordPress! first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

The has_tag function: Checks if a Post has a Specific Tag or Tags

Syntax of the has_tag function:

has_tag(string|int|array $tag='', int|object $post=null)

As it is obvious from the syntax, the has_tags() function has the ability to determine if a specific tag or specified multiple tags are added to a post by the author.

Two optional parameters, $tag & $post, are what this function asks you to return an exact boolean answer for your request.

The $tag can be String if you want to check the tag’s existence in a post with its slug or name.

Use Integer value for $tag if you have the ID of a tag and you want to check if it exists in a WP post.

$tag also can be an array containing multiple tag IDs, Slugs, or names. In case of encountering with array value for the $tag parameter, the has_tag() function will return a true value if any of the given tags are set for the specified post.

If the $tag parameter is not set for the has_tag() function, it will check if the post has any tags at all.

The $post parameter is also optional; this means developers can skip determining the post if they are targeting the current queried post.

For example, If you execute the has_tag() function in single.php file of the active theme, WP will check if the current post has any tags at all, and it will be true if the post has even one tag.

Learn how to detect tags in a WP post with examples

Either If you are looking for a way to check if a single tag exists in a WordPress post or if any of a collection of tags exists there, you can use the has_tag() function.

Check if a post exists in a specific tag

If you can provide a string value for tag slug or tag name or an integer value for tag ID, you just need to pass it to has_tag function.

In this example, I checked the existence of a tag with tutorial-articles slug in a post with ID 1.

//set post id (set NULL for the current queried post)
$postId = 1;

// use tag slug, tag name or term ID (int) to check existance
$tag = "tutorial-articles";

// check if tutorial-articles tag is set for the post
if(has_tag($tag, $postId)){
	//post exists, do stuff:
	echo "This post exists in the tag.";
}
else{
	echo "This post does NOT exist in the tag.";
}

To check the existence of the tag in the current queried post, you can just skip declaring $postId, or make it Null.

Check if a post exists in any of multiple tags

If you have multiple tags to check the post’s existence in them, you can still use the has_tag function.
You just need to declare the $tag parameter as an Array of tag slugs, names, or tag IDs.

In the below example, I’ll check if the post with ID 1 exists in any of the given tag slugs.

//set post id (set NULL for the current queried post)
$postId = 1;

// check exitence of post in one of these array values
$tags = array("tutorial-articles", "top-tutorials", "recommended-articles");

// check if good-post tag is set for the post
if(has_tag($tags, $postId)){
	//post exists, do stuff:
	echo "This post does NOT exist in one of the given tags.";
}
else{
	echo "This post does exist in any of these tags.";
}

The $tags variable that I declared can be an array of tag slugs, names (string), or IDs (integer).

The post How to Check if Post has a Specific Tag in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

These kinds of functionalities are the main reason that I Love WP

If you are looking for a way to query WordPress posts, you better first read my tutorial on how to query WordPress posts. Then you can continue this tutorial to learn how to exclude posts from a query by specifying a keyword.

Exclude WordPress Posts from a Query by Keyword

use 's' => '-title' in your arguments when you’re executing the get_posts function (replace title with your desired keyword). This way, you tell the WP to exclude all those posts from the get_post query.

$keywordToExclude = "change keyword here";
$args = array(
	's' => '-'.$keywordToExclude
);

//query posts
$posts = get_posts($args);

//print all posts without the keyword in title
foreach ($posts as $post){
	echo "Title: ".$post->post_title." 
";
}

The post How to Exclude Posts with a Word from WordPress Query first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

List users in WordPress using the get_users function

The result of executing the WordPress get_users function is an array of user IDs or objects.

This function is super flexible. WP developers can determine the type of returned value, fields, query filters, order, and a bunch of other stuff we’ll get into shortly by specifying an array of optional arguments.

get_users function syntax

This WordPress function receives an array of arguments to customize the result set for you.

get_users(array $args = array())

As you can see, because $args has the default value of array(), $args is an optional parameter.

The optional $args parameter accepts a variety of options which I’ll explain after the example.

get_users function example: Print list of all users in WP

To print all users (including admin users) in an HTML list, use the below code:

$args = array(); //define arguments if you need
$users = get_users($args);

$listHtml = '<ul>';
foreach($users as $user){
	$listHtml .= '<li>'
	. 'ID: '.$user->data->ID."<br />"
	. 'Username: '.$user->data->user_login."<br />"
	. 'Nice Name: '.$user->data->user_nicename."<br />"
	. 'Display Name: '.$user->data->display_name."<br />"
	. 'Email: '.$user->data->user_email."<br />"
	. 'URL (website): '.$user->data->user_url."<br />"
	. 'Registration Date: '.$user->data->user_registered."<br />"
	. '<li>';
}
$listHtml .= '</ul>';

echo $listHtml;

How to set arguments for get_users function to sort and filter the result?

The get_users function actually executes WP_User_Query under the hood.

You can define arguments to query users based on your needs.

Here is the list of all possible arguments to set for the get_users function:

$args = array(
            'blog_id'             => 1,
            'role'                => '',
            'role__in'            => array(),
            'role__not_in'        => array(),
            'capability'          => '',
            'capability__in'      => array(),
            'capability__not_in'  => array(),
            'meta_key'            => '',
            'meta_value'          => '',
            'meta_compare'        => '',
            'include'             => array(),
            'exclude'             => array(),
            'search'              => '',
            'search_columns'      => array(),
            'orderby'             => 'login',
            'order'               => 'ASC',
            'offset'              => '',
            'number'              => '',
            'paged'               => 1,
            'count_total'         => true,
            'fields'              => 'all',
            'who'                 => '',
            'has_published_posts' => null,
            'nicename'            => '',
            'nicename__in'        => array(),
            'nicename__not_in'    => array(),
            'login'               => '',
            'login__in'           => array(),
            'login__not_in'       => array(),
        );

Explaining above attributes:

• blog_id -> to set blog id (int), default is the current blog (do not need to set it for a normally installed WP)
• role -> to get users with a specified role
• role__in -> accepts array to get users of many roles (array values)
• role__not_in -> accepts array to get users without specified roles (array values)
• capability -> to specify the capability of users you want to get
• capability__in -> accepts array to get users with specified capabilities (array values)
• capability__not_in -> accepts array to get users without specified capabilities (array values)
• meta_key -> to filter users based on a meta information set on the user object (meta_value required)
• meta_value -> to filter users based on value of the key defined in meta_key
• meta_compare -> to set the comparison operation to compare meta_value with provided data in the database for meta_key label
• include -> to include an array of user IDs in the query
• exclude -> to exclude an array of user IDs from the query
• search -> to search users based on a keyword match in search_columns
• search_columns -> default value is empty. If left empty, search tries to determine the search column based on the search keyword.
• orderby -> default is ‘login’, possible values: ‘ID’, ‘display_name’, ‘name’, ‘include’, ‘user_login’ ,’login’, ‘login__in’, ‘user_email, ’email’ , ‘user_registered’, ‘registered’, ‘post_count’
• order -> default direction is ASC, and you can change it to DESC for reverse order
• offset -> Useful for list pagination. it receives an integer which determines how many users to skip before fetching the list from the database
• number -> limit the number of users you want to retrieve
• paged -> to determine if pagination is active for this query or not. Default is true.
• count_total -> default is true
• fields -> to determine what field you need as a return. default is all. It can be a single field or an array of available user fields (ex: ‘ID’, ‘display_name’, ‘user_login’, ‘user_nicename’, ‘user_email’, ‘user_url’, ‘user_registered’, ‘user_pass’, ‘user_activation_key’, ‘user_status’)
• who -> only possible value is ‘authors’. The other option is the default value which is all users.
• has_published_posts -> to get only authors with published posts
• nicename -> to filter users based on nice name
• nicename__in ->it accepts an array to filter users based on a collection of nice names
• nicename__not_in -> it accepts an array to exclude users based on a collection of nice names
• login -> to get an specific user with specified username
• login__in -> it accepts an array to filter users based on a collection of usernames
• login__not_in -> it accepts an array to exclude users based on a collection of usernames

What information can I get from WP_User objects?

WP_User object contains all information about a user in WordPress. Check out the below attributes to know if it fits your needs:

WP_User Object
	(
		[data] => stdClass Object
			(
				[ID]
				[user_login]
				[user_pass]
				[user_nicename]
				[user_email]
				[user_url]
				[user_registered]
				[user_activation_key]
				[user_status]
				[display_name]
			)
			
		[ID]
		[caps] => Array()
		[cap_key]
		[roles] => Array()
		[allcaps] => Array()
		[filter]
	)

The data attribute contains all printable information about the user.

The caps, cap_key, roles, and allcaps are the attributes you are looking for if you want to work with WordPress ACL and user permissions. the allcaps is detailed user access to WordPress functionalities.

List users in WP editor using a shortcode

Defining a new shortcode to print all users

Shortcodes are an amazing part of WP development.

Shortcodes are the easiest way to use dynamic content between your regular text when editing WP posts.

In this example, I’ll create a function out of previous code that you hopefully tested. I’ll call it my_custom_users_list().

Then I’ll hook a shortcode to the function, so every time the shortcode is presented in a post’s content, It will print a list of registered users on your website.

-> Add this code to functions.php file of your active template:

//first check if my_custom_users_list is defined before or not.
if(!function_exists('my_custom_users_list')){
	//function that runs when shortcode is called
	function my_custom_users_list() {
		$args = array(); //define arguments if you need
		$users = get_users($args);

		$listHtml = '<ul>';
		foreach($users as $user){
			$listHtml .= '<li>'
			             . 'ID: '.$user->data->ID."<br />"
			             . 'Username: '.$user->data->user_login."<br />"
			             . 'Nice Name: '.$user->data->user_nicename."<br />"
			             . 'Display Name: '.$user->data->display_name."<br />"
			             . 'Email: '.$user->data->user_email."<br />"
			             . 'URL (website): '.$user->data->user_url."<br />"
			             . 'Registration Date: '.$user->data->user_registered."<br />"
			             . '</li>';
		}
		$listHtml .= '</ul>';

		return $listHtml;
	}

}

//register my-users-list shortcode
function register_my_users_list_shortcode(){
	add_shortcode('my-users-list', 'my_custom_users_list');
}
add_action( 'init', 'register_my_users_list_shortcode' );

//to test the shortcode, uncomment next line:
/*echo do_shortcode('[my-users-list]');*/

Using the shortcode inside WP editor or do_shortcode function

To use this custom-made shortcode, you can add [my-users-list] in the WordPress editor while editing a post or page (or whatever).

