All Courses
beginner WordPress

WordPress Plugin Development: Foundations (PHP & MVC)

Build your first WordPress plugins with clean PHP and an MVC structure.

47 lessons 47 available ~150 min total
Start the course

What you'll learn

Create plugins using hooks, actions and filters, custom post types, and settings in a clean MVC-style structure, and safely interact with the WordPress database.

Who it's for

PHP developers new to WordPress plugin development.

Prerequisites

PHP fundamentals and basic WordPress usage.

Foundations of WordPress plugin development with clean, MVC-structured PHP.

Curriculum

  1. 1

    Plugin Anatomy and File Structure

    3 min
  2. 2

    The Plugin Lifecycle Hooks

    4 min
  3. 3

    Designing for MVC in WordPress

    3 min
  4. 4

    Defining the Plugin Core Class

    4 min
  5. 5

    Understanding WordPress Hooks

    4 min
  6. 6

    Implementing Custom Action Hooks

    4 min
  7. 7

    Managing Hook Priorities

    3 min
  8. 8

    Creating Admin Menus

    3 min
  9. 9

    The Controller Layer for Admin Pages

    3 min
  10. 10

    Registering Custom Post Types

    3 min
  11. 11

    Configuring CPT Arguments

    3 min
  12. 12

    Introduction to Taxonomies

    3 min
  13. 13

    Designing Meta-Boxes

    3 min
  14. 14

    Sanitizing User Input

    4 min
  15. 15

    Saving Meta Data

    3 min
  16. 16

    Database Basics with wpdb

    3 min
  17. 17

    Secure CRUD Operations

    3 min
  18. 18

    Querying with WP_Query

    3 min
  19. 19

    Optimizing Queries

    3 min
  20. 20

    The Model Layer for Data

    3 min
  21. 21

    Enqueuing Scripts and Styles

    3 min
  22. 22

    Plugin Template Hierarchy

    3 min
  23. 23

    Creating Frontend Templates

    3 min
  24. 24

    Building Shortcodes

    3 min
  25. 25

    Advanced Shortcode Logic

    3 min
  26. 26

    Introduction to Gutenberg Blocks

    3 min
  27. 27

    The Settings API

    3 min
  28. 28

    Validating Settings

    3 min
  29. 29

    Implementing Nonces

    3 min
  30. 30

    Capability Checks

    3 min
  31. 31

    Handling Plugin Updates

    3 min
  32. 32

    Internationalization (i18n)

    3 min
  33. 33

    Debugging WordPress Plugins

    4 min
  34. 34

    Unit Testing Foundations

    3 min
  35. 35

    Handling AJAX Requests

    3 min
  36. 36

    REST API Integration

    3 min
  37. 37

    Advanced Database Queries

    3 min
  38. 38

    Caching Strategies

    3 min
  39. 39

    Plugin Security Best Practices

    4 min
  40. 40

    Composer for Dependencies

    3 min
  41. 41

    Theme Integration Hooks

    3 min
  42. 42

    Managing Assets with Gulp/Webpack

    3 min
  43. 43

    Documentation Standards

    3 min
  44. 44

    Plugin Deployment Strategy

    2 min
  45. 45

    Advanced MVC: Dependency Injection

    4 min
  46. 46

    Handling Large Datasets

    4 min
  47. 47

    Error Handling and Logging

    4 min