Managing Dependencies the WordPress Way

Presented on June 13 2017 at the WordPress Enschede meetup, Enschede, The Netherlands.
https://www.meetup.com/WordPress-Meetup-Enschede/
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Say you've build a beautiful theme specifically for WooCommerce, how do you ensure the user has the WooCommerce plugin activated ?Or you've build an add-on plugin for Gravity Forms which needs Gravity Forms to work.

In this talk we’ll explore what tooling is available to make plugin dependency management in ‎WordPress easier, how to use it and what could potentially be ahead in the future.‎

Related links:
http://tgmpluginactivation.com/
https://github.com/jrfnl/TGM-Plugin-Activation
https://wordpress.org/plugins/plugin-dependencies/
https://github.com/jrfnl/wp-plugin-dependencies

Transcript

1. Managing Dependencies the WordPress way
2. Hello! Juliette Reinders Folmer @jrf_nl @jrfnl @jrf
3. Dependencies ?
4. “ Dependency: A state of needing something or someone. yourdictionary.com guitarfish
5. Script & Styles Themes & Plugins wp_enqueue_script() wp_enqueue_style() ????
6. Script & Style Dependencies Theme Plugin JQuery Font Awesome
7. Theme & Plugin Dependencies Theme Plugin Plugin (Add-on) Plugin
8. WordPress Success Factors User friendliness Plugins & themes Win!
9. WordPress Dependency Management User friendliness Plugins & themes Win!
10. Plugin Dependencies Reality Theme / Plugin Requires: - parent theme - library / framework - plugin A Supports: - plugin B - plugin C BBPress theme Requires: - Non-bbpress parent theme - BBPress Supports: - BBPress Info Widgets - BBPress Members Only - BBPress Quotes BBPress add-on plugin Requires: - BBPress - CMB2
11. Unmanaged • White screen of death Verified • Admin notice • Self-deactivate Managed • Auto-install • Guided install
12. IT DOESN'T WORK!!!! Maybe I should read the readme.txt file... Now where can I find that other plugin ? Download Unzip Upload Activate YES! Got it working! Now, how do I get that hour of my life back ? Ryan McGuire
13. Developer's perspective  Frameworks not allowed in repo  Tags will be limited  Version conflicts  Update responsibility
15. Summing up: User interface & Update mechanism • Improves security • Prevents conflicts Relaxed users & Happier developers Unsplash
16. Challenges
17. Info availability  when plugin inactive  limited filter capability
18. Recognizing plugins  slug vs name  renamed directories
19. Is plugin active ?  must-use plugins  libraries
20. Solving Plugin Dependencies
21. Whuffies
22. The Players
23. Composer  Industry Standard  Not in line with WP philosophy  WP end-users skills  PHP 5.2  Hosting issues ?
24. Plugin Dependencies  Pro-active  User-interface  Multisite compatible  Simplicity  Cascading de-activate  PD plugin needs to be installed and active  Limited config  User guidance  No support for themes
25. TGM Plugin Activation  Supports install & update  Configurability  User friendly action overview  Reactive  Needs PHP config function  Multisite  Out of date versions, conflicts
26. What Could Lie Ahead
27. TGMPA v3 TGMPA v2 Com- poser Plugin Depen- dencies
28. TGMPA v3 Core Module Module Module Module Module Module Module
29. Basic Usage Depends: plugin-slug - Only required plugins Advanced Usage Json file - Required and Recommended/Supports - Minimum version - Better is active detection - Alternative download source - Update URL
30. Road Map TGMPA v3 (alpha) Testing, testing, testing... Convert current userbase Feature project Core merge proposal 01 02 03 04 05
31. You Can Help! Technical Testing Code Interface Design End User Testing Support Proposal
32. Thanks! Any questions ? Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/jrf @jrf_nl @jrfnl @jrf