If you want to use this function in PHP code, you can use:

echo do_shortcode('[my-users-list]');

The post How to Get Users in WordPress (+Print Users List Shortcode) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

The get_post_format function is responsible to retrieve the format of a WP post. This functionality has been added to WordPress since version 3.1.

get_post_format function syntax

This is the syntax when you want to use the get_post_format function of WordPress (keep reading for the practical example):

get_post_format(int|WP_Post|null $post = null)

If you do not specify the optional $post parameter for this function, or you just pass null, get_post_format will retrieve the post format of the current queried WP post (current post in the loop or in the single.php file).

Example of using the get_post_format function to retrieve a post’s format in WP

We have specified the ID of the post in $postId variable. We used 1 as the post ID, you can change it to any post ID you need or do not specify it for the current queried post (the default value for $post parameter is null).

$postId = 1;
$postFormat = get_post_format($postId);
if($postFormat)
	echo $postFormat;

WordPress default Post Formats

WP has its own post formats; also, developers can add new post formats with specifications they desire.

If you did not add any new post formats to WordPress, either by installing third-party plugins or your own codes, This is the list of possible formats (as a “string” that represents the name of the format):

• aside
• chat
• gallery
• link
• image
• quote
• status
• video
• audio

If you try the function on a not -freshly installed WordPress, you may get other formats too.

The post How to Get Post Format by Post ID in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

What are user roles in WordPress?

As you must know, every user registers with a user role in WordPress.

WordPress has a few default user roles with different capabilities:

• Super Admin
• Administrator
• Editor
• Author
• Contributor
• Subscriber

User roles are essential for developing a legitimate ACL (read more about ACL on Wikipedia).

Developers most of the time give access to a specific user role to modify data or run functionalities in the admin panel.

Not every user must have access to moderation functionalities, so WordPress introduced user roles to control user access.

If you are the first user of your WP, you are most likely a Super Admin.

You can create other users by using the admin panel or through public user registration.

Super Admin can set the “New User Default Role” in Settings->General page inside the admin panel.

How can I remove a user role in WordPress?

If you want to remove a WordPress default user role or a role you’ve created yourself, you can use the remove_role function.

remove_role function syntax

The remove_role function will remove a role only with a role name. The only parameter the function gets is $role.

remove_role($role)

the $role parameter is a string value for a role name, the only variable needed to delete a WordPress role.

remove_role function example

For example, we’re going to remove the “Contributor” role from WordPress:

$role = "contributor";
remove_role($role)

Above will work in a custom WordPress plugin or inside the functions.php file of your current theme.

If you do not know how to create a WordPress plugin, I recommend you read my tutorial:

How to create a Hello World plugin for WordPress in 3 Steps

The post How to Remove a User Role from WordPress (with example) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Check if a post exists by the Post ID

get_post function: Not the most perfect option

The get_post function is useful when you want to check whether a post exists, but it is not the most optimized option.

!is_null( get_post($postId) is working when you want to make sure a post with an ID exists in WordPress:

$postId = 1;
if(!is_null(get_post($postId)){
    //post exists!

}

I wrote a tutorial about the get_post function a while ago, you can read the article to learn how to work with this function deeper:

WordPress Query Posts by Category, Tag, Custom attribute, and more!

But I told you it’s not the best idea to use the get_post function to check if a post exists or not.

Continue reading this article for better options to use when you want to check if a post exists by ID.

get_post_status function: Better choice due to less resource usage

I recommend using the get_post_status function to check if a post exists in WordPress or not.

$postId = 1;
if(get_post_status($postId)) {
    //post exists!

}

post_exists function: Check post existence by title, content, date

The most used WordPress function for post existence status is the post_exists function.

post_exists function syntax

This function determines if a post is existed by title, content, date, type, and status.

If the post_exists function finds any post matching specified options; It’ll return the post ID.

post_exists($title, $content = '', $date = '', $type = '', $status = '')

$title is required, but other parameters are optional.

post_exists usage example

In the below example, I tried checking if a post with the title “A title to test” exists or not:

$findPostByTitle = "A title to test";
if(post_exists($findPostByTitle)){
    //post exists!

}

The post How to Check if a Post Exists in WordPress (+Example) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

When it comes to including multiple files inside a plugin, the plugin_dir_path function becomes super helpful.

It’s popular for WordPress developers to use the plugin_dir_path function for including PHP files into each other.

Get Plugin Directory Path Using plugin_dir_path Function

The plugin_dir_path function in WordPress is available if you need a complete path to your plugin’s directory.

plugin_dir_path function syntax

The function syntax is pretty easy:

plugin_dir_path($file)

$file parameter’s value must be a string.

I saw lots of developers using the dirname(__FILE__) value for $file in the main file of their plugins.

Keep reading; We’ll try the most common usage of plugin_dir_path function in an example:

Using plugin_dir_path function to get the plugin directory path

Using this code inside your custom plugin is useful.

To make it possible for us to use our main plugin directory in a variable everywhere, we can define It with PHP:

define('MY_CUSTOM_PLUGIN_DIR', plugin_dir_path(dirname( __FILE__ )));

Remember that this code works in the main file of a plugin.

For future usage of defining MY_CUSTOM_PLUGIN_DIR, I have an example for you:

$cssUrl = MY_CUSTOM_PLUGIN_DIR . '/css/plugin-style.css';

You can use the defined variable everywhere you want inside your plugin.

Also, you can get the path to the WordPress root directory with the get_home_path function if needed (or ABSPATH constant). Sometimes it’s a better option to use instead of plugin_dir_path function.

If you are not familiar with the process of creating a WordPress plugin, you better read my tutorial:

How to create a Hello World plugin for WordPress in 3 Steps

To keep more into it, you can read the plugin_dir_path function code reference on the WordPress official website for developers.

The post How to Get Plugin Directory Path in WordPress (+Example) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

wp_list_authors function syntax

Listing authors in WordPress is possible by using the wp_list_authors function.

There was a list_authors function available in WordPress too, but it is deprecated from the WordPress version 2.1.0!

WordPress recommends that you use wp_list_authors instead of list_authors.

wp_list_authors($args = "")

the $args parameter can be an array or string. You can specify arguments to customize the result based on your needs.

What can be inside the $args array for wp_list_authors function?

• orderby: determines what is the order based on. possible values are: ‘nicename’, ‘ID’, ’email’, ‘url’, ‘registered’, ‘user_nicename’, ‘user_email’, ‘user_url’, ‘user_registered’, ‘name’, ‘display_name’, ‘post_count’, ‘meta_value’, ‘user_login’.
• order: sets order direction. it can be one these two values: ASC or DESC.
• number: sets limit for authours you want to get or print. value must be an integer. if you do not set this, the function will use all authors.
• optioncount: displays how many posts this author has. value can be true or false (default: false).
• exclude_admin: exclude admin users from the list. value can be true or false (default: true).
• show_fullname: determines if fullname must be displayed or not. value can be true or false (default: false).
• hide_empty: it tells WP to exclude authors with no posts. value can be true or false (default: true).
• feed: displays a text link to authors feed. value must be string.
• feed_image: displays an image link to authors feed. value must be string.
• feed_type: sets the type of feed we want to display. value can be ‘rss2’, ‘atom’.
• echo: requests the print action for this function. value can be true or false. if it sets to true, you do not need to use php echo function (default: true).
• style: If value sets to list, authors will be inside a <li> tag, other values will generate comma separated authors information.
• html: determines if you want the output be in HTML or plain text (default: true, HTML format).
• exclude: excludes authors by IDs. it accepts comma separated user IDs or an array containing IDs (int[]).
• include: includes authors by IDs. it accepts comma separated user IDs or an array containing IDs (int[]).

wp_list_authors function example

In this example, we’re going to print a list of authors using the wp_list_authors function in WordPress.

I set a number of 10 authors (admins included) to be printed with the number of their posts displayed ordered by user ID.

In this example, printing style is list and authors with no posts are excluded.

$args = array(
	'orderby'       => 'ID',
	'order'         => 'ASC',
	'number'        => 10,
	'optioncount'   => true,
	'exclude_admin' => false,
	'show_fullname' => false,
	'hide_empty'    => true,
	'echo'          => true,
	'style'         => 'list',
	'html'          => true,
	'exclude'       => '',
	'include'       => '',
);

wp_list_authors($args);

Look at the echo field in $args array. It defines that we need the authors’ list to be printed by the function itself.

If the echo field was set to false, you must use the PHP echo command to print the list.

Listing authors with a shortcode in WordPress

In this example, We’ll create a shortcode to print a list of authors when we want.

You can use this code inside the functions.php file of your current theme Or create a new WordPress plugin for yourself.

function print_my_authors_in_list($atts){
	$args = array(
		'orderby'       => isset($atts['orderby']) ? $atts['orderby'] : 'name',
		'order'         => isset($atts['order']) ? $atts['order'] : 'ASC',
		'number'        => isset($atts['number']) ? $atts['number'] : '',
		'optioncount'   => isset($atts['optioncount']) ? $atts['optioncount'] : false,
		'exclude_admin' => isset($atts['exclude-admin']) ? $atts['exclude-admin'] : true,
		'show_fullname' => isset($atts['show-fullname']) ? $atts['show-fullname'] : false,
		'hide_empty'    => isset($atts['hide-empty']) ? $atts['hide-empty'] : true,
		'echo'          => false,
		'style'         => isset($atts['style']) ? $atts['style'] : 'list',
		'html'          => isset($atts['html']) ? $atts['html'] : true,
		'exclude'       => isset($atts['exclude']) ? $atts['exclude'] : '',
		'include'       => isset($atts['include']) ? $atts['include'] : '',
	);

	return wp_list_authors($args);
}

add_shortcode("print-my-authors-list","print_my_authors_in_list");

// try to execute the shortcode:
// use 0 or 1 instead of true/false
echo do_shortcode('[print-my-authors-list exclude-admin="0" optioncount="1"]');

In the above example, We executed the shortcode with the do_shortcode function.

You also can use this shortcode inside WordPress editor.

The post How to List All Authors in WordPress (Shortcode Included!) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

How to check if a specific post is sticky when developing WordPress?

is_sticky function will help you in this situation.

Just give the is_sticky function a post ID , and it will determine if a post is sticky or not with a true/false value.

The current queried post will be targeted if you do not specify a post ID.

is_sticky function syntax

The syntax is pretty easy and understandable:

is_sticky(int $postId)

is_sticky function example

To check if the post with ID 1 is sticky or not in WordPress, you can use this code:

$postId = 1;
if(is_sticky(int $postId)){
    //post is sticky!

