WordPress Admin Access Plugin is on GitHub

What this is about

A while back I started developing plugins for WordPress.  Often, this was just for my own use.  Back in January, I released a plugin, which we use at M3PCS, when we use WordPress as a CMS for simple websites.  To briefly restate the purpose:

When using WordPress as a CMS, and creating simple websites for clients, one of the concerns is to allow administrative access to us as developers, while at the same time preventing any such access to visitors.

You can find the original post here.

Try Git ?

Since I wanted to update the plugin, this seemed like a good time to try “git” as version control system.  In past lives I have had very mixed experiences with the “subversion” system.  Since a lot of my work is done as a solo developer or as a member of a really small team, subversion seemed overcomplicated.  But still, configuration management, when not done properly, will bite you in the hiney.

The “git” concept was invented by Linus Torvalds, the father of LINUX.  Well, if it is good enough for Linus, it is good enough for us :).  And just as it can help control development of projects with large teams (from dozens to hundreds of developers) it can also be very effectively used by solo developers and small teams.

So to get started, I installed Git on a development server, got a GitHub account, and started working with the “Limit wp-admin access” WordPress plugin.

 Git-R-Done

I plan to write an introductory tutorial on using “Git” and “GitHub” in a future post.  My objective here was to take the plugin code, put it under configuration control, make changes, and provide a release.  So .. the only way to really learn is to “do” 🙂

Over the span of a few days, from November 15 2014 through November 18 2014,  I took my original code, made a local git repository, uploaded it to GitHub, and started refactoring and adding some features.   Then, after extensive testing, I made a release 1.0.0 version.

So what did I do?  Basically I “OOP-ified” the plugin.  I also used namespacing to avoid interference with other WP plugins and themes.  In addition I refactored the code to implement MVC principles.  Feel free to inspect the code.

The original article has been updated with a link to the current release on GitHub.  For instructions etc, see Using WordPress for Simple Websites – Admin Access Plugin