Plugin Dependencies Feature Plugin Now Ready for Testing
For more than a decade, WordPress developers have been discussing how core can support plugins that require one or more other plugins in order to work. Having a standardized way of managing plugin dependencies would be a useful and time-saving feature for developers, who currently have to roll their own solutions for this. “The situation there is a lot like the relationship between parent and child themes,” project lead Andy Fragen said in February when introducing the idea for the feature plugin. “Without their relationships to the bigger plugin, those dependent plugins can do very little. Every plugin developer is on their own to code a solution to resolve the issue. The single most common example is WooCommerce, which is a dependency for hundreds, if not thousands, of WooCommerce add-on plugins.” After nine months of discussion and development, the Plugin Dependencies feature plugin is now ready for testing. It allows plugin authors to specify any WordPress.org-hosted plugin(s) that are required for their plugins to function. A plugin that has dependencies can be identified by adding a “Requires Plugins” header to the docblock of the main plugin file. Plugin authors can specify as many dependencies as necessary in a comma-separated list of plugin slugs. How…
…Full post on WP Tavern
Read Full
