This is Part 7 of The Complete Guide To Writing a WordPress Widget Series.
If you’ve been following along throughout this series, then you should have a fully functioning widget that’s ready for release.
As with most other projects, there are always a few things worth reviewing before releasing your project into the wild. Depending on the utility of your plugin or widget and the popularity of WordPress, it’s not at all uncommon to expect several hundred or thousands of people to use it.
Here are several things you should remember to do before launching your project:
1. Review The Basics
- Include a copy of the GPL with your widget.
- Specify the plugin name, description, Plugin URI, and Author URI at the top of the plugin file. This helps drive certain information in the WordPress admin interface and helps users follow you and your plugin.
- Add a README file to the plugin that provides instructions for how to use your project.
2. Version Compatibility
- Note what version you’ve tested your widget with as you may receive feedback or reports based on incompatibility.
- Decide what versions of WordPress you’re going to support – previous versions, current versions, or current and future versions? Setup testing environments for each of these.
- As WordPress releases beta versions of the platform, be prepared to test your project against each version to ensure compatibility. This ultimately results in a quick launch once the stable version of WordPress is released.
3. Browser Testing
- Determine which browsers and which versions of browsers you are going to support and be prepared to test accordingly.
- Remember to test both the widget’s administration panel and display in each browser. It’s helpful to test each plugin from installation through each use case.
4. Release
- Package your plugin’s directory into a zip file. This means that your zip file should contain a single directory that contains all of your files – WordPress expects this format for installation.
- Publish your work on your blog, via Twitter, or even guest post an article about it on as many popular blogs that you can – it can go a very long way in getting the word out about your work.
- If you’re an advanced developer, release it to The WordPress Plugin Repository. This is a topic that’s beyond the scope of this particular series that we may look into in the future.
If you’ve covered each of these, then you should feel confident that you’ve got a final version of your widget ready to release.
If there’s anything that’s not on this list that you believe should be, let me know. It’d be nice to keep this particular post as updated as possible.
This concludes The Complete Guide To Writing a WordPress Widget Series.
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