This post is mostly your.

Tell us about cools and useful features in other content management system, which you can only dream about in WordPress.

Remember to tell:

• What it is
• What it’s good for
• How you work around it in WordPress
• Is this a deal-breaker, or just another cool thing?

Looking forward to some surprises

Seeing that several other plugins we’re using did have some problems, I thought it would be interesting to write about how to make sure your own plugins and themes are resilient to WordPress updates.

Tips for making plugins and themes migrate flawlessly

The WordPress codex is stuffed with instructions for writing good plugins. This is a short summary of key points to remember:

• Never use obsolete calls – no matter how tempting it is.
• Always use the WP actions (hooks) and filters to access the database and don’t query or update it directly.
• Use the WP classes when creating GUI elements – this way, when WordPress redesigns, so will your plugin’s admin.

Examples (don’t try these at home)

Getting WordPress options

use:

get_option('some_option_name');

and not:

$wpdb->get_var("SELECT option_VALUE FROM $wpsb->options WHERE option_name='some_option_name'");

Getting a list of posts (including with a filter)

use:

$posts = query_posts('showposts=5'); //plus any other arguments

$posts = query_posts('showposts=5&cat=3,4,5');

and not:

$posts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_status='publish' AND post_type='post' ORDER BY post_date DESC LIMIT 5");

$posts = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->posts p JOIN $wpdb->term_relationships r ON p.ID = r.object_id JOIN $wpdb->term_taxonomy x ON r.term_taxonomy_id = t.term_taxonomy_id JOIN $wpdb->terms t ON x.term_id = t.term_id WHERE p.post_status='publish' AND p.post_type='post' AND x.taxonomy='category' AND t.term_id IN (3,4,5) ORDER BY p.post_date DESC");

Getting a list of tags

use:

$tags = get_terms('post_tag');

and not:

$tags = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT * FROM $wpdb->terms t JOIN $wpdb->term_taxonomy x ON t.term_id = x.term_id WHERE x.taxonomy='post_tag'");

Summary

Pretty simple, right?

Keep in mind that this list applies the same to theme functions. You might want to go over your functions.php file and make sure that’s the way it works.

BTW – very few people have voted in our poll about where WPML should go. Don’t you care? You still have a chance. Go and vote now!