}

The post How to Check if a Post is Sticky in WordPress (+Example) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

current_user_can function: Check if the current user has a specified ability

The current_user_can function is responsible for checking if the current user has a specified ability or not.

We can use this function to check if the current user is an administrator or not.

current_user_can function syntax

WordPress current_user_can function needs two parameters to work as you need.

it just checks if the current user can do something with something or not!

current_user_can($capability, $object_id, ...$moreArgs)

$capability determines what ability you want to check.

$object_id determines what is the ID of the object you need the ability to be checked for (optional).

…$moreArgs in syntax means that you can define more arguments based on the function usage.

How to use current_user_can function to Check if the current user is an Admin

If you check the administrator capability for the current user, you can determine if the current user is an admin or not:

if(current_user_can('administrator')){
     //current user is an administrator

}

DO NOT Use is_admin() to Detect an Administrator User

is_admin() is the function to check if the user is currently in the admin panel; it does not work on the frontend of the WordPress.

The post How to Check if the Current User is Administrator in WP first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

In this tutorial, we’ll try using the WordPress in_category function in a working WordPress environment.

in_category function syntax

This function gets two parameters, the first one contains the categories, and the second one is the post.

$category parameter can be an integer, string, or an array containing multiple integers and strings (int[] or string[]).

$post parameter is optional; it can be a post ID or a post object.

If you do not specify $post, WordPress will consider the current post.

The WordPress in_category function runs the has_category function under the hood.

Check if a post is in specified categories using the in_category function

In this example, we’re going to check if a post with id 1 is in the uncategorized category or not.

Change the $category to your category name, and $postId to your desired post’s id (use null for current post).

$category = "uncategorized"; //change the name
$postId = 1; //set null for current post
if(in_category($category, $postId)){
     //post is in the category

}

You can change the $category value to an array.

WordPress developers can use array("uncategorized") value for $category and get the same result from the above example.

The post How to Check if a Post is in Specific Categories (+Example) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

has_shortcode function syntax

The has_shortcode function gets two parameters, a content and a tag.

Developers use this function to check if a shortcode is available in the content or not.

has_shortcode($content, $tag)

Behind the scenes, WordPress uses regex to find shortcodes in content and checks if a specific shortcode is available between them or not.

But this function does more than just a regex checking.

has_shortcode also checks if the shortcode is a real shortcode in WordPress or Not.

has_shortcode function usage example

this function has a simple syntax to use. We’re going to try it in a working example:

if(has_shortcode('[test]', 'test')){
	// test is not a default WP shortcode
	// if you or a plugin did not defined it, will return false
}

if(has_shortcode('', 'video')){
	// test is a default WP shortcode
	// if you did not removed it, this condition is true
}

If you are interested in shortcodes in WordPress, you can read my tutorials:

• How to Add a Custom Shortcode to WordPress? (+Example)
• How to Count Users in WordPress? (Example + Shortcode)
• How to List All Authors in WordPress? (Shortcode Included!)

The post How to Check if Content has a Specific Shortcode in WP first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Register a custom size for images in WordPress

Registering a custom image size in WordPress is easy task to do.

To register a new image size, we are going to use the add_image_size function inside functions.php or a custom plugin:

$sizeName = "100-100";
$width = 100;
$height = 100;
$crop = true;

add_image_size($sizeName, $width, $height, $crop);

Read more about registering a custom size for images, in my articles:

How to Register a Custom Image Size in WordPress? (+Example)

Retrieve thumbnail URL with desired size

After registering a desired size for images, you can retrieve uploaded images in registered size.

You only need to use the name of thumbnail size you registered in get_the_post_thumbnail_url function:

$postId = 1; //select post by id
$sizeName = "100-100"; //registered name in previous example!

$thumbnailUrl = get_the_post_thumbnail_url($postId, $sizeName);

Retrieve WordPress default thumbnail sizes

WordPress has a few default image sizes: thumbnail, medium, medium_large, and large.

Use each one of these default sizes in get_the_post_thumbnail_url function to get the URL you need.

$postId = 1; //select post by id
$thumbnailUrl = get_the_post_thumbnail_url($postId, "thumbnail");
$mediumUrl = get_the_post_thumbnail_url($postId, "medium");
$mediumLargeUrl = get_the_post_thumbnail_url($postId, "medium_large");
$largeUrl = get_the_post_thumbnail_url($postId, "large");

Note: if thumbnails are not generating (check the file server to find out), check if GD is enable in your PHP.

To do that, open php.ini file in the server and search for extension=gd in the file. If you see ; character in the begining of it’s declaration line, remove the ; to enable GD.

Then restart the web server.

The post How to get Post Thumbnail URL with Custom Size first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Setting custom fields on posts is one of the most important features of WordPress.

Developers use this functionality to save data on posts that can be retrieved easily for later usages.

This WordPress tutorial will try saving a custom field on a post and then retrieving it in the frontend.

How to set a custom field for a post in WordPress?

WordPress lets moderators set custom fields when they are editing a post in the admin panel.

There is also another way, Using functions to set the custom field for the post.

We’re going to check out both.

1- Using WordPress admin panel (in 3 Steps)

Setting a custom field in the admin UI is the preferred way for moderators.

Step 1:

When you are editing a post in the WordPress admin panel, look for the “Custom Fields” box under the editor:

Step 2:

Click “Enter new” in the custom fields box:

Step 3:

Then you can type a name and value and click “Add Custom Field”:

In case you did not find the Custom Fields box when editing the post in WP:

If you do not see the Custom Fields box, you must check the “Custom Fields” option in the Screen Options (old WP versions) or Preferences -> Panels -> Additional (newer versions, using Gutenberg editor).

Enable Custom Fields in Screen Options (Classic WP Editor):

Look for the “Screen Option” button on the top right location of your WordPress post edit page. It is next to the “Help” button.

Enable Custom Fields in Post Preferences (Gutenberg Editor):

To enable custom fields in the Gutenberg editor, you must open the preferences settings, like bellow:

After opening the preferences popup, Select “Panel,” and then enable the “Custom Fields” option:

2- Using PHP codes

Functions are easier for me to explain!

If you know the post ID, you want to set the custom field for, use the update_post_meta function to add your custom field.

The update_post_meta function will check the custom field existence; if it’s existed, the function will update it; if not, the function will add it.

update_post_meta function syntax

I’m going to explain this function first, and then I’ll try it in an example.

update_post_meta($post_id, $meta_key, $meta_value, $prev_value = '')

$post_id Is obvious. It’s the ID of the post you want to set the custom field for.

$meta_key is the name of the custom field you want to set.

$meta_value Is the value of the custom field.

$prev_value is not a required parameter, but it’s a tricky one.

If you set the $prev_value parameter, you actually are referring to a custom field with a specific value (to update it!).

$prev_value is useful when you want to manage multiple custom fields with the same name.

By setting $prev_value, you are using the previous value as the reference to distinguish between the available custom fields with this name.

For a simple example, keep reading…

Set or update a custom field using the update_post_meta function

When you know the syntax, setting a custom field for your posts is easy.

For example, you can set a custom field with the name “my_rating” and value “4” in a post with an ID of 1:

$post_id = 1;
$meta_key = "my_rating";
$meta_value = 4;
update_post_meta($post_id, $meta_key, $meta_value);

Read my tutorial on adding one custom field for many posts simultaneously, if this can assist you further.

How to get a custom field of a post in WordPress?

get_post_meta function syntax

The WordPress get_post_meta function can retrieve the custom field value of a post for you.

get_post_meta($post_id, $key = '', $single = false)

$key is the name of the custom field you want to retrieve for the $post_id.

$single is a boolean flag; If you set it as false (default), the result will be an array; If true, the result will be a single value.

get_post_meta usage example

In this example, we will retrieve what we set in the previous example.

We’ll retrieve the my_rating custom field from a post with an ID 1:

$post_id = 1;
$key = "my_rating";
$single = true; //it is a single custom field
$my_rating = get_post_meta($post_id, $key, $single);

The post How to Set or Get a Custom Field for a Post in WP first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

get_page_by_title function Is useful when a WordPress developer wants full details of a page, but he or she only has the title available.

How to use get_page_by_title function to find a page by title?

get_page_by_title syntax in WordPress

The get_page_by_title function receives 3 parameters. You must specify a title, and two optional parameters for output, and post type.

get_page_by_title($pageTitle, $output = OBJECT, $postType = 'page')

• $pageTitle: This parameter is required. Set the title to get it if it’s available.
• $output: Can be one of OBJECT (default value), ARRAY_A (associative array), or ARRAY_N (numeric array) values.
• $postType: Default value for this parameter is page, but you can set other types or an array of types.

Example of getting a page using get_page_by_title function

I want to retrieve a page with “About Us” title, although you can replace it with anything you want:

$pageTitle = "About Us";
$pageObject = get_page_by_title($pageTitle);
if($pageObject){
    //page exists, use the object

}

Result of running get_page_by_title function

The function will return a WP_Post object of the page if it’s available. otherwise, it will return a null value:

WP_Post Object
(
    [ID] => 140
    [post_author] => 1
    [post_date] => 2021-02-05 11:53:37
    [post_date_gmt] => 2021-02-05 11:53:37
    [post_content] => Test Content
    [post_title] => About Us
    [post_excerpt] => 
    [post_status] => publish
    [comment_status] => closed
    [ping_status] => closed
    [post_password] => 
    [post_name] => about-us
    [to_ping] => 
    [pinged] => 
    [post_modified] => 2021-02-05 11:53:37
    [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-02-05 11:53:37
    [post_content_filtered] => 
    [post_parent] => 0
    [guid] => http://sitename.com/about-us/
    [menu_order] => 0
    [post_type] => page
    [post_mime_type] => 
    [comment_count] => 0
    [filter] => raw
)

Good questions about get_page_by_title function

You may have questions about the WordPress get_page_by_title function.

Here I answered a few important questions that I’ve encountered about this function:

1- What page the get_page_by_title function will return when two or more pages have the same title?

The get_page_by_title function will return the older one when two pages have the same title.

If in a case, it’s just two pages with the same title, the get_page_by_title function will the one with the smaller ID.

But if it’s multiple pages with the same title (more than two), WordPress uses publication date to determine the oldest page, not the ID.

2- Is the get_page_by_title function case sensitive?

Yes, It is!

You better set the exact title to find a page when you are using the get_page_by_title function.

3- What if I need to get pages based on other information?

