Common Errors when making a plugin

[zaher1988]

Heloo there,

I'd like to state here some common errors that you might encounter when making your own plugins, a little bit of my little experience in plugins for those who are new.

1- Correct & Common naming

When making a plugin you should ensure to have a common name for the plugin and for the activation , deactivation, info etc...functions.
what i mean in. if you make for example

function icons_activate()

your plugin file should be called icons.

or you will not find your plugin in the plugin manager, or the plugin will not work.

2- Escaping all joker characters like $, [, ], ?, ( and ).
When making a plugin and u miss escaping the jokers, you'll plugin will not do the job when activated. this is only apllied for the find string in the function find_replace_templatesets.

What i mean by escaping is
in case u have

$mybbuser[avatar]

you have to escape it using "\"

\$mybbuser\[avatar\]

3-When having multilines
It's better that in the search part of the replace templateset, that you dont use multipule lines. however if u have multipule lines make sure to include the letter "s" after the #
for example

"#<td valign="top" align="right">
<div class="bottommenu"><span class="smalltext">\$logoutlink</td>#s"

4-Watch up not to use "0" in activate
You dont incluse "0" at the end of the activation for a certain change of templates. As 0 means you don't want to create a new template. however if you change something, you must create a new template otherwise reverting to original won't be possible.
so only use it for deactivating


umm in case others would like to add things here you're free


bbye

[Ryan Gordon]

I didnt know about #3. cool

[decswxaqz]

Just to correct and add to the above

2- Escaping all joker characters like $, [, ], ?, ( and ).
You should NOT escape all the characters in your plugin, just the ones used for the find string in the function find_replace_templatesets

I think the above poster is referring to the function find_replace_templatesets. This function will basically search a specified template with the search string and replace it with something else. The function uses the function preg_replace to look for code. This means you have to 'escape' certain characters. Most noticeably $ and all of the brackets ([{}]). There are a few others but these are the main ones you need to know about.

You should use the function preg_quote to do all of this work for you.
You should also store your search strings in string values instead of copying/pasting the code into the relevant places. If you want to search for something and add something after the search string, some people might use

require_once("inc/adminfunctions_templates.php");
function plugin_activate(){
find_replace_templatesets('postbit', '#reputation#', 'reputation<br/>mystring');
}
function plugin_deactivate(){
find_replace_templatesets('postbit', '#<br/>mystring#', '', 1);
}

it makes more sense to store the things in strings like so

$find_string = "reputation";
$replace_string = "<br/>mystring";
require_once("inc/adminfunctions_templates.php");
function plugin_activate(){
global $find_string, $replace_string;
find_replace_templatesets('postbit', '#'.preg_quote($find_string).'#', $find_string.$replace_string);
}
function plugin_deactivate(){
global $find_string, $replace_string;
find_replace_templatesets('postbit', '#'.preg_quote($replace_string).'#', '', 0);
}

Note the use of preg_quote. You won't have to manually add all of the extra slashes and if you change the code in one place, you won't have to change it anywhere else.


4-Watch up not to use "0" in activate
When you use the function find_replace_templatesets the last parameter is optional.
If it isn't used, or set to 1, it will create a new template from the 'master' template. This means an option will appear in the Admin CP for users to revert back to the original (default) template.
If set to 0 then it will try to edit all templates with that title.

So when you install/edit a template for the first time (read: activating a plugin) using the function find_replace_templatesets, you should omit this parameter so that it will create a copy of the master template you are trying to edit.
And when you are deactivating your plugin, you should set this parameter to 0. Like in the code above/below

$find_string = "reputation";
$replace_string = "<br/>mystring";
require_once("inc/adminfunctions_templates.php");
function plugin_activate(){
global $find_string, $replace_string;
find_replace_templatesets('postbit', '#'.preg_quote($find_string).'#', $find_string.$replace_string);
}
function plugin_deactivate(){
global $find_string, $replace_string;
find_replace_templatesets('postbit', '#'.preg_quote($replace_string).'#', '', 0);
}

Notice the extra parameter at the end of the function in plugin_deactive. That will make the find/replace work on all templates with that name.


I will add some more tips when my eyes are working.

[zaher1988]

yes sorry regarding the 2nd one
i forgot to mention that yes it's only for the find string in the function find_replace_templatesets i'll edit my post

ciao