[wp-hackers] Change in plugin Options page handling

[Carthik Sharma]

So Morgan,

Now, do plugins need to have a totally seperate options page? (what's
ml_options_page?)
How would a plugin developer load his option page, and how would an
options page be added for all the different plugins?
I am sorry if I got it wrong, but to add_actions(something) don't you
need a "something" hook? Does WordPress automatically add hooks like
options_page_<name-of-plugin-file> each time a new plugin is
activated?

I haven't taken a look at the new code, and so I thought it would be a
good time to ask questions that may fill a few gaps in the
description.

An example of how this is to be used, with a mention of how it works
internally within WordPress, would be great.

Thanks for all your work with WordPress lately :)

Carthik.


On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 20:53:00 -0800, Morgan Doocy <morgan at doocy.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Matt is implementing a change in the way plugin Options pages are be
> loaded, and he wanted me to contact plugin developers to inform them of
> the change. It relates to bug #785 in Mosquito. [1]
> 
> [1] http://mosquito.wordpress.org/view.php?id=785
> 
> First, some background on the way plugin Options pages are currently
> handled.
> 
> In order to add a custom Options page, a plugin does the following:
> 
> add_options_page($page_title, $menu_title, $access_level, $file);
> 
> ...where $page_title is the text to be displayed in the <title> of the
> page, $menu_title is the text of the item in the Options submenu,
> $access_level is the minimum user level required in order to access the
> plugin's Options page, and $file is the filename of the plugin.
> 
> Since it is recommended that plugins be contained in one file, rather
> than being split up into a plugin file and an Options page, most
> plugins specify the plugin's own filename for $file -- causing it to be
> loaded an additional time for displaying the Options page.
> 
> In order prevent function redeclaration errors, the is_plugin_page()
> function was created, making plugin pages take on the following format:
> 
> if (is_plugin_page()) {
>         // do Options page output
> }
> else {
>         // declare functions, add filters and hooks, etc.
> }
> 
> Meaning that the first time the page is loaded (i.e. along with all the
> rest of the plugins), is_plugin_page() evaluates to false, and the else
> block is executed. The second time it is loaded, is_plugin_page()
> evaluates to true, and the if block is executed.
> 
> This has been extremely difficult for first-time plugin developers to
> wrap their minds around, and most of us felt that it was a pretty
> kludgy way of doing things -- inconsistent with 'hook' nature of the
> rest of the plugin architecture and causing unnecessary heartburn and
> confusion over the fact that the plugin is loaded twice.
> 
> To remedy this I proposed deprecating the double-load method in favor
> of an action hook for outputting a plugin's Options page. The hook tag
> is in the format 'options_page_<pluginname>', where <pluginname> is the
> filename of the plugin, stripped of its '.php' extension. To use my
> plugins as examples:
> 
> add_action('options_page_multilingual', 'ml_options_page');
> 
> ...for my multilingual.php plugin, and:
> 
> add_action('options_page_mini-posts', 'mp_options_page');
> 
> ...for my mini-posts.php plugin.
> 
> This eliminates the need for the plugin to be loaded a second time,
> thereby eliminating the confusion of using is_plugin_page() (or even if
> (!function_exists()), as some people are using) to prevent code from
> being executed twice.
> 
> Note that backward compatibility with the current method will be
> maintained, but it is deprecated, and plugin documentation will be
> changed to reflect the new method only. At some point in the future the
> double-loading functionality will be eliminated entirely.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Morgan Doocy
> 
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> 


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University of Central Florida
Homepage: http://carthik.net