Developer Documentation
WordPress believes in keeping it simple, and a lot of thought goes into including new functionality as a part of the "core" WordPress code, in order to keep WordPress fast and lightweight. Still, users often find the need to graft additional functionality onto WordPress to meet their needs. This section of the Codex offers guidelines and references for anyone wishing to modify, extend, or contribute to WordPress.
You may also wish to consult the Developer Documentation FAQ
In the following articles you may encounter programming terms that are not explained in the usual level of detail required for understanding by non-programmers.
Although the alteration of the downloadable files for WordPress is limited to a few distinct programmers, every WordPress user has the ability to affect change in the core WordPress code, making WordPress highly customizable.
- Theme Development - Best starting place for learning about how to develop Themes
- Designing Themes for Public Release - Next step, if you want your Theme to be used by other people
- Templates - Comprehensive list of other references for Theme development
- http://themes.wordpress.net - WordPress Theme Repository, where you can search for existing Themes, and distribute Themes you create
- Template Tags - PHP functions created specifically for use in Themes
- Function Reference - Complete PHP function reference for WordPress (version 2.1, with links to previous versions)
- Migrating Plugins and Themes to 2.1 - Contains information on how to upgrade your Theme so it will work with WordPress Version 2.1
- WordPress Coding Standards - General information about coding standards for WordPress development
- Writing a Plugin - Best starting place for learning about how to develop plugins
- Plugin Submission and Promotion - Once you have written your plugin, here are some hints on distributing it widely
- Plugin Resources - Comprehensive list of other references for plugin development
- Plugin API - Hooks, Actions, and Filters to use in your Plugins (version 2.1; has links to older version articles)
- Function Reference - Complete PHP function reference for WordPress (version 2.1, with links to previous versions)
- Migrating Plugins and Themes to 2.1 - Contains information on how to upgrade your Plugin so it will work with WordPress Version 2.1
- WordPress Coding Standards - General information about coding standards for WordPress development
- Contributing to WordPress - Main starting point if you would like to contribute to core WordPress development, documentation, support, translations, or financial health
- Mailing Lists - WordPress mailing lists for documentation and development
- IRC - WordPress IRC channels
- http://wordpress.org/support - WordPress Support Forums
- http://wordpress.org/development - WordPress Development Blog
- http://planet.wordpress.org - Aggregate of many blogs discussing WordPress
- Advanced Topics - Annotated list of many articles on advanced WordPress topics
- Query Overview - Description of the WordPress query process used to find posts and display them
- Reporting Bugs - Information on reporting and fixing WordPress bugs
- PHP Manual (http://www.php.net/manual/en)
- MySQL Manual (http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/index.html)
- Wordpress Development Search (Google CSE) (http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=003089488824223329442%3Avwjqws2iu5u)
- Justin Vincent's ezSQL Documentation (http://justinvincent.com/docs/ezsql/ez_sql_help.htm)
- Incutio XMLRPC Home Page (http://scripts.incutio.com/xmlrpc/)
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