Best WordPress Plugins in USA

What are WordPress Plugins?

Best WordPress plugins offer a powerful way to grow the functionality of your website. You can expand your site’s features beyond what is presently available in the available core WordPress platform without actually editing any code.

With a vast range of plugins available in the WordPress Plugin Directory, why develop your own? Designing your plugins lets you add customized functionality to your website, which might not be available in any existing plugins.

Developing your plugin is one of the best ways to add unique functionality to your website. 

Additionally, plugin development is easier to learn and offers flexibility and cost efficiency than hiring a developer to make custom additions to your website. 

Also, it is an excellent way to learn how the back end of WordPress works.

A plugin consists of more than one function and files written in PHP, the prime scripting language of WordPress. 

How does a WordPress Plugin Work?

To develop a plugin, it is vital first to understand how the systems work. Plugins operate using hooks, which are a way for a code to interact with another. 

WordPress has two types of hooks: 

Actions

A WordPress action refers to a particular activity that is going to happen at a certain time. 

With this type of hook, you can add or change the functionality of your plugin. 

The functions that are attached to this hook will be implemented once that action is triggered.

For example, The do_action function defines actions. They require the $tag parameter (the name of the action), and in some cases, $args (additional arguments expanding what the action does).

WordPress comes with a variety of preset actions. However, you can also create your own. Either way, when developing your WordPress plugin, you’ll use do_action to set values for your function. The add_action process is then used to connect that function up to a specific action.

Filters

WordPress filters accept a single variable or a series of variables and then send them back after being modified. 

In short, filters let you change the type of content that is displayed to the users.

WordPress filters are designed using the apply_filters function and are defined inside of that function only.

They require the $tag (the filter name) and $value (the filtered value or variable) arguments, with the option of using $var for extra function values.

You can develop your filter by using the apply_filters hook. Then to implement it, you can use the add_filter function. This will let you hook a specific role to the filter, so you can manipulate the variable and return it.

Shortcodes

Shortcodes are user-facing bits of code that provide users a quick and easy way to create and display custom functionality to their site visitors. They can be placed in posts and pages via the editor, in menus and widgets, etc.

Many plugins make use of shortcodes. You can create your shortcode by using the add_shortcode function. The name of your shortcode will be the first variable, and the second variable will be the output function. The output function consists of three values: attributes, content, and name.

Widgets

Another way to enable plugin functionality through a simple interface is by using WordPress widgets. 

For example, you can create a device by extending the WP_Widget class. WordPress uses an object-oriented design approach to widgets, meaning that the functions and values are stored in the single entity of a type.