Leverage WordPress as a powerful web application framework

Application frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, CakePHP, CodeIgniter, etc. are common nowadays. If you've ever used them or read about them, you probably know what they do and how they help speed up web application development. In this article, we will discuss the common features of most of these frameworks and their similarities with WordPress.

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What is a web application framework?

Simply put, an application framework can be called a set of reusable code libraries or classes. Frameworks allow designers/developers to focus on their software and business logic rather than general details like user management, database connections, error logging, caching, user-friendly link generation, etc. This helps reduce development time.

Some of the most widely used web application frameworks are Ruby on Rails, CodeIgniter, CakePHP, and Zend. These frameworks are built on MVC architecture to separate various aspects of the application.

Since the purpose of this article is only to compare these frameworks with WordPress, we will only discuss frameworks built with PHP for now, since WordPress also uses PHP.

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Advantages of using a web application framework

PHP is a widely used programming language. It has received negative criticism in the past, but usually not because of flaws. PHP has a small learning curve, making it easier for anyone new to programming to start using it. This resulted in some users using shortcuts that made their website/app less secure.

Since every developer has a different coding style, using a framework helps in some ways to ensure that everyone is writing in a standard way and following conventions.

Below you will find a list of some of the features provided by these frameworks:

• User Management
• Template Engine
• Error record
• Localization
• Form and data validation
• File upload and media management
• Image Processing
• Search engine friendly URL
• Session Management
• Citations, XML-RPC and API
• Ability to extend using hooks and classes or plugins
• Automatic code execution scheduling
• Caching

WordPress has most of the above functionality built-in. So the question is, why can’t we use WordPress as a framework? As existing users of WordPress, we already know the classes and conventions used by WordPress. Using this for larger projects will allow us to leverage our existing knowledge to create larger, more complex web applications faster using the tools we love to use.

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The features of WordPress make it an exciting framework tool:

1. Administration and Dashboard

WordPress undoubtedly has one of the best admin backends out there. This is probably one of the reasons why average users have been able to adopt WordPress so quickly. Well-organized menus, dashboard widgets, and responsive design definitely make WordPress better than any other framework, at least when it comes to backend design.

Adding custom menus or creating separate data entry screens for different data sets (thanks to custom post types) is easy to do.

The dashboard allows a quick overview of the website and its content, you can also create your own dashboard widget with a few lines of code, for example:

	// Function that output's the contents of the dashboard widget
	function dashboard_widget_function() {
		echo "Hello World, this id my first Dashboard Widget!";
	}
	// Function that beeng used in the action hook
	function add_dashboard_widgets() {
		wp_add_dashboard_widget('dashboard_widget', 'Example Dashboard Widget', 'dashboard_widget_function');
	}
	// Register the new dashboard widget into the 'wp_dashboard_setup' action
	add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'add_dashboard_widgets' );

A great example of these dashboard widgets is the Google Analytics plugin, which provides a quick summary of the past 30 days of analytics in a small dashboard widget.

WordPress dashboard design can also be changed using CSS to make it white label.

2. User management and access control

One of the most important aspects of any application is user management and access control. WordPress offers an excellent user management tool and the ability to extend access control to different parts of the application using roles and functions.

By default, and without even a single line of code, WordPress allows different roles such as Administrator (with full control), Editor, Contributor, and Subscriber. Using this mechanism makes it easier to extend the level of control you give your users to manage different parts of your website.

3. Template engine

In addition to the back-end functionality, another important part of any project is creating the front-end portion of the website. WordPress has one of the simplest templating systems, along with detailed documentation and a growing and active community to help you when you get stuck.

Since it is not based on MVC – Model View Controller, even designers with zero basic PHP knowledge can start using WordPress more easily.

4. Localization

WordPress has built-in functionality to support localization. It also offers dynamic class generation so theme developers can make websites more accessible whether users read from left to right or right to left.

5。插件

截至今天，WordPress 目录中有 20,105 个活跃的免费插件。还有数千个免费的高质量插件，只需支付少量费用。插件扩展了默认功能，以提供不同类型的功能，包括缓存、站点地图生成、与第三方服务集成、多语言网站内容等。

6。缓存

缓存是任何网站或基于 Web 的应用程序的重要方面之一。它有助于减少服务器负载并提高网站速度。 WordPress 提供了一种简单的缓存机制，只需几行代码即可激活，对于想要更多控制的用户，有一些插件可以提供对网站缓存方式的完整控制，并且还提供与第 3 方内容交付网络的集成。

7。搜索引擎友好的网址

WordPress 只需点击几下鼠标即可生成用户友好的 URL，并且它与其他内容生成部分完美集成。

8。文件上传和媒体管理

WordPress 拥有最好的上传和媒体管理功能之一。它不像 Instagram 那样提供时髦的图像处理功能，但它确实提供了最常用的功能。

通过拖放上传、缩略图生成、数据项（例如“发布”与多个图像）之间的连接、自动图库创建，WordPress 确实为媒体管理提供了不错的功能列表。

9。挂钩、操作和过滤器

WordPress 提供了许多钩子，允许开发人员在特定时间调用函数。这些用于将 CSS 和 JavaScript 添加到网页的 head 标签，在帖子末尾添加广告横幅等。

10。错误记录

PHP 有一个标准错误日志系统，可以通过将以下行放入 wp-config.php 中来在 WordPress 中激活该系统：

	@ini_set('log_errors','On');
	@ini_set('display_errors','Off');
	@ini_set('error_log','/home/example.com/logs/php_error.log');
	/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

11。 XML-RPC 和 API

WordPress 支持 XML-RPC，允许在网站上远程发布数据。目前，这仅广泛用于从博客客户端到 WordPress 网站的远程发布，但是请将其视为允许您的桌面应用程序与基于 Web 的应用程序进行通信的东西。

12。多个实例

WordPress 最好的功能之一就是 WordPress 多站点。它允许您从一组核心文件运行多个 WordPress 实例。这可以用于创建多语言网站、特定于国家/地区的应用程序实例，也可以用于创建像 Shopify.com 这样具有在线商店网络的动态内容。这也是 WordPress.com 运行的基础。

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WordPress 最初是作为博客应用程序创建的。然而在过去的几年里，WordPress 社区的优秀人才不仅定制并使用它来构建博客，还构建了报纸网站、房地产主题、论坛和问答网站以及许多其他网站的门户网站.

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结论

选择 WordPress 时，您还应该了解 WordPress 的局限性。 WordPress 功能丰富，因此当用作大型应用程序的基础时，您将拥有许多触手可及的功能。但是，如果您的需求需要大量定制，并且在太多不同的数据类型之间进行互连，那么 WordPress 可能不是最佳选择。

如果您将 WordPress 不仅仅用作 CMS，请与我们分享您的项目，并在下面的评论中告诉我们它的独特之处。

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