Shoultes.net » upgrade

Get $10 OFF the Premium Event Manager Plugin for WordPress

Seth — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:07:43 +0000

We have just reached 5,000 downloads of Advanced Events Registration, the premiere event registration and management plugin for WordPress.

To celebrate, we offering $10 off the purchase price of premium version of the plugin, to the first 50 people! Use the discount code AER5000 to claim your discount at the time of purchase. Order now and you will also get a first look at version 3* of the new Event Espresso plugin.

*Everyone who has purchased the Advanced Events Registration plugin will also get a free upgrade to the new version shortly after release.

Forums Now Open!

Seth — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:41:07 +0000

In preparation for the release of Event Espresso (the new name of Advanced Events Registration,) we have just opened up our new forums.

Many of you have been using the WordPress forums to ask your questions about the Advanced Events Registration plugin. The only problem with that is that I don’t know anyone has posted anything there. I try to login and check every once in a while, but that is very inefficient and some questions go unanswered. I am hoping to change this with our new forums.

So please head on over and say hello, leave us some feedback in the “Suggestion Box” or show off your site in the new “Website Showcase.”

Function for Creating Tables with WordPress Plugins

Seth — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 07:41:23 +0000

Here is a very useful function I have written to install/update the database tables in your custom WordPress plugin. Basically I have used the examples given on the “Creating Tables with Plugins” page at WordPress.org.

In your main plugin file (ex. my_plugin.php) I define my plugin version:

define("MY_PLUGIN_VERSION", "2.16" ); //Declare the plugin version. This way we know the tables are always up to date. I usually declare this in my main plugin file.
require_once("includes/functions.php");
require_once("includes/database_install.php");
register_activation_hook(__FILE__,'my_plugin_data_tables_install');

Then in my functions.php file:

function my_plugin_run_install ($table_name, $table_version, $sql) {
		   global $wpdb;
		   $wp_table_name = $wpdb-&gt;prefix . $table_name;
		   if($wpdb-&gt;get_var("SHOW TABLES LIKE '".$table_name."'") != $table_name) {
				$sql_create_table = "CREATE TABLE " . $wp_table_name . " ( " . $sql . " ) ;";
				require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php');
				dbDelta($sql_create_table);
 
			//create option for table version
				$option_name = $table_name.'_tbl_version';
				$newvalue = $table_version;
				  if ( get_option($option_name) ) {
					    update_option($option_name, $newvalue);
					  } else {
					    $deprecated=' ';
					    $autoload='no';
					    add_option($option_name, $newvalue, $deprecated, $autoload);
				  }
			//create option for table name
				$option_name = $table_name.'_tbl';
				$newvalue = $wp_table_name;
				  if ( get_option($option_name) ) {
					    update_option($option_name, $newvalue);
					  } else {
					    $deprecated=' ';
					    $autoload='no';
					    add_option($option_name, $newvalue, $deprecated, $autoload);
				  }
		}
 
	// Code here with new database upgrade info/table Must change version number to work.
	$installed_ver = get_option( $table_name.'_tbl_version' );
	     if( $installed_ver != $table_version ) {
		  $sql_create_table = "CREATE TABLE " . $wp_table_name . " ( " . $sql . " ) ;";
	      require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php');
	      dbDelta($sql_create_table);
	      update_option( $table_name.'_tbl_version', $table_version );
	      }
	    }

Using the function is quite simple and can save a few lines of code. especially if you need to install several new tables.

Here is an example of database_install.php:

function my_plugin_data_tables_install () {
$table_version = MY_PLUGIN_VERSION; //Call the plugin version.
//Install the first table
$table_name = "my_first_plugin_tbl";
$sql = "id mediumint(9) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
	  time bigint(11) DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL,
	  name tinytext NOT NULL,
	  text text NOT NULL,
	  url VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
	  UNIQUE KEY id (id)";
my_plugin_run_install  ($table_name, $table_version, $sql);
 
//Install the second table
$table_name = "my_second_plugin_tbl";
$sql = "id mediumint(9) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
	   category_name VARCHAR(100) DEFAULT NULL,
	   category_identifier VARCHAR(45) DEFAULT NULL,
	   category_desc TEXT,
	   display_desc VARCHAR (4) DEFAULT NULL,
	  UNIQUE KEY id (id)";
my_plugin_run_install  ($table_name, $table_version, $sql);
}

I hope this helps some of the WordPress plugin authors out there.