Overview — What this tutorial covers This article is a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to creating custom WordPress REST API endpoints using register_rest_route. It covers fundamental concepts, detailed code examples (both procedural and class-based), request parsing, validation and sanitization, authorization and nonce usage, returning responses and errors, adding fields and schemas, caching best practices, versioning and […]

Introduction Nonces in WordPress are a lightweight CSRF protection mechanism used to validate that an action originated from the expected user and place in the UI. They are not cryptographically strong tokens for authentication, but when used correctly they prevent many accidental or scripted cross-site request forgery scenarios for logged-in users. This article explains, in […]

Introduction This tutorial explains, in full detail, how to protect WordPress AJAX and REST API requests using nonces from both PHP and JavaScript. You will learn how WordPress nonces work, how to generate and pass them to client-side code, how to verify them on the server, best practices, debugging tips, and the limitations you must […]

Overview This article is a comprehensive, end-to-end tutorial about using AJAX-style calls in WordPress through the REST API and the modern fetch() API in JavaScript. It contrasts the old admin-ajax approach with the REST API, explains authentication and security, shows server-side code to register endpoints, demonstrates how to enqueue and localize assets, and provides robust […]

Introduction This article is a comprehensive, practical tutorial for using AJAX in WordPress with admin-ajax.php using PHP and JavaScript. It covers everything you need to know: how admin-ajax.php works, how to register AJAX handlers in PHP, how to enqueue and localize scripts, how to send requests from JavaScript (both jQuery and vanilla JS/fetch), security (nonces […]

Introduction This tutorial explains, in full detail, how to load a JavaScript file in WordPress only for a specific template using conditionals. It covers best practices, multiple examples, admin/editor cases, versioning, localization (passing PHP data to JS), and common troubleshooting pitfalls. Every example uses the recommended API (wp_enqueue_script) and shows variations for different template locations […]

Introduction — Why enqueue scripts and styles correctly WordPress has built-in mechanisms to load JavaScript and CSS in a reliable, conflict-free way. Using the wp_enqueue_ family of functions (primarily wp_register_script, wp_enqueue_script, wp_register_style, wp_enqueue_style, wp_localize_script, wp_add_inline_script, wp_add_inline_style) ensures: Dependency management: scripts are loaded in the correct order. Duplicate prevention: WordPress avoids loading the same file multiple […]

Overview This article is a complete, detailed tutorial on how to customize the WordPress login screen using PHP and how to properly enqueue JavaScript (and CSS) for the login page. It covers where to put your code (plugin vs theme), how to enqueue assets only for the login screen, how to pass data from PHP […]

Overview This article explains in detail how to read and write WordPress options using the core functions get_option and update_option. It covers function signatures, parameters, return values, behavior with autoload, serialization, multisite differences, caching, hooks triggered by option changes, recommended best practices (security and performance), and many practical, copy-paste examples. What are WordPress options? Options […]

Overview This tutorial explains, in complete detail, how to create an admin options page in WordPress using the Settings API in PHP. It covers concepts, required functions, a step-by-step example plugin that registers an options page, registers settings/sections/fields, sanitizes input, uses the WordPress color picker and media uploader, displays settings errors, and demonstrates best practices […]