The get_posts function in WordPress is useful when you need pages with other information.

I recommend you read my article about get_posts function:

WordPress Query Posts by Category, Tag, Custom attribute, and more!

When using the get_posts function, you can use the post_type field to find posts of any type (in this case, page).

4- Where can we learn more about WordPress pages and their related functions?

WordPress’s official website has a developers section that is the best source for any information when you are a beginner.

Search for page functions inside the WordPress archive, so you can find many useful functions related to WordPress pages.

The post How to Get Page by Title in WordPress (+Example) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

If a user reads a post, the get_previous_post_link function can help the visitor navigate better through your website.

Like the get_next_post_link function (print the next post link), the get_previous_post_link function looks for the queried post by WordPress to generate a link for you.

get_previous_post_link Function Syntax

All of the parameters in get_previous_post_link function are optional!

It means that you can use this function just with parentheses (get_previous_post_link()).

Checkout the complete syntax:

get_previous_post_link(
    $format = '« %link',
    $link = '%title',
    $in_same_term = false,
    $excluded_terms = '',
    $taxonomy = 'category'
)

Explaining get_previous_post_link function parameters

• $format: Printing format for all of the printing text, Including the link and what’s around it. %link is the actual link (<a> tag).
• $link: Actual link printing format (<a> tag). The default value is ‘%title’.
• $in_same_term: Specifies that you only need links from the same taxonomy as the current post. The default value is false.
• $excluded_terms: Excludes terms by Id. You can use a comma-separated list of IDs or an array.
• $taxonomy: Specifies what taxonomy you want to check for printing the previous post (category, tag, etc).

Get the Previous Post Link in WordPress

You can try using WordPress get_previous_post_link in the single.php of your currently active theme:

get_previous_post_link();

Output:

<a href="http://site-url.com/post-url/" rel="previous">« Previous Post's Title</a>

The post How to get the Previous Post Link in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

get_next_post_link function will print the next post URL when the user reads one.

So if you want to use get_next_post_link function while developing WordPress, WP will look for a current post object and will generate the next post URL for you.

get_next_post_link Function Syntax

This function’s syntax is easy to understand and parameters names represent what options you can set to customize generated HTML code.

get_next_post_link(
 $format = '%link »',
 $link = '%title',
 $in_same_term = false,
 $excluded_terms = '',
 $taxonomy = 'category'
)

get_next_post_link Function Usage

You can use the get_next_post_link function inside the single.php file of your current template.

get_next_post_link()

Output:

<a href="http://site-url.com/post-url/" rel="next">Next Post's Title</a>»

The post How to get the Next Post URL in WordPress (Working Example) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

How to get Last Post Publish Date using the get_lastpostdate function in WordPress?

get_lastpostdate function is helpful when you want to retrieve the latest post publish date.

This function’s syntax is easy to understand:

get_lastpostdate($timezone='server', $postType='any')

Set the $timezone parameter to get the date based on your selected timezone.

$postType can determine what type of posts you want information about.

How to get the Date that a Post was Modified using the get_lastpostmodified function in WordPress?

get_lastpostmodified function will return a date string that represents the last date and time a post was modified on the current website.

The syntax is much like the previous function:

get_lastpostmodified($timezone='server', $postType='any')

Parameters are the same as get_lastpostdate function.

Example of running these two functions in my case:

$lastPostPublishDate = get_lastpostdate(); //value: 2021-11-03 07:32:44.000000
$lastPostModifyDate = get_lastpostmodified(); //value: 2021-11-05 11:30:53.000000

Returned value was correct for me in the local work space.

If you are interested in more information about post dates, you can follow these articles on my blog:

How to get WordPress Post Date using PHP?

How to set publishing date and time for a WordPress post Programmatically?

The post How to get Publish Date of The Last Post in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Managing URLs when directory names can be changed is a challenging task to do!

To overcome this issue, a pro WordPress developer must use functions instead of fixed URLs.

For example, if you use this URL when you want to load CSS:

<link type="text/css" href="https://website.com/wp-content/themes/theme-name/css/style.css" rel="stylesheet"/>

You will run into loading problems each time you want to change the name of your theme.

But what if you can get this part of the URL in a parameter:

https://website.com/wp-content/themes/theme-name/

So each time you change your theme name or copy codes to another theme, changing URLs won’t be necessary.

Using the bloginfo('template_directory') in your codes will print the Current Theme Directory for you.

For example, use this code when you want to load a CSS file located inside your current theme directory:

<link type="text/css" href="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?/>/css/style.css" rel="stylesheet"/>

Read more about the bloginfo function on WordPress’s official website.

The post How to Get the Current Theme URL in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

WordPress can be installed on any sub-directory in your website host.

WordPress is not always installed on the root folder, so it becomes important to have a function returning the website’s home URL.

When developing WordPress themes or plugins, Using relative addresses for file reference or link building is NOT a great idea.

You should never use fixed URLs also!

The reason is clear; addresses may change due to differences in WordPress installation, selected options, etc.

A good practice for making a linked reference to a website is using the get_home_url function in PHP.

get_home_url Function: Reterives Home URL in WordPress

get_home_url function has a simple syntax in WordPress:

get_home_url($blogId = null, $path = '', $scheme = null)

If you are using WordPress for a single website, pass a null value for $blogId (default is null also).

$path is the relative path from the home URL.

$scheme can be one of these values: ‘http’, ‘https’, ‘relative’, ‘rest’, or null.

Get The Home URL in WP with the get_home_url Function

get_home_url function will return the home page URL; you must print it as HTML.

Example of using the get_home_url function in an HTML link:

<a href="<?php echo get_home_url(); ?>">Home Page</a>

Note: Do NOT confuse the WordPress home url with the WordPress root path.

The post How to Get Home URL in WordPress [Example] first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

How to get full details of a comment in WordPress?

WordPress has made it pretty easy for developers to work with comment entities after version v4.4.0 release.

With the get_comment function provided by WordPress, you can get a specific comment’s details by ID as an object or array (you can determine it).

This WP_Comment object contains the detail of the requested comment with meaningful labels.

get_comment function syntax

This function gets two optional parameters, $comment and $output.

get_comment($comment = null, $output = OBJECT)

$comment parameter determines the comment you want to retrieve details about. This can be an ID or a WP_Comment object.

The default value for $comment parameter is null. This means it will retrieve the current queried comment’s details from the database if you do not specify the comment you want.

$output parameter will determine the type of returned data from WordPress. Use OBJECT (default), ARRAY_A, or ARRAY_N as the value of this optional parameter.

If the get_comment function did not find any comment with the given ID; it will return null as result.

get_comment Output: WP_Comment object

Look at the WP_Comment object attributes returned by the get_comment function of WordPress, it contains detailed information about the specified comment:

WP_Comment Object
(
	[comment_ID],
	[comment_post_ID],
	[comment_author]
	[comment_author_email]
	[comment_author_url]
	[comment_author_IP]
	[comment_date]
	[comment_date_gmt]
	[comment_content]
	[comment_karma]
	[comment_approved]
	[comment_agent]
	[comment_type]
	[comment_parent]
	[user_id]
)

You can get the actual text for the comment with comment_content attribute of the WP_Comment object. the comment_author contains the author’s name, and comment_date value is the date when this comment was sent to the WP blog post.

Example of getting a WP comment’s detail, using comment ID

In this example, we will retrieve a WordPress comment’s information. We will get the comment’s detail with the ID 1, which we specified in $commentId parameter:

$commentId = 1;
$comment = get_comment($commentId);
if($comment){
	echo "Comment ID: " .$comment->comment_ID." 
";
	echo "Comment Post ID: " .$comment->comment_post_ID." 
";
	echo "Comment Author: " .$comment->comment_author." 
";
	echo "Comment Email: " .$comment->comment_author_email." 
";
	echo "Comment Author URL: " .$comment->comment_author_url." 
";
	echo "Comment Author IP: " .$comment->comment_author_IP." 
";
	echo "Comment Date and time: " .$comment->comment_date." 
";
	echo "Comment Date (GMT): " .$comment->comment_date_gmt." 
";
	echo "Comment Content (most important): " .$comment->comment_content." 
";
	echo "Comment Karma: " .$comment->comment_karma." 
";
	echo "Comment Approval Status: " .$comment->comment_approved." 
";
	echo "Comment Agent: " .$comment->comment_agent." 
";
	echo "Comment Type: " .$comment->comment_type." 
";
	echo "Comment parent (if it's a reply): " .$comment->comment_parent." 
";
	echo "Comment User (if available): " .$comment->user_id." 
";
}
else{
	echo "We did not find any comment with the given ID.";
}

The post How to Get Comment Details by ID in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Several ways to get a category ID based on a given category name are available when developing WordPress.

But the most preferred function, in this case, is the get_cat_ID function.

The get_cat_ID function only gets the category name as a parameter, and as a result, it will return an integer ID number.

If the specified category does not exist, the get_the_ID function returned value will be 0.

How to use get_cat_ID function in WordPress?

The get_cat_ID function has an easy syntax and fast usage.

get_cat_ID function syntax in WordPress

The function syntax is super clear. it only accepts one parameter, which is the name of the category (string):

get_cat_ID($categoryName)

get_cat_ID function Example

For a fresh WordPress installation, I want to try the “uncategorized” category name to check if this function works correctly.

$categoryName = "uncategorized";
$categoryId = get_cat_ID($categoryName); //value was 1!

After running the above codes, $categoryId in my case was 1, which is a correct value for my new WordPress installation.

For more information about working with WordPress categories, I recommend you read two articles in my blog:

How to get Categories of a Post in WordPress? (3 Examples!)

How to Query WordPress Categories, Tags and Taxonomies

The post How to Get Category ID by Name in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

In this WordPress tutorial, we’re going to try the count_users function in a working environment.

To get more into it, I’m going to make a shortcode out of the count_users function so that you can print the number anywhere you want using simple code.

We’ll have an extra step to make this function a shortcode, but you can think of it as a bonus tutorial.

How to Count Users in WordPress using the count_users function?

When you are running the count_users function, this function will return an array.

Returned array from the count_users function has a total_users key that contains the number of all users.

But what if you need to count users for each user role? Well, the returned array has that data too!

avail_roles is the key that provides an array value that contains the user count for each available user role.

Example of the count_users function output (fresh WordPress installation):

Array
(
    [total_users] => 1
    [avail_roles] => Array
        (
            [administrator] => 1
            [none] => 0
        )

)

How to print the count_users function output in a shortcode?

