Fortunately, WPMU DEV builds some of the most robust WordPress plugins in the world, so we have plenty of expert WordPress plugin developers who can put ChatGPT to the test.<\/p>\n
In fact, if you take a stroll around our company’s virtual corridors, you can’t help but bump into WordPress coders and developers. It seems everyone around here can look at a WordPress plugin and see PHP the way Neo sees the Matrix’s digital rain code<\/a>.<\/p>\n Everyone, that is …except me! <\/em><\/p>\n I’m just a blog writer with no coding skills and a burning desire to add “prompt engineer” to my CV.<\/p>\n So, in this post, we’ll explore how to leverage the power of ChatGPT to build a simple custom WordPress plugin quickly and securely, even if you lack extensive coding skills.<\/p>\n We’ll do this by:<\/p>\n 1) Asking ChatGPT to generate the code for a useful plugin that we can test, and<\/p>\n 2) Running the code generated by ChatGPT past our team of professional plugin developers so they can review it and provide their honest feedback.<\/p>\n We’ll cover the following:<\/p>\n Before using ChatGPT to generate code, we need to have a clear understanding of the functionality we want our plugin to provide.<\/p>\n This starts by outlining the specific features, actions, or modifications we’ll want to achieve with our plugin. This will then help us generate accurate prompts for ChatGPT and ensure that our AI-generated code aligns with our desired outcomes.<\/p>\n To generate our code snippets using ChatGPT, we’ll keep things simple (and free) and use the freely available interface provided by OpenAI.<\/p>\n Note:<\/em> My first attempt at using ChatGPT to create a WordPress plugin from scratch was way too ambitious.\u00a0I asked ChatGPT to build me a simple WordPress As someone who spends a lot of time writing WordPress tutorials, I often need dummy content to test plugins, create screenshots, etc.<\/p>\n So, I thought it would be great to model my AI-generated dummy content plugin on a plugin I often use called FakerPress<\/a>.<\/p>\n ChatGPT pushed back on my request and let me know that creating a fully functional WordPress plugin with all the features I requested was beyond the scope of a single response.<\/p>\n However, it did offer to provide me with a basic template, guide me on how to implement some of the features I mentioned, and even gave me instructions on how to create a plugin directory and file…<\/p>\n At first, ChatGPT output code that looked quite impressive…<\/p>\n ChatGPT also output all the additional code required to complete the next steps.<\/p>\n With the plugin code output, the next step was to upload the plugin to my test site and test it to make sure it works.<\/p>\n After uploading the folder containing the plugin code to the Assuming that maybe I didn’t add the additional snippets that ChatGPT provided correctly, I went back and asked for all the code to be provided as a single file that I could simply copy and paste to overwrite and update the uploaded plugin file…<\/p>\n There was a lot of code to output, so whenever the process came to a standstill, I instructed ChatGPT to continue…<\/p>\n After repeating this process several times, ChatGPT output the entire code and even provided some helpful information.<\/p>\n I uploaded the plugin file with the new code to my test site, then jumped into the site’s admin area and activated the plugin.<\/p>\n It worked! Or, so it seemed.<\/p>\n ChatGPT gave the plugin its own menu item…<\/p>\n And a settings screen with lots of fancy boxes and fields…<\/p>\n But I couldn’t see a field to specify how many posts or pages to create, so I simply ticked some boxes, entered some values, and clicked on the “Save Changes” button to see what happens.<\/p>\n And…absolutely nothing happened!<\/p>\n My fancy-ass plugin was all make-believe, just like one of those children’s playground spaceships that’s filled with useless knobs you can turn and buttons you can press while pretending to be flying in outer space.<\/p>\n So, I reached out to one of our developers via Slack and asked them to look at the plugin file.<\/p>\n Some of the comments that came back included the following:<\/p>\n After some back and forth discussions , it was deemed that there was quite a lot wrong with the plugin, that it would take a lot of work to fix it, and they suggested I scrap the project.<\/p>\n At this point, however, I was too invested in my mission to simply abandon everything and give up. Recalling Sir Winston Churchill’s famous words ( Ok, so my first attempt to get ChatGPT to build a WordPress plugin from scratch was a dismal failure. This in itself provided some valuable insights into ChatGPT’s ability to perform complex coding tasks (or, as someone in the team put it, “you can\u2019t code using ChatGPT without having extensive coding knowledge.”)<\/p>\n So, for “Take #2,” I decided to try again with a simpler plugin request.<\/p>\n Going back to the drawing board, a genius lightbulb moment lit up in my mind…why not ask ChatGPT to suggest ideas for simple WordPress plugins it could then generate the code for?<\/p>\n So, that’s what I did. Here’s the prompt I promptly engineered…<\/p>\n And here’s the list of suggested plugins ChatGPT replied with…<\/p>\n I liked the last suggestion, so I asked ChatGPT to generate the code for a functional content duplicator plugin, and it immediately went to work.<\/p>\n ChatGPT generated the following code for the plugin in the blink of an eye:<\/p>\n It even provided a set of instructions after generating the code.