Using a custom plugin

There are several ways to use filters and action hooks in WordPress. Probably the most common way is to copy a code snippet into your theme’s functions.php file.

This has a major flaw though: If you update your theme, those changes will most likely be lost. You would have to go back in to re-apply your adjustments.

By creating your own plugin, which contains the filters and action hooks, you are free to update your theme without the fear of loosing anything.

Creating a plugin sounds daunting for most non-programmers, but we got you covered.

We made it as simple as possible, by providing a plugin template, that you can use and it already contains all the filters/hooks that you can use in picu.

Let’s get you set up:

1. Locate the file my-picu.php_example inside wp-content/plugins/picu
2. Copy the file into wp-content/plugins and rename it to my-picu.php
3. You will now see a new plugin called “My picu” in your WordPress Admin under “Plugins”. Activate that plugin.

Adding functionality

As of now, it doesn’t do anything yet, because all the relevant code parts are commented out, which means they are not active.

To activate a filter, you have to remove the double slashes (//) in front of the respective line of code.

Check out all picu supported filters.

Troubleshooting

Please be careful. Playing around with code has the potential of crashing your website. If you have made a mistake that renders your website unresponsive (eg. error message or white screen), rename the my-picu.php inside the wp-content/plugins folder to something like _my-picu.php. This way, WordPress will no longer execute the plugin and your site will be back up and running.

You can now start fixing your code or you can copy the template file as described above again, to start from scratch.

Also: always make sure that you’ve made a backup before you make any changes.