To add a shortcode in WordPress, you must use the add_shortcode function to register it.

The add_shortcode function gets two parameters, a unique tag and a callback which is the name of our custom user counter function.

Add the below codes to your current theme’s functions.php file or your custom plugin:

add_shortcode('count-users', 'my_custom_user_counter');
function my_custom_user_counter() {
	return count_users()["total_users"];
}

After adding this code to your WordPress, you can use it inside the WordPress editor or within the do_shortcode function:

[count-users]

I encourage you to create your own plugin to test codes in a more organized way.

If you do not know how to create a Simple WordPress Plugin, read my tutorial:

How to create a Hello World plugin for WordPress in 3 Steps

The post How to Count Users in WordPress (Example + Shortcode) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

The reason you want to count the comments of a post is obvious. After all, comments are the primary way we communicate with our website/blog visitors.

We’ll review the get_comments_number function and try its usage in a working example.

get_comments_number function syntax

WP developers can use get_comments_number function to get the number of comments on a post.

This function accepts one argument for post reference.

get_comments_number($post_id)

$post_id can be a specific post’s ID or a post object.

Counting comments in WordPress using get_comments_number function

The easiest way to retrieve comments number is to use get_comments_number function in WP.

I’m going to show you, how you can retrieve the number of comments on a post with ID 1.

Working example of get_comments_number function:

$post_id = 1; //set the post id
get_comments_number($post_id);

The post How to Count Comments on a Post in WP Programmatically first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

WordPress has a simple function to create custom shortcodes, its called add_shortcode.

In this WordPress tutorial, we’re going to add a custom shortcode using the add_shortcode function in WordPress.

For completing the tutorial we’re going to run this shortcode inside the editor and see what happens.

Explaining add_shortcode function

add_shortcode($tag, $callback)

How to use the add_shortcode to add a new shortcode in WordPress?

Adding a new shortcode

Testing if the shortcode works

The post How to Add a Custom Shortcode to WordPress (+Example) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

WordPress has a helpful function for adding a new image size.

Guess what the function name is? add_image_size!

Using the add_image_size function is possible in the functions.php file of your current theme or a custom-made WordPress plugin.

add_image_size function syntax in WordPress

the add_image_size function needs a name, width, height, and optional crop ability.

add_image_size( string $name, int $width, int $height, bool|array $crop = false )

$name must be string, setting a unique name is required for the new image size.

$width and $height are integers, and their names represent what they do.

$crop can be true, false, or an array containing the x and y positions of the crop (Ex: array("left", "top")).

You can use ‘left’, ‘center’, or ‘right’ for x position and ‘top’, ‘center’, or ‘bottom’ for y position.

Example of adding a new image size using add_image_size function

Using the add_image_size function is not challenging for a WordPress developer.

In the below example, I registered three different image sizes with different attributes:

//name: 500-500, with:500px, height:500px, forced crop:
add_image_size("500-500", 500, 500, true);

//name: custom-size, with:300px, height:200px, no crop:
add_image_size("custom-size", 300, 200, false);

//name: custom-cropped-size, with:150px, height:100px, crop from center:
add_image_size("custom-cropped-size", 150, 100, array("center", "center"));

Note: if thumbnails are not generating at all (even for default options), check if GD is enable in your PHP.

To do that, open php.ini file in the server and search for extension=gd in the file. If you see ; character in the begining of it’s declaration line, remove the ; to enable GD.

Then restart the web server.

How to regenerate older images based on the new registered image size?

Registering a new image size will apply to future image uploads in the admin panel.

You can use the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin to regenerate image sizes for older images.

I used this plugin so many times. It has the option to skip image sizes that are already available in files.

The post How to Register a Custom Image Size in WordPress (+Example) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Smart developers always use WordPress filters and actions if they want to modify any core functionality and data.

WordPress introduced the excerpt_length filter to use when you want to modify the except length of posts.

The default excerpt length is 55 words in WordPress.

To change this number in a working example, you need to modify functions.php file of your current theme or create a simple WordPress plugin.

If you are editing the functions.php file of your theme, use these codes at the end of the file.

How to use excerpt_length filter in WordPress

Like using other WordPress filters. you can use excerpt_length filter easily:

add_filter('excerpt_length', function($length) {
	return 20; //sets length to 20!
}, 1000);

Copy and paste this code to your active theme functions.php or your custom plugin file.

These codes will change WordPress default excerpt length from 40 to 20. You can use any number instead.

The post How to Set Post Excerpt Length in WordPress first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

What are tags, and why is tagging an essential feature for blogging systems?

Just like categories, Tags are one of the default tools to organize content in WordPress.

Administrators or developers often use tags to relate posts to each other for future listings.

For example, it is genius to use tags to display related articles to each post.

Tagging posts will help you optimize your content for search engines and improve your inbound link building.

Tags are one of the first features of WordPress editor.

As a WordPress developer who writes blog posts and Loves SEO technics, I consider tags an essential feature to use.

How to assign tags to WordPress posts?

Defining tags is simple when you are using WordPress editor. Any editor can assign tags to posts while editing them.

As you can see in the screenshot I took while typing this post; you can add a new tag by typing inside the bordered area.

If a tag is available containing the typed word, WordPress will suggest it to you; If not, you can add it as a new tag by just hitting enter on your keyboard.

How to list tags assigned to a post programmatically?

Listing associated tags of a post is a smart thing to do for user experience and SEO.

WordPress introduced the get_the_tags function for developers to retrieve associated tags of a post.

get_the_tags function syntax:

get_the_tags(int|WP_Post $postId)

get_the_tags receives one required argument. Developers must specify post ID or post object for this function to run properly.

If post ID existed and tags were available, the get_the_tags function will return an array of WP_Term objects.

Examples of using get_the_tags function:

1- Retrieve Tag IDs array for a post

PHP array_map is the helper function for us to use when we want only one field of returned objects.

For this example, we want the term_id field of wp_term objects:

$postId = 1;
$tagObjects = get_the_tags($postId);
$tagIds = array();
if($tagObjects){
	$tagIds = array_map(function($tag){return $tag->term_id;}, $tagObjects);//PHP 5.3 or newer
}

2- Retrieve tag names of a post

Using PHP array_map is the solution again.

$postId = 1;
$tagObjects = get_the_tags($postId);
$tagNames = array();
if($tagObjects){
	$tagNames = array_map(function($tag){return $tag->name;},$tagObjects);
}

3- Retrieve full detailed tag objects associated to a post

get_the_tags function will return the full detailed object of post associated tags.

$postId = 1;
$tagObjects = get_the_tags($postId);

Returned data is structured like below:

Array
(
    [0] => WP_Term Object
        (
            [term_id] => 6 //a possible ID!
            [name] => lorem
            [slug] => lorem
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 6
            [taxonomy] => post_tag
            [description] => 
            [parent] => 0
            [count] => 2
            [filter] => raw
        )

)

4- Ordering tags associated with a post

For ordering received tags you must use the usort PHP function to set the order.

Sort returned tags by name:

$postId = 1;
$tagObjects = get_the_tags($postId);
usort($tagObjects, function($a, $b) {return strcmp($a->name, $b->name);}); //sorting by name!

Sorting returned tags by id:

$postId = 1;
$tagObjects = get_the_tags($postId);
usort($tagObjects, function($a, $b) {return $a->term_id > $b->term_id;}); //sorting by id!

5- Filtering get_the_tags function result

We must use the array_filter PHP function to filter received tags based on wp_term object available attributes.

$postId = 1;
$tagObjects = get_the_tags($postId);
//filter a tag name (i used "test" for tag name):
$filteredData = array_filter($tagObjects, function($tag) {return $tag->name === "test";});

More information about WordPress tagging and its related functions and methods

WordPress’s official website is the most comprehensive place to find information about WordPress core features.

I recommend you search the official WordPress website to find all available functions related to tags.

Read my tutorial “How to Query WordPress Categories, Tags and Taxonomies“, to dive deeper into the WordPress taxonomy feature.

If you are new to WordPress development, learn how to create a plugin in this tutorial:

How to create a Hello World plugin for WordPress

The post How to Get Associated Tags to a WordPress Post (5 Examples) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

While developing WordPress, It is essential to know how to retrieve a list of categories for a specific post.

WordPress introduced a beneficial function for developers to receive post categories using a post ID.

Introducing wp_get_post_categories function

wp_get_post_categories function receives two parameters, the first one is required, and the second one is optional.

wp_get_post_categories function syntax

wp_get_post_categories function has a mandatory parameter.

The developer must specify the post ID by passing it as the first parameter.

The second parameter is optional, but if you want to specify the parameter, it must have the type of array.

wp_get_post_categories(int $post_id, array $args)

3 Examples of using wp_get_post_categories function

1- Get category IDs of a WordPress post

By default, the wp_get_post_categories function will return an array of category IDs if available:

$postId = 1;
$categoryIds = wp_get_post_categories($postId);

2- Get category names of a WordPress post

Retrieving category names is also an easy task, we must define the second parameter of wp_get_post_categories function which must be an array.

In the defined array we need to specify the field key to tell WordPress what attributes of an array we want to receive?

Example of defining arguments array to receive category names instead of IDs:

$postId = 1;
$args = array("fields"=>"names");
$categoryNames = wp_get_post_categories($postId, $args);

3- Get category objects of a WordPress post (full details)

for full details of categories, like the previous example, you need to specify the field key for arguments array.

If the field key in arguments array is set to all, you will receive an array of WP_Term objects which contain ID, name, slug, description, count, and ETC.

$postId = 1;
$args = array("fields"=>"all");
$categoryObjects = wp_get_post_categories($postId, $args);

A possible result is something like below:

Array
(
    [0] => WP_Term Object
        (
            [term_id] => 1
            [name] => Uncategorized
            [slug] => uncategorized
            [term_group] => 0
            [term_taxonomy_id] => 1
            [taxonomy] => category
            [description] => 
            [parent] => 0
            [count] => 4
            [filter] => raw
        )

)

Explaining wp_get_post_categories arguments

What details can I get from wp_get_post_categories function in WordPress?

wp_get_post_categories function lets developers decide what type of data they want to receive from a specifically filtered result list.

You can filter results easily by using available WordPress filters for terms, read available filters for terms on the WordPress official page.

Ordering returned results by wp_get_post_categories function

To order results, you must define order key of arguments array.

Results can be ordered by: ‘name’, ‘slug’, ‘term_group’, ‘term_id’, ‘id’, ‘description’, ‘parent’, ‘term_order’, ‘slug__in’, ‘count’, ‘meta_value’.

