Half a year after my WordPress plugin development book was published I am pleased to see that the book found it's audience and it's selling at a satisfactory pace.
The plugin ideas for the book came mostly from David Barnes, who was also my editor at the beginning and provided valuable tips (hint: he is also the guy to contact if you have a book idea). The plugins were fun and useful, and today you may have heard about WP-Wall, Snazzy Archives and Insights WordPress plugins.
What I was mostly concerned about was that I was writing the book in an era when WordPress was quickly transforming, and two major revisions of WordPress happened during the creation of the book. Often I had to adopt the script or come up with solutions that will surpass the changing nature of WordPress. As far as I know all plugins can still be written in the same way and will work fine in the latest WordPress version found today.
The second thing that I was really anxious about was to read the book reviews. By now book was reviewed by quite a few people, from beginner WordPress bloggers to seasoned plugin developers. You can find all reviews that I know of on the book page in the reviews section.
Perhaps the biggest challenge was creating one complete reference to WordPress plugin development, exploring all aspects from actual development, over commercial perspective to GPL questions. It took me one year to write the book and it was one of the hardest things I ever did. I have plans for writing a second one, where I would like to share my knowledge and experience on SEO, especially for WordPress. I really miss the feeling of writing a book, there is something profound about it.
I encourage everyone ever thinking about writing a book to sit down and do it, even if it is an ebook for beginning. You will have something to be proud of for the rest of your life.
Suggested reading:
- WordPress Plugin Development Book Reviews
- WordPress Plugin Development Beginner’s Guide released
- Insights: YouTube, Google Maps, Flickr WordPress plugin
Posted in: Startups, WordPress
TAGS:aftermath book, book plugin writing wordpress, book wordpress plugin, developing wordpress plugin book, how write book wordpress, packt book review, the_editor plugin, the_editor wordpress, the_editor wordpress plugin, vladimir wordpress plugin book, wordpress book solution, wordpress development, wordpress plugin book, wordpress the_editor, wordpress tinymce plugin development, writing wordpress plugins book
16 Comments
Vladimir, the book is marvelous and I have been reading it back and forward (like a true reference book should be) since I bought it on 1st Aug this year. Thanks for contributing and sharing your wealth of knowledge with the rest of the WP plugin dev community. It is appreciated. Michael.
Hi Michael
Thanks for the kind comment, really appreciate it. Glad you enjoy the book, I use it every day in my work as a reference too !
Ahhh Vlad !! You have a short memory my friend... :) can you not remember the stress the first book put you under lol ...... Its ok thou , you can just come over to London and have a beer with me in that pub again..
It was stressful, yep it was. Can't say no to that offer though ;)
Do you ship to Brazil? :P
Just kidding... Sure thing this book is amazing.
I like to read this book in serbian :- )
Any chances for that to happened?
Do you want to translate? ;) Just kidding, I think it wouldn't be monetary feasible.
So what is the next one going to be about?
SEO, of course :)
Nice work Vlad. Do it so easy.
Thanks, I like your book and help me very much.
BTW, I have the same problem of David F. Carr, any tip or help will be appreciated. The documentation about the the_editor function and the necessary code to use it is deficient.
Vladimir, I have to say that your book's really helped me take working with WP to a new level.
I've been using WP on and off since v2 came out, and have always done ok with it, using other plugins to do almost, but not quite, what I want with my blogs.
Since reading your book and putting some of the stuff I've learned into action, I'm now doing *exactly* what I want with my blogs. Thank you.
It's great Vladimir!
I got it to read in bed when I was ill and hospitalised for a fortnight. Sadly, I've yet to plunge deeply into php work, but I think you've done a good job within the limited space of "creating one complete reference to WordPress plugin development" as you said you'd attempted to do. All your examples are fully functioning and the walk-through's of the code and hooks is excellent.
Rees
Thanks Rees, I am happy if it made your hospital stay a bit more pleasant.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found it very useful. I actively use the Insights plug-in described in the book and have even added a few of my own modifications, and I was developing my own new plug-ins within weeks (although nothing so generally useful as to be published for public consumption).
I do have one request. You give a good explanation of how to add custom administration screens and post templates. But I've run into roadblocks trying to create a custom admin screen that incorporates the tinymce rich text editor. I've actually got it working, but only sort of. The command
the_editor('default content here');
creates a text area and adds the TinyMCE buttons including alternate Visual / HTML tabs for manipulating the content. But it also adds the row of upload/insert buttons for adding images and media without properly enabling those buttons. The issue seems to be something to do with the CSS styling and positioning of the dialogs that are supposed to be displayed when these icons are clicked because I see them turning up at the bottom of the page, mis-aligned off the left margin. Possibly I don't have the RTE text area nested in the DIVs tinymce is expecting to find on the post and page editing admin pages.
Have you ever gotten this to work?
I have not been able to find a good tutorial on how to do this properly, and the "the_editor" function is not well documented on the WordPress Codex. I suspect if you can demonstrate a good solution, it will be a popular entry on your blog.
I love your work, i am sure going to use your plugin smart video .