<\/p>\n I then uploaded the new plugin file to the And created a dummy post to test the plugin with…<\/p>\n Here are the post’s menu options before activating the plugin…<\/p>\n After activating the plugin…<\/p>\n Success!<\/p>\n The plugin activated. But did it actually work?<\/p>\n Here’s my test post again (note that the plugin added a new “Duplicate” item to the menu after activation).\u00a0I then clicked on “Duplicate” to see what happens…<\/p>\n And a duplicate post was created!<\/p>\n Here’s the table of posts showing entries for the original and duplicated post.<\/p>\n I’m sure that with better prompt engineering and some code tweaking, the plugin could have been significantly improved. For example, I would prefer if the plugin set the post status of the newly-duplicated post to ‘draft’ instead of publishing it, but ChatGPT delivered a simple WordPress plugin that worked. It was basic, but it did the job.<\/p>\n The last step was to ask someone who codes WordPress plugins for a living to scrutinize the code and get their opinion about using a tool like ChatGPT to code plugins.<\/p>\n Shortly after uploading the plugin to one of our testing channels, I got a ping from one of our developers. Here are some of the key points provided in their feedback:<\/p>\n In addition to examining the WordPress plugin code generated by ChatGPT and providing feedback as shown above, our developers also agreed with the following key points after assessing ChatGPT’s current capabilities to generate code:<\/p>\n 1 – It’s important to exercise caution and not blindly accept ChatGPT-generated code as correct.<\/strong><\/p>\n The ability to discern good code from bad or nonsensical code, however, implies that…<\/p>\n 2 – Users should have sufficient knowledge and understanding of WordPress plugin development to evaluate and modify the generated code as needed.<\/strong><\/p>\n 3 – Utilizing other resources, such as WordPress documentation, tutorials, and community forums, alongside ChatGPT can provide a more comprehensive understanding of WordPress plugin development.<\/strong><\/p>\n In this article, we’ve explored how you can utilize ChatGPT to build simple custom WordPress plugins, even if you have limited coding experience.<\/p>\n In other articles, we’ve seen that AI-powered tools like ChatGP can streamline your workflow, boost productivity, and unlock new possibilities (check out our recent article on\u00a0ways that ChatGPT can help you as a WordPress\u00a0developer<\/a>).<\/p>\n While there are over 60,000 free WordPress plugins available covering every type of functionality you can imagine, sometimes you may need a custom solution to meet a client’s specific requirements.<\/p>\n Beyond the core functionality of your plugin, you can also leverage ChatGPT to generate code for custom user interfaces. With its ability to understand prompts and generate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript snippets, you can create intuitive admin interfaces, front-end components, and interactive elements that will enhance the user experience and allow you to deliver a polished final product.<\/p>\n By utilizing the language model’s capabilities, you can generate code snippets, optimize functionality, and create user-friendly interfaces. However, it’s crucial to understand the generated code, review and refine it, and thoroughly test your custom plugins before deploying them to your live website.<\/p>\n The generated code may also require adjustments to align with coding standards, naming conventions, or specific project requirements. This requires a certain amount of coding knowledge and skills, as does optimizing the code and ensuring it follows WordPress coding guidelines for better maintainability.<\/p>\n The bottom line:<\/em><\/p>\n Here are my findings after trying to get ChatGPT to code me a plugin from scratch:<\/p>\n Check out some of our tutorials and articles on WordPress plugin development:<\/p>\n Can AI turn non-coders into pro WordPress plugin developers? To find out, we asked ChatGPT to build a custom WordPress plugin from scratch and then had our crack team of developers examine the code… AI is the world’s most popular two-letter word right now. With all the recent news headlines about whether AI will take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":774618,"featured_media":217131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"blog_reading_time":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_tutorials_categories":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[],"tutorials_categories":[],"class_list":["post-217072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tutorials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/774618"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217072"}],"version-history":[{"count":64,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217229,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217072\/revisions\/217229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217072"},{"taxonomy":"tutorials_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tutorials_categories?post=217072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Matrix](\"https:\/\/media.giphy.com\/media\/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExMjM1NTBiMTc4MDEwMmFlN2JlNTFiNmZmMGY5NDkyMzdiMmU1MmExYSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZzX2dpZklkJmN0PWc\/A06UFEx8jxEwU\/giphy.gif\")
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Step 1 – Define the Plugin’s Functionality<\/h2>\n