For example, we can order categories by name instead of ID, using below code:

$postId = 1;
$args = array(
	"fields" => "all",
	"order" => "ASC",//direction
	"orderby" => "name", //attribute to order by
);
$categoryObjects = wp_get_post_categories($postId, $args);

Filtering post categories returned by wp_get_post_categories function

Filtering results is easy, you can define either one of available filters (read offcial page) in arguments array.

For example to search a category, you can use search key for argument array:

$postId = 1;
$searchName = "uncategorized";//search a name!
$args = array(
	"fields" => "all",
	"search" => $searchName
);
$categoryObjects = wp_get_post_categories($postId, $args);

beside search key, you can use name__like or description__like to specify which attribute you want to search for a word.

Where can I find more information about the wp_get_post_categories function?

Keep reading about categories; there are a lot more details to explore.

I recommend you read the “How to Query WordPress Categories, Tags and Taxonomies” article on my blog.

This article can help you do stuff with categories. Also, it will introduce you to WordPress taxonomies and a lot more!

Also WordPress has the perfect official page for developers about wp_get_post_categories function.

The post How to Get Categories of a Post in WordPress (3 Examples!) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Introducing get_the_title function: Responsible for retrieving Post Title in WordPress

Each WordPress Post has a Title, and You can retrieve this title for each post easily using the get_the_title function (read more on WordPress official resources about get_the_title).

It is optional for developers to specify ID (integer) or post object (WP_Post object) to retrieve a specific post’s title with the get_the_title function.

When you pass a specific ID (integer) or post object (WP_Post) to this function, it will retrieve the title of the specified post.

get_the_title function syntax in WordPress:

get_the_title(int|WP_Post $post)

get_the_title is not that tricky to use, but we’ll try this function in a live WordPress environment to see what happens.

How to get the title of a specific post using Post ID

When you pass an id as an argument to the get_the_title function, it will return the post title (if available).

In this example, we tried printing the post title of a post with an id equal to 1:

$postId = 1;
echo get_the_title($postId);

How to get the title of the current post

If tIf the developer does not specify the post ID or Object, the WordPress get_the_title function will retrieve the current queried object title.

There is a global $post variable in WordPress; When you use the get_the_title function with no argument, WordPress will check this variable for the ID.

Note: you can change the global $post (offen inside loops). then it is possible to run into conflicts when you did not reset the global $post back to it’s WordPress default after a loop.

use wp_reset_postdata function to reset $post object back to it’s original value after custom loops!

$posts = new WP_Query(array('post_type' => 'post')); //retrieve posts
if($posts->have_posts() ) {
    while($posts->have_posts() ) {
        $posts->the_post();
        echo get_the_title();
    }
}

If you want to try these codes, I recommend creating a plugin to organize your codes.

Creating a WordPress plugin is easy and fast.

You can read my Create a WordPress Hello World Plugin in 3 Steps tutorial for a start.

The post How to Get Post Title in WordPress (2 Examples!) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Retrieving publish date of a WordPress post using get_the_date function

get_the_date function is introduced by WordPress to let developers get publish date of a specific post ID or current post inside a loop.

This function receives 2 optional arguments:

1. Date format: you can specify the format, using PHP date formats
2. Post ID or WP_Post object: retrieving title of specific post

get_the_date syntax in WordPress:

get_the_date(string $format = '', int|WP_Post $post)

Keep reading for examples…

Get specific post publish date in WordPress using post ID

In this example we’ll try to print publish date of a post with an ID equal to 1:

$postId = 1;
echo get_the_time('Y-m-d', $postId);

Get publish date of current post in WordPress

If you are interested in printing publish date of the current post (inside a loop or single.php file), use get_the_time function with no post id.

Example of using this function inside a loop:

$posts = new WP_Query(array('post_type' => 'post')); //retrieve posts
if($posts->have_posts() ) {
    while($posts->have_posts() ) {
        $posts->the_post();
        echo get_the_time('Y-m-d'); //Echos date in Y-m-d format.
    }
}

$posts->the_post() will change the global $post object in WordPress. this object is the reference for the get_the_time function when you do not specify the ID.

Remember to reset the global $post object back to WordPress default after changing it. You only need to use the wp_reset_postdata function to reset it back after custom loops.

If you are a hard-working student, keep reading. you can read How to set publishing date and time for a WordPress post Programmatically? in my tutorial archive.

A good start point for my new visitors is How to create a Hello World plugin for WordPress in 3 Steps article which contains good tips for those who want to use standard codes and methods.

The post How to Get WordPress Post Date Using PHP (+2 Examples) first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

4 Ways to Unpublish a WordPress Post Programmatically

When you develop WordPress themes or plugins, you may want to use the feature of unpublishing a WordPress post. (read my starter tutorial to Start Developing WordPress Plugins Fast!)

Using either one of these methods to unpublish a WordPress post to hide it from visitors or users.

We use the wp_update_post method to update a specific post and unpublish it.

1- Set Post Status as a Draft in WordPress using PHP

Setting post status for a post is a way to unpublish a post without any harm.

Setting post_status to draft is a preffered way of unpublishing a post.

Set Draft post status for a post (using post ID):

$postId = 1;//change to your post ID

wp_update_post(array(
    'ID'    =>  $postId,
    'post_status'   =>  'draft'
));

2- Make the Post Visibility Private in WordPress using PHP

Private posts are only accessible to admins and editors. If you set post visibility as private, it will be hidden to visitors.

Setting post_status of a post to private is a way of unpublishing WordPress posts.

Use this code to set post visibility of an ID to Private:

$postId = 1;//change to your post ID

wp_update_post(array(
    'ID'    =>  $postId,
    'post_status'   =>  'private'
));

3- Set Publish Date for Future in WordPress using PHP

Setting a publish date for posts can do the trick too! you can use a future date to unpublish WordPress posts safe and without consequences.

I wrote a blog post about setting WordPress post publishing date programmatically. you can read it for more information.

Example for setting WordPress post publish date:

$postId = 1;//change to your post ID

$date_time = "2050-12-31 23:59:59";//[Y-m-d H:i:s]
wp_update_post(
    array (
        'ID' => $postId,
        'post_date' => $date_time,
        'post_date_gmt' => get_gmt_from_date( $date_time )
    )
);

4- Delete the Post in WordPress using PHP!

This is a harsh decision! removing a blog post is not something you decide this fast.

Display Warnings to the decision-makers if you are using this feature in a plugin.

$postId = 12341;

wp_delete_post($postId, false); //change false to true if you want to force delete this post!

The post 4 Special Ways to Unpublish Post Programmatically in WordPress! first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Key Points in WordPress Taxonomy Tutorial

• Explaining WordPress taxonomies
• Learn how to query categories
• Learn how to query tags
• Learn how to query custom taxonomies
• Resources for WordPress taxonomies

Before we begin the coding part of the tutorial, I would like to talk a little about WordPress Taxonomies.

What are Taxonomies in WordPress?

Taxonomies are the mean of organizing WordPress posts. WordPress uses Taxonomies to label posts to organize them on different shelves.

In WordPress, categories & tags are taxonomies. Also, developers can add custom taxonomies to make advanced organizing options for their items (Posts, Pages, Custom post types, etc.).

What are Terms inside a Taxonomy?

Each item inside a taxonomy is a Term.

You can have multiple terms inside a taxonomy.

For example, Tag is a Taxonomy, and each item you know as a tag is a Term for “Tag taxonomy”. Same thing for Category and each “Category Item”.

What are the default Taxonomies in WordPress?

WordPress has default taxonomies that we use inside a WordPress panel regularly.

Categories, Tags and Post Formats are default taxonomies in WordPress.

Query Taxonomies in WordPress

get_terms is the primary function we use to query taxonomies, but they are prettier functions available for categories and tags that run get_terms under the hood.

Now if you want to get into action, remember these arguments because we will use them to filter the terms of each taxonomy.

Default taxonomy arguments

array(
   'taxonomy'=>//only in get_terms
   'object_ids'   =>
   'orderby' =>
   'order'   =>
   'hide_empty'   =>//default is true!
   'include' =>
   'exclude' => 
   'exclude_tree' => 
   'number'  => 
   'offset'  => 
   'fields'  => 
   'count'   => 
   'name'    => 
   'slug'    => 
   'term_taxonomy_id'  => 
   'hierarchical' => 
   'search'  => 
   'name__like'   => 
   'description__like' => 
   'pad_counts'   => 
   'get'=> 
   'child_of'=> 
   'parent'  => 
   'childless'    => 
   'cache_domain' => 
   'update_term_meta_cache' => 
   'meta_query'   => 
   'meta_key'=> 
   'meta_value'   => 
   'meta_type'    => 
   'meta_compare' => 
);

To those who want to see some code in this tutorial:

Developing WordPress is simple and fun, But if you want to run any code, you better know what it does and how it can affect your website.

I highly recommend you try codes on locally located WordPress installation before trying it online.

Also, you better create a WordPress plugin first, then use codes inside it to have better control over them.

Objects returned by the get_taxonomies function in WordPress

You will receive an array of WP_Term objects when you use get_taxonomies to retrieve taxonomy items.

Note: get_categories and get_tags use get_taxonomies under the hood.

WP_Term object has useful attributes, which are listed below:

WP_Term Object {
    [term_id]
    [name]
    [slug]
    [term_group]
    [term_taxonomy_id]
    [taxonomy]
    [description]
    [parent]
    [count]
    [filter]
    [meta]
}

Query Categories in WordPress

get_categories function in WordPress is available to retrieve category objects (WP_Term objects).

This function accepts arguments inside an array (just like query posts using WordPress).

get_categories function runs get_terms function under the hood. It’s just a little more readable.

Query All Categories in WordPress

get_categories with argument hide_empty set to false will give us all categories in WordPress:

//retrieving all posts using empty args
$args = array(
	"hide_empty" => false//to get all categories
);
$categories = get_categories($args);

//printing category name
foreach($categories as $category){
	echo $category->name." <br />";
}

Query Top Level Categories in WordPress

We use get_category function with parent argument set to 0:

//retrieving all posts using parent id set to 0
$args = array(
	"hide_empty" => false,
	"parent" => 0
);

//retrieve categories
$categories = get_categories($args);

//printing category name
foreach($categories as $category){
	echo $category->name." <br />";
}

Query Children of a Category in WordPress

parent argument is the key to doing our task. This argument is used to query children of a specific category (using category ID).

