The WordPress REST API: A game changer for WordPress

The WordPress REST API A game changer for WordPress @
#wcgva

27.1% of The Web Now available in a RESTful way.

Silvan Hagen Co-Founder & WordPress Developer @wearerequired @neverything

What is A REST API? Trust me it’s easier than
it sounds.

REpresentational State Transfer - Not any smarter yet? Well me
neither ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - It’s about resources & a little bit about verbs - Uses HTTP methods in a specific way

REST: Let’s have a look GET /friends => Returns a
Collection of friends GET /friends/joe => Returns a single friend GET /friends/new => Could be a form to add a friend

The HTTP methods in REST GET /friends => READ POST
/friends => CREATE PUT /friends => UPDATE DELETE /friends => DELETE The famous CRUD

What about REST and WordPress? GET /wp-json/wp/v2/posts => Collection of
Posts GET /wp-json/wp/v2/posts/<id> => Singular Post GET /wp-json/ => Allows discovering the API

REST & WordPRESS A little history lesson about the REST
API.

How did we get here? - Started as GSoC project
in 2013 by Ryan McCue - Infrastructure merged into WP 4.4 in 2015 - Content Endpoints merged into WP 4.7 in 2016

What’s in it? There are a few more concepts in
the WP REST API.

API Discovery via Response Header - In the response header
of a request: Link: <http://example.com/wp-json/>; rel="https://api.w.org/"

API Discovery via <link> Element - Added to the <head>
of your HTML:

API Feature Discovery - Authentication - The API will tell
you how to authenticate

API Feature Discovery - Extensions - The API will tell
you what namespaces exist:

API Feature Discovery - Combined

API Routes

Linking using HAL - Uses HAL (Hypertext Application Language) to
link related resources

Embed Related Resources - Add ?_embed to any API Request
URI

Relax: The Crazy Part is over, let’s look at Examples

What Can You Build? A few examples and ideas.

In The WP-Admin https://wordpress.org/plugins/dashboard-directory-size/

In Your Theme

Standalone Web Apps/Sites

DATA Heavy Things

APPS APPS APPS https://github.com/joehoyle/vienna

So are you ready for the WP REST API?

Already Built Something?

Some more Ideas - Mobile Apps - Other technologies can
consume WP in a standardised way - New Admin Interfaces - Meta Boxes in the backend - All the lame admin-ajax.php stuff - WP_List_Tables - Customizer - Data heavy widgets - Comments (cool once comment type is merged) - Links & more: https://goo.gl/N4RQ6N

Thanks for Having Me! Questions?

The WordPress REST API: A game changer for WordPress

The WordPress REST API: A game changer for WordPress

Silvan Hagen

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