Ben
Ben is a lifelong Nintendo fan who likes to build websites, and make video games. He buys way too much Lego.
A 3 step guide to getting your WordPress plugin onto WordPress.org
I recently got my bm-custom-login plugin accepted onto the Wordress plugin repository. In order to get it online I had to use subversion – something I’ve never used before.
I found the “using svn page” on wordpress.org to be rather intimidating. For example the first section “getting started” jumps straight into telling you what commands to type without even mentioning the basic things such as what to download. This seems to go against the simple software the WordPress team try to promote so I thought I’d work it out for myself and document the process. It was considerably simpler than expected.
Before we start
Since this is a tutorial for uploading WordPress plugins I think I should point out that you will need a WordPress.org account, and to have submitted an application for them to host your plugin. Once you get the confirmation email (which seems to take a couple of days) you can move on.
Step 1 – Get the software
I knew from the start that I didn’t want to mess around with the command line. I won’t be using svn (subversion) often enough to need to learn it, and I don’t want to have to remember all the obtuse commands. This meant my first port of call was some visual svn software. A 30 second search on Google showed me that TortoiseSVN was by far the most popular so I figured I’d use that – you can download TortoiseSVN here.
After downloading, install TortoiseSVN. This package contains everything you’ll need to manage your files. If you want to create an SVN server then you will need Subversion itself but that’s outside the scope of this tutorial.
Step 2 – Check in the initial files
When you register a plugin on wordpress.org the svn folder is created for you so you can skip that. All you need is to create a folder on your pc for your subversion files. I created an SVN folder then a bm-custom-login folder – I will then place all future plugins in the same folder. Right click on your plugin folder, and select “SVN Update”, you will be asked where to update the files from (use the url sent to you when your wordpress plugin was approved) and the existing files will be downloaded. Remember, anybody can download these files, but only you can upload them…
Step 3 – Update your plugin
Create a readme.txt file using this as an outline. This file outlines what will be displayed on your plugin page. Save the readme.txt into the same folder as your plugin.
Go back to your main plugin folder (in my case ‘SVN/bm-custom-login’), right click and press “SVN Commit”. You will now be asked for your login information, which is the same as your wordpress.org login details. Press ok, and your plugin will be uploaded. Now wait a short while and your plugin will be live on WordPress Extend.
In the future…
Now that I have the plugin online I have decided to forward all download requests through this page. Doing this will ensure people always have the latest version, it also means I only have to update one set of code. Finally having the code on wordpress.org means that should I update the plugin people using it will be informed via the built in plugin update notifications.
Since I now have the know how, I will be releasing some of my other custom plugins fairly soon.
Hello,
I was wondering if you could give me a little assistance with your highlighter plugin? It’s downloaded and activated and all I want to be able to do is highlight author comments. What exact line of php should I place in the comment css? My subscribers have been asking me to do this for quite some time. I tried another but had mixed results. tia.
Hi Zman – I am going to be writing a post about the highlight plugin soon, but basically what you need to do is stick the highlight command into a class giving you something to style.
Something like
< li class="<?php echo bm_commentHighlight(); ?>">Comment here</li>How you do this will be different for every website, but hopefully that will get you going.
Thank you for this! A very big help … the subversion stuff was very intimidating.
Hi, I agree, the ‘How to Use Subversion’ page was very intimidating and rather off-putting. In fact the first thing I did was to Google for more information and came here. This information is much more palatable. Thanks.
All I have to do now is figure out how to process my Plugin for internationalization I will be even happier!! 🙂
Hi I tried your tutorial. But still i am facing problems to upload my plugin files. I am getting 400 error while SVN checkout.
ERROR IS
“Server sent unexpected return value (400 Bad Request) in response to REPORT”
“request for ‘/!svn/vcc/default'”
Please let me know what I am doing wrong.
wow, this info really helped me. I am still little confuse with wordpress.org explanation before, but thanks to you 🙂
I was wondering if there is anything special to do to have an additional plugin hosted by wordpress. I’ve filled out the application a few weeks ago and have had no response.
I’ve had that happen before as well. I would send the application again. They seem to be quite bad at getting back to people that they decline.
thank you for helping me understand better.. good post!
Hello,
Good informationn.
But still its kinda confusing.
Did it now and the files are in the map.
Now waiting till users can see them in plugin browsing on wordpress website.
Jordy Kroeze
I have installed TortoiseSVN, but I can’t find “SVN Update” when I right click the folder. Are you using old version of TortoiseSVN?
I wrote this 2 years ago so Tortoise has probably been updated a couple of times since then 🙂
If the command isn’t ‘SVN update’ then it will just be ‘update’. The name of the command here matches the actual SVN command you would use if you used the command line version of the tool.
Unfortunately i now use a Mac and Tortoise SVN isn’t available there so I can’t check to see what the commands are now.
The WordPress SVN explanation was horrible! Your answered it nice and easily. Thanks a lot
Well, big thanks for that tutorial. I don’t knew why wordpress codex don’t mention how to update repository and how to use Tortoise…
I host can’t seem to get it to work, I’ve been trying to upload my plugin with no success.
I can’t believe this is the method for uploading plugins to WordpPress.org, for a company that promotes simplicity this is anything but.
Why not just have a simple file upload and a section to add all the other information right on the site.
I must admit I thought the same when I first tried but actually svn is really good and simplifies updates massively once you’re setup. I can make changes to plugins, and collaborate with others really easily now it’s all there. Once it’s setup you don’t need to visit WordPress.org at all to update things.
I’m trying to upload my plugin to WordPress.org site, but I see this: “This plugin is approved and awaiting data upload but not visible to the public yet. Once you make your first commit, the plugin will become public.”
That’s what happens 🙂 So now you need to make some svn commits using the login info that was sent to you and then your plugin will show up on WordPress.org.