In this example, we will use the parent category id set to 1 (change it to your category id):

//retrieving posts using parent id
$parentCategoryId = 1;
$args = array(
	"hide_empty" => false,
	"parent" => $parentCategoryId
);

//retrieve categories
$categories = get_categories($args);

//printing category name
foreach($categories as $category){
	echo $category->name." <br />";
}

Order Categories in get_categories

You can manage category orders using orderby and order arguments in get_categories().

orderby is defining order basis (‘name’, ‘slug’, ‘term_group’, ‘term_id’, ‘id’, ‘description’, ‘parent’, ‘term_order’) and order is the direction (ASC or DESC).

This example shows you how to order categories based on the category name in ascending (ASC) order:

//order by name
$args = array(
	"hide_empty" => false,
	"orderby" => "name",
	"order" => "ASC",
);

//retrieve categories
$categories = get_categories($args);

//printing category name
foreach($categories as $category){
	echo $category->name." <br />";
}

Query Tags in WordPress

get_tags function is responsible for retrieving tags with desired arguments.

get_tags() runs get_terms function under the hood. Then it retrieves an array of WP_Term objects which are the tags.

Query Tags with a Word in the Tag Name

name__like is the argument to retrieve tags based on the name in WordPress using get_tags function:

//set the word
$word = "test";

//order by name
$args = array(
	"hide_empty" => false,
	"name__like" => $word
);

//retrieve tags
$tags = get_tags($args);

//printing tag name
foreach($tags as $tag){
	echo $tag->name." <br />";
}

Query Tags with a Word in the Tag Description

description__like is the argument that we can use with get_tags function to retrieve tags based on a word in their description:

//set the word
$word = "test";

//order by name
$args = array(
	"hide_empty" => false,
	"description__like" => $word
);

//retrieve tags
$tags = get_tags($args);

//printing tag name
foreach($tags as $tag){
	echo $tag->name." <br />";
}

Order Tags in get_tags

Like categories, we use orderby and order arguments to set the order basis and its direction for querying tags.

orderby is defining order basis (‘name’, ‘slug’, ‘term_group’, ‘term_id’, ‘id’, ‘description’, ‘parent’, ‘term_order’) and order is the direction (ASC or DESC).

//order by name
$args = array(
	"hide_empty" => false,
	"orderby" => "name",
	"order" => "ASC"
);

//retrieve tags
$tags = get_tags($args);


//printing tag name
foreach($tags as $tag){
	echo $tag->name." <br />";
}

Query Custom Taxonomies in WordPress

get_terms function in WordPress is available for querying custom taxonomies.

Like get_categories and get_tags functions, this function also receives arguments, but there is an extra taxonomy key in arguments to specify what type of taxonomy you want to retrieve.

//set taxonomy name
$taxonomyName = "taxonomy-name-here";

//set arguments for taxonomy
$args = array(
	"hide_empty" => false,
	"taxonomy" => $taxonomyName,
);

//retrieve terms
$terms = get_terms($args);

//printing term name
foreach($terms as $term){
	echo $term->name." <br />";
}

I will create a tutorial about adding Custom Taxonomies in WordPress; you better read it.

Continue learning about WordPress Taxonomies

A Professional WordPress Developer never stops learning. If you are interested in more information about taxonomies, I recommend visiting the WordPress official page of Taxonomies and Taxonomies for Developers.

Working with custom taxonomies on WordPress’s official website is also a great source of information for beginner developers.

StackExchange is a great place to ask questions or research other developers’ issues with taxonomies in WordPress.

The post How to Query WordPress Categories, Tags & Custom Taxonomies! first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

Listing posts is one of the primary parts of developing WordPress. In this tutorial, I will show you the correct way of listing posts in WordPress (Programmatically).

Retrieve posts in WordPress using get_posts function

get_posts function is responsible for getting WordPress posts in an array.

This function accepts an argument (array) which we use to describe what posts exactly do we want to get in the returning array.

Let’s look at this function syntax.

get_posts function syntax in WordPress

Simple get_posts syntax:

get_posts($args)

$args parameters is an Array and it can be Null. It means that it’s optional to specify arguments for get_posts function.

Now check out the list of available arguments for this function.

Available arguments for get_posts function in WordPress

get_posts function arguments:

• numberposts
• category
• post_type
• post_status
• meta_query
• meta_key
• meta_value
• post_parent
• s
• tax_query
• date_query
• paged
• orderby
• sort_order
• posts_per_page
• offset
• include
• exclude
• suppress_filters

numberposts argument in get_posts function

This argument specifies the number of posts you want to retrieve.

It accepts an integer value.

You can pass -1 value to receive all posts in an array.

Default value for numberposts argument is 5.

category argument

Value can be from the type of Integer or String.

When you pass an integer for the category, it refers to the category ID.

You can pass series of comma-separated IDs.

Default value for category argument is 0.

post_type argument

WordPress has different post types, they are regular posts and pages. WordPress also lets developers add their own post types.

If you installed the Woocommerce plugin, another post type named product will be added to the list.

post_type argument specifies the type of the post. the default value for this argument posts, not pages. this means if you do not specify post_type, posts will be retrieved not other post types like pages, products, or other custom post types (if available).

post_status argument

The status of posts you want to retrieve.

WordPress developers can add their own statuses as well.

Value of post_status can be one of these (or a custom post type added by a plugin):

• publish
• future
• pending
• draft
• auto-draft
• private
• trash
• inherit

meta_query argument

This argument helps you retrieve posts using custom fields relations.

meta_query value is an array of arrays.

meta_key argument

This argument also helps you to retrieve posts using custom fields.

meta_key + meta_value and meta_compare can give you posts with a specific custom field.

meta_key is the name of the custom field you want to retrieve, but you must provide a value for the meta_value parameter as well.

meta_value argument

This argument specifies the value of meta_key you want to retrieve.

meta_compare argument

This argument specifies the relation between meta_key and meta_value you’ve provided.

If you do not specify this argument’s value, the default comparison relation will be equality (=).

post_parent argument

This argument specifies the parent ID of a post (page or whatever).

This parameter receives an integer. but the default value is NULL.

s argument

If you want to search inside posts, like finding a word in the titles or contents, you can use the s argument.

tax_query argument

This argument will help developers retrieve posts in specific taxonomy (category or custom taxonomy).

Value is from type array, and the syntax is like below. You need to specify taxonomy, field, and terms.

tax_query value for categories:

array(
	array(
		"taxonomy" => "category",
		"field"    => "slug",
		"terms"    => "category-slug-here, another-slug"
	)
)

date_query argument

This argument will help you query posts based on dates.

The value type of this argument is an array with specific keys:

• year
• month
• week
• day
• hour
• minute
• second
• after
• before
• inclusive
• compare
• column (default: post_date)
• relation (OR or AND).

paged argument

Pagination ability in sets of posts is available using paged argument.

paged is specifying which page of the posts list must be retrieved.

orderby argument

This argument will specify the order of the posts you want to retrieve, and it can be one of these values:

• ID
• author
• title
• name
• type
• date
• modified
• parent
• rand
• comment_count

sort_order argument

The sort order can be ASC for ascending or DESC for descending order.

posts_per_page argument

This argument is an alias for numberposts but with a little difference.

posts_per_page is specifying the number of posts per page, but numberposts is specifying the whole post set number (which does not matter for you anyway! usually you want posts on the page we are in)

You can practically use posts_per_page or numberposts to specify the number of posts you want to retrieve.

The default value for posts_per_page argument is defined on your WordPress settings page.

offset argument

This argument specifies how many posts you want to ignore before you start with your post list.

For example, if you have 20 posts, when you set offset to 5, you will ignore the first 5 post items and get the posts from 6 to whatever you specified.

include argument

For those who want to include specific post ids or slugs to the query, WordPress added include argument to the list.

This argument tells the get_posts function to retrieve posts only from these IDs or slugs.

exclude argument

If developers want to exclude specific post IDs or slugs from retrieving, they can use exclude argument.

This argument’s value can be an ID or slug of a post (comma-separated IDs or slugs).

suppress_filters argument

This argument helps developers to prevent filters from altering the query. The default value for suppress_filters is true.

What is the data structure returned from get_posts function in WordPress?

When you run the get_posts function, if it finds any post matching required arguments, it will return an array of post objects.

The post object will have the ID, Author, Date, Title, Excerpt, Status, Comment Status, Ping Status, Password, Slug, Comment Count, Type, ETC.

The full structure of a post object

WP_Post Object
(
    [ID]
    [post_author]
    [post_date] 
    [post_date_gmt] 
    [post_content] 
    [post_title] 
    [post_excerpt] 
    [post_status]
    [comment_status]
    [ping_status] 
    [post_password]
    [post_name]
    [to_ping]
    [pinged] 
    [post_modified]
    [post_modified_gmt]
    [post_content_filtered] 
    [post_parent] 
    [guid] 
    [menu_order]
    [post_type]
    [post_mime_type] 
    [comment_count]
    [filter]
)

Query WordPress posts using get_posts function examples

I will continue this tutorial with a few promised examples of using get_posts. you can use these codes in your theme or your WordPress plugin development.

Query posts by Category ID

category argument can help you retrieve posts with category ID.

As I told you before, You can pass series of comma-separated IDs for multiple categories.

//set category id to 1
$categoryId = 1;

//set arguments for the category
$args = array(
	"category"=>$categoryId,
);

//query posts
$posts = get_posts($args);

//print post titles
foreach ($posts as $post){
	echo "Title: ".$post->post_title." <br />";
}

Query Posts by Category Slug

The best way to get posts by category slug in WordPress is to first get the ID of the category, then use category argument for that ID.

We use get_category_by_slug function in WordPress to get the category object.

Working Example for a category named “uncategorized”:

$categorySlug = "uncategorized";

//get the category from wordpress
$category = get_category_by_slug($categorySlug);

//check if the category exists
if($category){

	//set category id to term_id (category is a term)
	$categoryId = $category->term_id;

	//set the arguments for the categoryId
	$args = array(
		"category"=>$categoryId,
	);

	//query posts
	$posts = get_posts($args);

	//printing post titles
	foreach ($posts as $post){
		echo "Title: ".$post->post_title." <br />";
	}
}

Query Posts by Tag Slug

tax_query argument will help us retrieve posts using tag slug.

taxonomy key of tax_query array item must be set to post_tag, the field must be set to slug and terms is what we looking for (value, the tag slug).

