Building a Custom Slideshow Plugin for WordPress
Posted on 19th June 2023
Building a Custom Slideshow Plugin for WordPress
WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) that helps you easily create and manage a website. One of the great things about WordPress is that it’s very extensible. This means that you can easily add new features to your WordPress site by installing plugins.
In this article, we’ll show you how to build a custom slideshow plugin for WordPress. We’ll walk you through the process of creating a plugin, adding a settings page, and then creating a custom post type for slides.
Creating a Plugin
The first thing you need to do is create a new folder for your plugin. For this tutorial, we’ll call our plugin “Custom Slideshow”.
Next, you need to create a file called custom-slideshow.php in your plugin folder. This will be the main plugin file.
In your custom-slideshow.php file, you need to add the following code:
<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Custom Slideshow
Plugin URI: https://example.com/custom-slideshow
Description: A custom slideshow plugin for WordPress
Version: 1.0
Author: John Doe
Author URI: https://example.com
License: GPLv2 or later
*/
This code includes the basic plugin information. It’s important to fill in this information correctly so that your plugin can be properly installed and displayed in the WordPress plugin repository.
Next, you need to write the code for your plugin. For this tutorial, we’ll keep it simple and just add a shortcode that will output a list of slides.
Here’s the code for our plugin:
‘1’,
), $atts )
);
return ‘
‘;
}
add_shortcode( ‘custom-slideshow’, ‘custom_slideshow_shortcode’ );
In the code above, we’ve created a function called custom_slideshow_shortcode() that outputs a list of slides. We’ve also added a shortcode called [custom-slideshow] that you can use to output the slides in your WordPress posts and pages.
If you want to learn more about how to write code for WordPress plugins, we recommend checking out the Plugin Developer Handbook.
Adding a Settings Page
Now that we have our basic plugin code, let’s add a settings page so that we can customize our slideshow.
First, you need to create a new file called custom-slideshow-admin.php in your plugin folder. This will be the file that contains our settings page code.
In your custom-slideshow-admin.php file, you need to add the following code:
<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Custom Slideshow
Plugin URI: https://example.com/custom-slideshow
Description: A custom slideshow plugin for WordPress
Version: 1.0
Author: John Doe
Author URI: https://example.com
License: GPLv2 or later
*/
function custom_slideshow_admin_menu() {
add_options_page(
'Custom Slideshow',
'Custom Slideshow',
'manage_options',
'custom-slideshow',
'custom_slideshow_admin_page'
);
}
add_action( 'admin_menu', 'custom_slideshow_admin_menu' );
function custom_slideshow_admin_page() {
echo '
echo ‘
Custom Slideshow
‘;
echo ”;
settings_fields( ‘custom-slideshow-settings-group’ );
do_settings_sections( ‘custom-slideshow-settings-group’ );
submit_button();
echo ”;
echo ‘
‘;
}
function custom_slideshow_register_settings() {
register_setting(
‘custom-slideshow-settings-group’,
‘custom_slideshow_settings’,
‘custom_slideshow_sanitize_settings’
);
add_settings_section(
‘custom-slideshow-main-section’,
‘Main Settings’,
‘custom_slideshow_main_section_callback’,
‘custom-slideshow-settings-group’
);
add_settings_field(
‘custom-slideshow-width’,
‘Width’,
‘custom_slideshow_width_callback’,
‘custom-slideshow-settings-group’,
‘custom-slideshow-main-section’
);
add_settings_field(
‘custom-slideshow-height’,
‘Height’,
‘custom_slideshow_height_callback’,
‘custom-slideshow-settings-group’,
‘custom-slideshow-main-section’
);
}
add_action( ‘admin_init’, ‘custom_slideshow_register_settings’ );
function custom_slideshow_main_section_callback() {
echo ‘
Main settings for the Custom Slideshow plugin
‘;
}
function custom_slideshow_width_callback() {
$settings = get_option( ‘custom_slideshow_settings’ );
echo ”;
}
function custom_slideshow_height_callback() {
$settings = get_option( ‘custom_slideshow_settings’ );
echo ”;
}
function custom_slideshow_sanitize_settings( $settings ) {
$settings[‘width’] = sanitize_text_field( $settings[‘width’] );
$settings[‘height’] = sanitize_text_field( $settings[‘height’] );
return $settings;
}
In the code above, we’ve registered a new settings page for our plugin. We’ve also added two settings fields for the width and height of our slideshow.
If you want to learn more about how to add settings pages to WordPress plugins, we recommend checking out the Settings API documentation.
Creating a Custom Post Type
Now that we have our plugin code and settings page completed, let’s add a custom post type for our slides. This will make it easy to manage our slides in the WordPress admin area.
First, you need to create a new file called custom-slideshow-post-type.php in your plugin folder. This will be the file that contains our custom post type code.
In your custom-slideshow-post-type.php file, you need to add the following code:
‘Slides’,
‘singular_name’ => ‘Slide’,
‘add_new’ => ‘Add New Slide’,
‘add_new_item’ => ‘Add New Slide’,
‘edit_item’ => ‘Edit Slide’,
‘new_item’ => ‘New Slide’,
‘all_items’ => ‘All Slides’,
‘view_item’ => ‘View Slide’,
‘search_items’ => ‘Search Slides’,
‘not_found’ => ‘No slides found’,
‘not_found_in_trash’ => ‘No slides found in Trash’,
);
$args = array(
‘labels’ => $
jQuery(document).ready(function($){
$(‘.custom-slideshow’).each(function(){
var $this = $(this);
var $group = $this.find(‘.custom-slideshow-group’);
var $slides = $this.find(‘.custom-slideshow-slide’);
var buttonArray = [];
var currentIndex = 0;
var timeout;
function move(newIndex) {
var animate;
advance();
if ($group.is(‘:animated’) || currentIndex === newIndex) {
return;
}
buttonArray[currentIndex].removeClass(‘active’);
buttonArray[newIndex].addClass(‘active’);
if (newIndex > currentIndex) {
animate = ‘right’;
} else {
animate = ‘left’
}
$slides.eq(newIndex).parent().show();
$group.animate({‘left’: animate}, function() {
$slides.eq(currentIndex).parent().hide();
});
currentIndex = newIndex;
}
function advance() {
clearTimeout(timeout);
timeout = setTimeout(function() {
if (currentIndex < ($slides.length – 1)) {
move(currentIndex + 1);
} else {
move(0);
}
}, 4000);
}
$.each($slides, function(index) {
var $button = $('‘);
if (index === currentIndex) {
$button.addClass(‘active’);
}
$button.on(‘click’, function() {
move(index);
}).appendTo(‘.custom-slideshow-buttons’);
buttonArray.push($button);
});
advance();
});
});
