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Building Web Apps with WordPress: WordPress as an Application Framework
WordPress is much more than a blogging platform. If you have basic PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript experience you can use WordPress to develop fast, scalable, secure, and highly customized web apps, mobile apps, web services, and multisite networks of websites. Along with core WordPress functions and database schema, you’ll learn how to build custom plugins, themes, and services for just about any kind of web or mobile application. In this updated second edition, Brian Messenlehner and Jason Coleman cover new features and functionality added to WordPress up to version 5.4. All code examples in the book are available on GitHub.
- GenresProgrammingNonfictionWeb
546 pages, Paperback
Published December 31, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 17, 2020
Quite informative but the project they took to explain is not updated to recent edition. The same code they used for first edition.
Overall a good collection of information about WordPress development but this book is not for novice as it's not a cookbook. You learn the concept but you have to DIY if you like replicate what they are saying.
Overall a good collection of information about WordPress development but this book is not for novice as it's not a cookbook. You learn the concept but you have to DIY if you like replicate what they are saying.
August 4, 2026
It's been a while since last time I have the misfortune to read technical book that disappoint me this much. I was hoping this book can be an introduction to WordPress ecosystem and serves as a guide to use WP beyond a blogging platform. The book did present an app called "SchoolPress" as an example, but the way that it is being used in the book as disjointed and unhelpful at best, as if the author did not want to put in the effort to explain how the plugin is made, nor the decisions taken when designing it. Like, can you at least explain why BuddyPress was chosen, but not other plugins?
Instead, snippets of SchoolPress are sprinkled all over different chapters with no in-depth how each component works with each other. It's not uncommon to see 5-6 pages of attributes of a custom object without knowing what are they used for. Some time a certain thing can go unexplained for chapters. Take "taxonomy" as an example, a crucial concept that mentioned in Chapter 1 but it's not explain until Chapter 5 (130 pages later!). Reading through these sections is a very tiring experience and I don't see how anyone would benefit from how the materials are structured.
Additionally, better half of the book is basically just database schema of WordPress, API references and a list of community plugins to use, which are more often than not completely unnecessary to include since you can easily go to the official site for references.
Navigating through this book has been an exercise in frustration, to say the least. It's often to the point that I feel that this book is a thinly veiled ad to sell WP plugins for building web apps masquerading as a technical book. No offence but I would not recommend this book to anyone who are interested in WP development.
Instead, snippets of SchoolPress are sprinkled all over different chapters with no in-depth how each component works with each other. It's not uncommon to see 5-6 pages of attributes of a custom object without knowing what are they used for. Some time a certain thing can go unexplained for chapters. Take "taxonomy" as an example, a crucial concept that mentioned in Chapter 1 but it's not explain until Chapter 5 (130 pages later!). Reading through these sections is a very tiring experience and I don't see how anyone would benefit from how the materials are structured.
Additionally, better half of the book is basically just database schema of WordPress, API references and a list of community plugins to use, which are more often than not completely unnecessary to include since you can easily go to the official site for references.
Navigating through this book has been an exercise in frustration, to say the least. It's often to the point that I feel that this book is a thinly veiled ad to sell WP plugins for building web apps masquerading as a technical book. No offence but I would not recommend this book to anyone who are interested in WP development.
September 27, 2021
Great resource for any Wordpress developer
This book is an easy read and covers a wide range of Wordpress topics, everything from building plugins to building mobile apps. It also has a ton of great plug-in and library recommendations.
This book is an easy read and covers a wide range of Wordpress topics, everything from building plugins to building mobile apps. It also has a ton of great plug-in and library recommendations.
April 5, 2022
I found this a very interesting read!
Not sure I would use this, as I am a web dev pro and see better usability and better performance in other languages, but this was an intriguing read.
4.0/5
Not sure I would use this, as I am a web dev pro and see better usability and better performance in other languages, but this was an intriguing read.
4.0/5
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews