WP Book Plugin

A comprehensive WordPress plugin for managing and displaying books with custom post types, taxonomies, metadata, shortcodes, and widgets.

📚 Features

• Custom Post Type: 'Book' with all necessary fields
• Taxonomies:
  • Book Category (hierarchical)
  • Book Tag (non-hierarchical)
• Custom Meta Boxes: For book details (author, price, publisher, etc.)
• Custom Table: For storing book metadata
• Shortcode: [book] with various attributes
• Widget: Display books by category
• Dashboard Widget: Shows top 5 book categories
• Settings Page: For currency and books per page
• i18n Ready: Full translation support

🚀 Installation

1. Download the plugin files
2. Upload the wp-book folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
3. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
4. Go to Books > Settings to configure plugin options

💻 Usage

Shortcode

[book category="fiction" number="5" show_author="1" show_price="1"]

Widget

1. Go to Appearance > Widgets
2. Find 'Book Category Widget'
3. Drag to your desired widget area
4. Configure the widget settings

📖 Documentation

Post Meta Data

What is 'Post Meta Data'? Post meta data is additional information that can be attached to a post. In this plugin, it's used to store book-specific information like author, price, etc.

What fields can be accessed?

• _wp_book_author - Book author
• _wp_book_price - Book price
• _wp_book_publisher - Publisher name
• _wp_book_year - Publication year
• _wp_book_edition - Edition number
• _wp_book_url - External URL

Difference between add_post_meta and update_post_meta

• add_post_meta(): Adds a new meta field. If the key already exists, it can add another row with the same key.
• update_post_meta(): Updates an existing meta field or adds it if it doesn't exist. If the key exists, it updates the existing value.

Should metadata be used for querying posts? While possible using meta_query, it's generally better to use taxonomies for querying as they're more performant. Metadata is better for filtering or displaying additional information.

Metadata API

How does the Metadata API differ from other APIs?

• Metadata API is specific to WordPress for handling post, comment, user, and term metadata.
• REST/SOAP are web service protocols for remote communication.
• Metadata API is for internal WordPress data storage, while REST/SOAP are for external communication.

Handling Metadata Dependencies The plugin handles dependencies by checking if required data exists before using it. If a dependency is missing, it provides fallback values or graceful degradation.

Serialization Formats

• Primarily uses PHP serialization for complex data
• Also supports JSON for better interoperability
• Simple key-value pairs for basic metadata

Shortcodes

How WordPress parses shortcodes

1. WordPress searches post content for square brackets
2. When found, it looks for a registered shortcode
3. If found, it calls the associated callback function
4. The function returns the output that replaces the shortcode

If shortcode is not found If WordPress can't find a registered shortcode, it will display the shortcode as plain text in the frontend.

Escaping Shortcodes To display a shortcode as text, use double square brackets:

[[book]]

Creating Custom Shortcodes

function my_book_shortcode($atts) {
    // Shortcode logic here
    return $output;
}
add_shortcode('book', 'my_book_shortcode');

Shortcode Storage Shortcodes are stored in the global $shortcode_tags array when registered with add_shortcode().

Shortcode Attributes

function my_book_shortcode($atts) {
    $atts = shortcode_atts(
        array(
            'category' => '',
            'number' => 5,
            'show_author' => true
        ), 
        $atts,
        'book'
    );
    // Rest of the code
}

Nested Shortcodes Use do_shortcode() to handle nested shortcodes:

echo do_shortcode($content);

🛠️ Development

File Structure

wp-book/
├── includes/
│   ├── dashboard-widget.php
│   ├── install.php
│   ├── meta-boxes.php
│   ├── settings-page.php
│   ├── shortcodes.php
│   └── widgets.php
├── languages/
├── single-book.php
└── wp-book.php

Hooks and Filters

• wp_book_after_content - After book content
• wp_book_before_meta - Before book meta data
• wp_book_currency - Filter the currency symbol

📝 License

GPL v2 or later

🙏 Credits

Developed by Vinay...... its me

[book] - Display all books (5 per page)
[book number="3"] - Show specific number of books
[book category="fiction"] - Filter by category
[book category="fiction, science"] - Filter by multiple categories
[book tag="bestseller"] - Filter by tag
[book author="J.K. Rowling"] - Filter by author
[book publisher="Penguin"] - Filter by publisher
[book year="2020"] - Filter by year
Display Options
[book display="grid" columns="3"] - Grid view
[book display="list"] - List view
[book show_thumbnail="0" show_excerpt="0"] - Hide thumbnails and excerpts
[book show_content="1"] - Show full content
Sorting Shortcodes
[book orderby="title" order="ASC"] - Sort by title (A-Z)
[book orderby="meta_value" meta_key="_wp_book_price" order="ASC" meta_type="NUMERIC"] - Sort by price
[book orderby="date" order="DESC"] - Newest first
Advanced Shortcodes
[book ids="1,5,8"] - Show specific books by ID
[book exclude="3,7"] - Exclude specific books
[book paginate="1" per_page="3"] - Add pagination
[book template="custom-books"] - Use custom template
[book meta_query='[{"key":"_wp_book_price","value":["10","50"],"compare":"BETWEEN","type":"NUMERIC"}'] - Price range
Combination Examples
[book tag="bestseller" year="2020"] - Bestsellers from 2020
[book category="science-fiction" author="Andy Weir"] - Filter by category and author
[book meta_query='[{"key":"_wp_book_price","value":"10","compare":"<","type":"NUMERIC"}'] - Books under $10