Can ChatGPT Construct a Helpful WordPress Plugin That Really Works?

Can AI flip non-coders into professional WordPress plugin builders? To seek out out, we requested ChatGPT to construct a customized WordPress plugin from scratch after which had our crack workforce of builders look at the code…

AI is the world’s hottest two-letter phrase proper now. With all of the latest information headlines about whether or not AI will take our jobs away, we needed to know… can ChatGPT really develop a practical and helpful WordPress plugin with out having to put in writing code from scratch? And does the plugin meet greatest coding practices?

Thankfully, WPMU DEV builds a few of the most strong WordPress plugins on the earth, so we’ve loads of knowledgeable WordPress plugin builders who can put ChatGPT to the check.

The truth is, in the event you take a stroll round our firm’s digital corridors, you possibly can’t assist however stumble upon WordPress coders and builders. It appears everybody round right here can have a look at a WordPress plugin and see PHP the best way Neo sees the Matrix’s digital rain code.

What PHP code appears prefer to skilled WordPress plugin builders. Supply: Giphy.com

Everybody, that’s …besides me!

I’m only a weblog author with no coding expertise and a burning need so as to add “immediate engineer” to my CV.

So, on this publish, we’ll discover leverage the ability of ChatGPT to construct a easy customized WordPress plugin rapidly and securely, even in the event you lack intensive coding expertise.

We’ll do that by:

1) Asking ChatGPT to generate the code for a helpful plugin that we will check, and

2) Working the code generated by ChatGPT previous our workforce {of professional} plugin builders to allow them to evaluation it and supply their trustworthy suggestions.

We’ll cowl the next:

Step 1 – Outline the Plugin’s Performance
Step 2 – Generate Code Snippets with ChatGPT
Step 3 – Check the Customized Plugin
Suggestions from Our Skilled Plugin Builders
Can ChatGPT Flip You Right into a WordPress Plugin Developer?

Step 1 – Outline the Plugin’s Performance

Earlier than utilizing ChatGPT to generate code, we have to have a transparent understanding of the performance we wish our plugin to supply.

This begins by outlining the particular options, actions, or modifications we’ll need to obtain with our plugin. This may then assist us generate correct prompts for ChatGPT and be certain that our AI-generated code aligns with our desired outcomes.

Step 2 – Generate Code Snippets with ChatGPT

To generate our code snippets utilizing ChatGPT, we’ll maintain issues easy (and free) and use the freely obtainable interface offered by OpenAI.

Take #1…

Notice: My first try at utilizing ChatGPT to create a WordPress plugin from scratch was means too formidable. I requested ChatGPT to construct me a easy WordPress time-travel dummy textual content producing plugin, utilizing the immediate beneath…

This immediate will certainly kick ChatGPT’s WordPress plugin growth tyres.

As somebody who spends lots of time writing WordPress tutorials, I typically want dummy content material to check plugins, create screenshots, and so on.

So, I assumed it could be nice to mannequin my AI-generated dummy content material plugin on a plugin I typically use known as FakerPress.

ChatGPT pushed again on my request and let me know that creating a totally practical WordPress plugin with all of the options I requested was past the scope of a single response.

Nonetheless, it did provide to supply me with a fundamental template, information me on implement a few of the options I discussed, and even gave me directions on create a plugin listing and file…

Mmm…perhaps my first try at making a WordPress plugin was too formidable!

At first, ChatGPT output code that seemed fairly spectacular…

To somebody who is aware of ‘zip’ about coding, the above code snippet certain appears spectacular!

ChatGPT additionally output all the extra code required to finish the subsequent steps.

Missing coding expertise, I relied on ChatGPT to information me by every step of the plugin growth course of.

With the plugin code output, the subsequent step was to add the plugin to my check web site and check it to ensure it really works.

Step 3 – Check The Customized Plugin

After importing the folder containing the plugin code to the wp-content > plugins listing of my check web site and activating it contained in the Plugins display…

And now for the second we’ve all been ready for [drumroll]…I acquired a deadly error!

What an anticlimax…the bottom level of my WordPress plugin growth profession!