//set tag slug
$tagSlug = "test";

//set the arguments for the tag
$args = array(
	'tax_query'      => array(
		array(
			'taxonomy'  => 'post_tag',
			'field'     => 'slug',
			'terms'     => sanitize_title( $tagSlug )
		)
	)
);

//query posts
$posts = get_posts($args);

//printing post titles
foreach ($posts as $post){
	echo "Title: ".$post->post_title." <br />";
}

Query Posts by Custom Attribute

We have two options to do this:

The first one is to use meta_key and meta_value arguments of get_posts.

This code retrieves all posts with a custom field named “featured” set to “yes”:

//set the arguments for the custom field named "featured" with value "yes"
$args = array(
	'meta_key' => 'featured',
	'meta_value' => 'yes',
	'meta_compare' => '=',//optional!
);

//query posts
$posts = get_posts($args);

//printing post titles
foreach ($posts as $post){
	echo "Title: ".$post->post_title." <br />";
}

The second one is to use meta_query argument which can help us use multiple custom attributes.

For example, the below code will retrieve posts with two custom attributes (featured & top) set to yes value:

//for featured and top custom fields set to yes
$args = array(
	'meta_query' => array(
		array(
			'key' => 'featured',
			'value'   => 'yes',
			'compare' => '='//optional!
		),
		array(
			'key' => 'top',
			'value'   => 'yes',
			'compare' => '='//optional!
		),
	)
);

//query posts
$posts = get_posts($args);

//printing post titles
foreach ($posts as $post){
	echo "Title: ".$post->post_title." <br />";
}

Query posts by Publish Date

WordPress publish date for posts can be set automatically or manually through the WordPress admin panel when you are editing the post. (You can also set publish date for WordPress posts programmatically)

WordPress lets developers use query_dates argument to retrieve posts with a date specification.

We will retrieve posts older or newer than a specified date:

Post older than the Date

The working code for retrieving posts before “30-07-2021”:

//set arguments for dates before 30-07-2021
$args = array(
	'date_query' => array(
		array(
			'before' => '30-07-2021'
        )
    )
);

//query posts
$posts = get_posts($args);

//printing post titles
foreach ($posts as $post){
	echo "Title: ".$post->post_title." <br />";
}

Posts newer than the Date

The working code for retrieving posts after “30-07-2021”:

//set arguments for dates before 30-07-2021
$args = array(
	'date_query' => array(
		array(
			'after' => '30-07-2021'
        )
    )
);

//query posts
$posts = get_posts($args);

//printing post titles
foreach ($posts as $post){
	echo "Title: ".$post->post_title." <br />";
}

Query posts by Post Type

post_type argument can help us retrieve posts of a specific type, like pages:

//set the post type
$postType = "page";

//set arguments for post type
$args = array(
	'post_type' => $postType
);

//query posts
$posts = get_posts($args);

//printing post titles
foreach ($posts as $post){
	echo "Title: ".$post->post_title." <br />";
}

Query posts with a word inside

We use s agument to search for a world inside posts.

The working code to search “test” word inside posts is this:

//set the word to search
$search = "test";

//set arguments for search
$args = array(
	's' => $search
);

//query posts
$posts = get_posts($args);

//printing post titles
foreach ($posts as $post){
	echo "Title: ".$post->post_title." <br />";
}

Query random posts

We have to set the orderby argument to rand, if we want to retrieve posts in random order:

//set order for random posts
$args = array(
	'orderby' => 'rand'
);

//query posts
$posts = get_posts($args);

//printing post titles
foreach ($posts as $post){
	echo "Title: ".$post->post_title." <br />";
}

Where can I find more information about query posts in WordPress?

The first place to find information about anything is the WordPress official website. Specific pages you may want to explore are the get_posts function page, and the WP_Post class page.

If you faced any problem using WordPress functions, you can ask your questions on WordPress StackExchange.

If you want to continue learning WordPress, I recommend you read my tutorial:

WordPress Action and Filter Hooks Tutorial (+10 Examples)

The post How to Query Posts by Category, Tag, Custom Attribute, ETC first appeared on Mehdi Nazari: WordPress Developer.

First, I guess it’s better to explain what is a WordPress Hook (Actions or Filters) and why WordPress Hooks are essential to developers.

WordPress let developers hang their custom functions to its core functions throughout WordPress Hooks. WordPress Hooks are two parts: WordPress Actions and WordPress Filters.

What are WordPress Hooks?

WordPress developers can modify WordPress functionalities and returning content by using Hooks.

Hooks can hang a custom function to a WordPress core function.

The developer can set function execution order (A critical parameter when you want to hook multiple functions).

Hooks are often easy to use. to understand them better, we categorize them into two parts: Actions and Filters.

Use WordPress Actions when you want to run a function at the exact moment when a core function is executing.

Use WordPress Filters when you want to modify WordPress returning content at the exact moment when core content is returning.

Why are WordPress Hooks necessary for developers? (sometimes non-developers too!)

Two years ago, In an article, I told developers:

Actions and Filters are the primary way to connect with WordPress.

If any developer wants to use WordPress at its total capacity, they better learn how to work with WordPress Hooks.

WordPress is a complete system for blogging, but when you want to add custom functionalities, especially when there is no plugin for it, you may need to modify WordPress core functions and control its behaviour.

Developers can use WordPress Hooks to control WordPress behaviour when this system is processing a web page.

What is the difference between WordPress Actions and Filters?

The difference between WordPress Actions and Filters is that the actions are concerned with Events, and filters are concerned with Contents.

When I said Events, I meant occurrences like user log in, saving a post, predefined actions (custom actions defined by you), etc.

When I said Content, I meant the Data printed (or used in another way that is not printable) by WordPress on a webpage (or maybe just on the server). For example, title, short description and the full content of a post.

WordPress Action Hooks

What are Action Hooks in WordPress?

Action Hooks will attach a function to a WordPress core function which is executing when an Event occurs while WordPress is processing a web page.

For example, when you want to execute a function on the server when the user just logged in, you can use wp_login action (keep reading for the code).

How to work with Action Hooks in WordPress?

If you read this tutorial carefully, I said WordPress Hooks attaches a custom function to a core function. So you need a way to tell WordPress that “I have a function” and “I want to run this function after a core function that I know”.

1- Declare the custom function

-> Copy this code to your current WordPress theme function.php file. Or you can create a simple plugin to run codes on WordPress using this tutorial: How to create a Hello World plugin for WordPress in 3 Steps

if(!function_exists('make_user_login_awesome')){
      function make_user_login_awesome(){
            echo "You just logged in, what can we do now?";
            die();
      }
}

2- Tell WordPress which core function you want to run this function after

When you want to tell WordPress that you need to run a function after another, you can use:

add_action("core function", "custom function", priority, number_of_acceptable_arguments)

In the previous step, you just created a NOT attached function.

Let’s attach it to the wp_login, which is a core function that executes when a user just logged in.

This will be the Whole Code after attaching the function:

if(!function_exists('make_user_login_awesome')){
      function make_user_login_awesome(){
            echo "You just logged in, what can we do now?";
            die();
      }
      add_action('wp_login', 'make_user_login_awesome', 20, 0);//this line is just added to attach function
}

The above codes explain

In the first line, you can see we checked if any function named make_user_login_awesome exists or not.

If it does not exist, we declare the function.

In the make_user_login_awesome function, we told the server to die(), because we want to see this text printed after login: “You just logged in, what can we do now?”

Now we attach this function to the wp_login action. using this code:

add_action('wp_login', 'make_user_login_awesome', 20, 0);

You can see add_action function accepts three arguments (actually it’s four).

In this particular order:

1. Name of the WordPress core action that we want to attach a function to.
2. Name of our function that we want it to attach.
3. The priority of execution

we passed wp_login, make_user_login_awesome, and 20 as parameters to add_action function.

When you insert the full code to your function.php or the custom plugin you created for this practice, you can log in to WordPress (admin panel or frontend) then you will see the result.

How to define a custom Action, execute it and attach a custom function to it

WordPress made this functionality available for developers to predefine actions and fire them at the right moment of page processing.

This means that you can create custom Actions for yourself and attach custom functions to them.

Let’s see how you can do that…

Creating a new Action in WordPress is just like attaching a function. We use add_action function.

Use this function to create a new Action Hook in WordPress:

add_action("custom_action_name", "custom_function_name", priority, number_of_acceptable_arguments);

custom_action_name will be the name of your custom Action.

custom_function_name is the name of the function we define (we will, keep reading…)

priority will be the order of execution of our Action (Integer).

number_of_acceptable_arguments is the number of arguments that our custom function accepts (Integer).

Copiable example to try

Just copy this in your function.php or custom module you created:

if(!function_exists('make_user_login_awesome')){
      function custom_function_name($arg1, $arg2){
      	  die("Custom Action is Here! ".$arg1." ".$arg2);
      }
      add_action('custom_action_name', 'custom_function_name', 10, 2);

      do_action('custom_action_name', 'value1', 'value2');
}

If you open WordPress, you will see the message:

Custom Action is Here! value1 value2

This means that our code is working.

You can comment out the last line (do_action(….)) to disable this action.

Attaching a custom function to a custom Action Hook

In the last example, we defined a custom Action Hook and executed it.

Now is the time for a little more complicated example.

Do you remember how to attach a custom function to a core Hook? We will do the same thing for this custom made Action.

Use this code as the example:

function custom_function_name($arg1, $arg2){
	die("Custom Action is Here! ".$arg1." ".$arg2);
}
add_action('custom_action_name', 'custom_function_name',10,2 );

function custom_attached_function($arg1, $arg2){
	echo "I just want to say hi... and... \n";
}
add_action('custom_action_name', 'custom_attached_function', 9, 2);//9 is important number here!

do_action('custom_action_name', 'value1', 'value2');

This will display this text after opening the WordPress:

I just want to say hi… and… Custom Action is Here! value1 value2

You can play with this code. Try changing orders of execution, name of the functions, acceptable arguments, etc.

How to remove an Action Hook

WordPress made this available for developers to remove Action Hooks just like adding them.

Developers can use remove_action function to remove an Action Hook, easy and fast.

This means that you can unhook a function from a Action Hook.

now we can unhook it with this syntax:

remove_action('action_name', 'function_name_to_remove');

In an example, we added a welcome page for users after login, we called the function make_user_login_awesome.

Full code to unhook make_user_login_awesome from wp_login Action Hook:

if(!function_exists('make_user_login_awesome')){
      function make_user_login_awesome(){
            echo "You just logged in, what can we do now?";
            die();
      }
      add_action('wp_login', 'make_user_login_awesome', 20, 0);//this line is just added to attach function

      remove_action('wp_login', 'make_user_login_awesome');//this line is doing the trick!
}