Step 2 – Generate Code Snippets with ChatGPT<\/h2>\n
Take #1…<\/h3>\n
time-travel<\/del> dummy text generating<\/em> plugin, using the prompt below…<\/p>\n![\"ChatGPT](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/initial-prompt.png\")
![\"ChatGPT](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/initial-response.png\")
![\"ChatGPT](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/initial-code.png\")
![\"ChatGPT](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/next-step-prompt-02.png\")
Step 3 – Test The Custom Plugin<\/h2>\n
wp-content > plugins<\/code> directory of my test site and activating it inside the Plugins screen…<\/p>\n![\"Plugins](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/plugin-screen-1050x664.png\")
![\"Plugins](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/plugin-error-01.png\")
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/next-step-response-05.png\")
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/next-step-response-06.png\")
![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/next-step-response-08.png\")
![\"Dummy](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/plugin-menu.png\")
![\"Dummy](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/plugin-settings.png\")
![\"Dummy](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/testing-plugin.png\")
![\"WordPress](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/no-new-posts-1050x417.png\")
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dummy_content_generator_generate_content_paragraphs<\/code> which, in turn, attempts to call dummy_content_generator_get_random_paragraph<\/code> for every paragraph it tries to generate. The problem is that there is no dummy_content_generator_get_random_paragraph<\/code> function.<\/li>\n“Fetch me another brandy”<\/del> “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never…”), I decided it was time for…<\/p>\nTake #2…<\/h3>\n
![\"ChatGPT](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/01-initial-prompt.png\")
![\"ChatGPT](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/02-plugin-ideas.png\")
![\"ChatGPT](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/03-response.png\")
\r\n\r\n<?php\r\n\/*\r\nPlugin Name: Content Duplicator\r\nDescription: Allows users to duplicate posts, pages, or custom post types with one click.\r\nVersion: 1.0.0\r\nAuthor: Your Name\r\nAuthor URI: https:\/\/yourwebsite.com\r\n*\/\r\n\r\n\/\/ Add duplicate action links to post row actions\r\nfunction content_duplicator_add_duplicate_link( $actions, $post ) {\r\n if ( current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) ) {\r\n $actions['duplicate'] = '<a href="' . wp_nonce_url( admin_url( 'admin-post.php?action=content_duplicator_duplicate_post&post_id=' . $post->ID ), 'content_duplicator_duplicate_post' ) . '" title="Duplicate this item" rel="permalink">Duplicate<\/a>';\r\n }\r\n return $actions;\r\n}\r\nadd_filter( 'post_row_actions', 'content_duplicator_add_duplicate_link', 10, 2 );\r\n\r\n\/\/ Duplicate the post\r\nfunction content_duplicator_duplicate_post() {\r\n if ( isset( $_GET['post_id'] ) ) {\r\n $post_id = absint( $_GET['post_id'] );\r\n\r\n if ( current_user_can( 'edit_posts' ) && wp_verify_nonce( $_GET['_wpnonce'], 'content_duplicator_duplicate_post' ) ) {\r\n $post = get_post( $post_id );\r\n\r\n $args = array(\r\n 'post_title' => $post->post_title . ' (Duplicate)',\r\n 'post_content' => $post->post_content,\r\n 'post_type' => $post->post_type,\r\n 'post_status' => $post->post_status,\r\n 'post_parent' => $post->post_parent,\r\n 'post_author' => get_current_user_id(),\r\n );\r\n\r\n $new_post_id = wp_insert_post( $args );\r\n\r\n if ( $new_post_id ) {\r\n \/\/ Duplicate meta fields\r\n $meta_fields = get_post_custom( $post_id );\r\n foreach ( $meta_fields as $key => $values ) {\r\n foreach ( $values as $value ) {\r\n add_post_meta( $new_post_id, $key, $value );\r\n }\r\n }\r\n\r\n \/\/ Redirect to the duplicated post\r\n wp_redirect( admin_url( 'post.php?action=edit&post=' . $new_post_id ) );\r\n exit;\r\n }\r\n }\r\n }\r\n}\r\nadd_action( 'admin_post_content_duplicator_duplicate_post', 'content_duplicator_duplicate_post' );\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n![\"ChatGPT](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/04-instructions.png\")
wp-content > plugins<\/code> directory of my test site using The Hub’s file manager<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/05-file-manager-1050x825.png\")
![\"WordPress](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/08-original-post-1050x778.png\")
![\"WordPress](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/09-post-before-plugin.png\")
![\"WordPress](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/06-activate-plugin-1050x598.png\")
![\"WordPress](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/07-plugin-activated-1050x516.png\")
![\"WordPress](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/10-post-after-plugin.png\")
![\"An](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/11-duplicated-post-1050x674.png\")
![\"WordPress](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/12-post-table.png\")
Feedback from Our Expert Plugin Developers<\/h2>\n
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Can ChatGPT Turn You Into a WordPress Plugin Developer?<\/h2>\n
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Interested in Developing WordPress plugins?<\/h3>\n
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