WordPress: Action and Filter Hooks

Take the next step in WordPress development. Learn how to work with action and filter hooks and use them to customize the behavior of WordPress core, themes, and plugins.

Action hooks and filters give developers the ability to extend and customize WordPress, the world's most popular content management system. This course teaches you how to write action and filter code to modify WordPress core, themes, and plugins. Instructor Carrie Dils explains how action hooks and filters work and shows how to leverage priorities, arguments, and conditionals for more precise control over when your code executes. Next, learn how to identify the available hooks and filters for different WordPress pages, invoke callback functions, and execute hooks. In the third chapter, Carrie introduces a start-to-finish project where she shows how to build a simple plugin with hooks and filters, and closes with some tips for using third-party developer hooks—and creating your own.

Introduction

• Using hooks and filters with confidence
• What you should know

1. Understand Hooks and Filters

• What is WordPress?
• The WordPress plugin API
• Action hooks explained
• Filters explained
• Changing execution order with priorities
• Using arguments to pass data
• Conditionals and context

2. Work with WordPress Hooks and Filters

• Finding references and documentation
• Identifying available hooks and filters
• A look at load order and dependencies
• Understanding callback functions
• Using apply_filters
• Registering and executing hooks in JavaScript

3. Create a Basic Plugin Using Hooks and Filters

• A look at what you're building
• Scaffold a simple plugin
• Adding a custom style sheet
• Registering a sidebar
• Displaying a widget area on single posts
• Applying filters for loading style sheets

4. Work with Non-WordPress Hooks

• Adding custom hooks
• Inside themes and plugins with built-in hooks
• Tips for using third-party hooks

Conclusion

• Staying current with WordPress
• Next steps