Creating a Plugin Update Automation System
Posted on 19th June 2023
Creating a Plugin Update Automation System
As a WordPress plugin developer, you may find yourself in a situation where you need to update a lot of plugins at once. This can be a time-consuming and tedious process, especially if you have a lot of plugins.
In this article, we will show you how to automate the process of updating WordPress plugins using a simple Bash script.
We will assume that you are familiar with the basics of Bash scripting. If not, you can check out our Bash Scripting Tutorial for Beginners.
Before we get started, we need to install the WP-CLI tool on our system. WP-CLI is a set of command-line tools for managing WordPress installations.
You can install WP-CLI on your server using the following command:
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wp-cli/builds/gh-pages/phar/wp-cli.phar
sudo chmod +x wp-cli.phar
sudo mv wp-cli.phar /usr/local/bin/wp
With WP-CLI installed, we can now move on to writing our Bash script.
The first thing we need to do is define a few variables that we will be using in our script. These variables are:
WP_PATH: This is the path to your WordPress installation.
PLUGIN_SLUG: This is the plugin slug of the plugin you want to update.
VERSION: This is the new version of the plugin you are updating to.
Next, we will use the WP-CLI tool to update the plugin. We will do this by using the following command:
wp plugin update $PLUGIN_SLUG ––version=$VERSION
This will update the plugin to the new version.
Now, we need to activate the new plugin version. We can do this by using the following command:
wp plugin activate $PLUGIN_SLUG
Finally, we need to deactivate the old plugin version. We can do this by using the following command:
wp plugin deactivate $PLUGIN_SLUG
You can now run this script on any number of plugins and update them all at once.
Conclusion
In this article, we showed you how to automate the process of updating WordPress plugins. This can be a time-saving process, especially if you have a lot of plugins.
The plugin update automation system we will be creating will utilize the excellent npm module called auto-updater. This module will automatically check for updates to your plugin, download them, and install them.
We will be using the WordPress Plugin Boilerplate as our starting point for this tutorial. The WordPress Plugin Boilerplate is an excellent starting point for any WordPress plugin. It includes a comprehensive directory structure, a robust plugin class, and many other features.
We will also be using GitHub for our version control. If you are not familiar with GitHub, it is a web-based hosting service for software development projects that use the Git revision control system.
To get started, create a new directory for your project and initialise it as a Git repository.
$ mkdir wp-plugin-update-automation
$ cd wp-plugin-update-automation
$ git init
Next, we need to create a package.json file. This file will contain metadata about our project, including the dependencies that we will be using.
$ npm init
You will be prompted to enter various pieces of information about your project. For the purposes of this tutorial, you can accept the defaults by pressing enter.
Now that we have initialised our project, we can install the auto-updater module.
$ npm install –save auto-updater
Next, we need to create a file called updater.js in the root of our project. This file will contain the code for our plugin update automation system.
We will start by requiring the auto-updater module.
var autoUpdater = require(‘auto-updater’);
Next, we need to configure the auto-updater module. We will set the interval at which the module will check for updates (in this case, once per day), as well as the URL of the JSON file that contains the information about the available updates.
autoUpdater.setCheckUpdateInterval(86400000); // One day in milliseconds
autoUpdater.setUpdateURL(‘https://your-domain.com/updates.json’);
The JSON file that we are pointing to in the setUpdateURL() method contains information about the available updates. It has the following format:
{
“latest”: “0.1.2”,
“url”: “https://your-domain.com/downloads/plugin-name.zip”
}
The latest property contains the latest version of the plugin, and the url property contains the URL of the ZIP file that contains the plugin code.
Now that we have configured the auto-updater module, we need to tell it to check for updates. We will do this in the init() method of our plugin class.
public function init() {
autoUpdater.checkForUpdates();
}
That’s all there is to it! With just a few lines of code, we have created a plugin update automation system that will check for updates to our plugin once per day and install them automatically.
A plugin update automation system can save a lot of time and hassle for any WordPress site owner. By automating the update process, you can set it and forget it, knowing that your plugins will always be up to date.
There are a few different ways to automate your plugin updates. One popular method is to use the WordPress Plugin Update Utility. This utility will automatically update all of your plugins to their latest versions.
Another popular method is to use a WordPress plugin like Advanced Automatic Updates. This plugin will allow you to automatically update specific plugins, or even all plugins, with just a few clicks.
Once you have decided which method you want to use to automate your plugin updates, setting it up is easy. Simply follow the instructions for your chosen method, and you’ll be up and running in no time.
Automating your plugin updates can save you a lot of time and hassle. By using a WordPress plugin like Advanced Automatic Updates, you can ensure that your plugins are always up to date, without having to manually update them yourself.
In the second part of this article we will look at how to create an update automation system for your plugin.
Creating an update automation system can save you a lot of time and hassle when it comes to managing your plugins. In this article we will look at how to create an update automation system for your plugin.
There are two parts to this process:
1. Setting up your plugin to use an update server
2. Creating an update server
Setting up your plugin to use an update server is relatively straightforward. You will need to add a few lines of code to your plugin to tell it where to find the update server and how to authenticate with it.
Creating an update server is a bit more involved. You will need to set up a web server and write some code to handle the update requests from your plugin.
Both of these tasks are beyond the scope of this article. However, there are plenty of resources available online that can help you get started.
Once you have your update automation system up and running, you will be able to focus on more important things than keeping your plugins up to date. Your users will appreciate the effort you have put into making their lives easier.