Assuming that perhaps I didn’t add the extra snippets that ChatGPT offered appropriately, I went again and requested for all of the code to be offered as a single file that I may merely copy and paste to overwrite and replace the uploaded plugin file…

Why couldn’t it simply have given me your complete copy and paste code the primary time?

There was lots of code to output, so at any time when the method got here to a standstill, I instructed ChatGPT to proceed…

ChatGPT typically simply wants a bit light encouragement to maintain going.

After repeating this course of a number of occasions, ChatGPT output your complete code and even offered some useful data.

After ready an entire 2 minutes…ChatGPT lastly output all the plugin code!

I uploaded the plugin file with the brand new code to my check web site, then jumped into the location’s admin space and activated the plugin.

It labored! Or, so it appeared.

ChatGPT gave the plugin its personal menu merchandise…

ChatGPT created all this!

And a settings display with plenty of fancy containers and fields…

Appears spectacular…however will it work?

However I couldn’t see a area to specify what number of posts or pages to create, so I merely ticked some containers, entered some values, and clicked on the “Save Adjustments” button to see what occurs.

And now, for the second of reality…

And…completely nothing occurred!

The latest lowest level of my WordPress plugin growth profession…a plugin that does nothing!

My fancy-ass plugin was all make-believe, similar to a kind of youngsters’s playground spaceships that’s full of ineffective knobs you possibly can flip and buttons you possibly can press whereas pretending to be flying in outer house.

So, I reached out to certainly one of our builders through Slack and requested them to have a look at the plugin file.

Among the feedback that got here again included the next:

“The plugin tries to generate random content material on every admin web page load”
“It calls a operate dummy_content_generator_generate_content_paragraphs which, in flip, makes an attempt to name dummy_content_generator_get_random_paragraph for each paragraph it tries to generate. The issue is that there is no such thing as a dummy_content_generator_get_random_paragraph operate.
“The web page hundreds to a degree, then it errors out as a result of there’s extra lacking stuff”
“Apart from all of the talked about points, there’s no validation by any means, and no escaping of the output, which is horrible”
“When it comes to having one thing as place to begin, this can be a very, very poor one. When it comes to having a working plugin, that is nowhere close to that”

After some forwards and backwards discussions , it was deemed that there was rather a lot incorrect with the plugin, that it could take lots of work to repair it, and so they steered I scrap the mission.

At this level, nonetheless, I used to be too invested in my mission to easily abandon all the things and quit. Recalling Sir Winston Churchill’s well-known phrases (“Fetch me one other brandy” “By no means give in, by no means give in, by no means, by no means, by no means…”), I made a decision it was time for…

Take #2…

Okay, so my first try to get ChatGPT to construct a WordPress plugin from scratch was a dismal failure. This in itself offered some invaluable insights into ChatGPT’s potential to carry out complicated coding duties (or, as somebody within the workforce put it, “you possibly can’t code utilizing ChatGPT with out having intensive coding data.”)

So, for “Take #2,” I made a decision to attempt once more with a less complicated plugin request.

Going again to the drafting board, a genius lightbulb second lit up in my thoughts…why not ask ChatGPT to recommend concepts for easy WordPress plugins it may then generate the code for?

So, that’s what I did. Right here’s the immediate I promptly engineered…

My genius immediate.

And right here’s the record of steered plugins ChatGPT replied with…

The blueprint of my WordPress plugin empire.

I preferred the final suggestion, so I requested ChatGPT to generate the code for a practical content material duplicator plugin, and it instantly went to work.

That is what a license to print cash appears like!

ChatGPT generated the next code for the plugin within the blink of an eye fixed:

<?php
/*
Plugin Title: Content material Duplicator
Description: Permits customers to duplicate posts, pages, or customized publish varieties with one click on.
Model: 1.0.0
Writer: Your Title
Writer URI: https://yourwebsite.com
*/

// Add duplicate motion hyperlinks to publish row actions
operate content_duplicator_add_duplicate_link( $actions, $publish ) {
if ( current_user_can( ‘edit_posts’ ) ) {
$actions[‘duplicate’] = ‘<a href=”‘ . wp_nonce_url( admin_url( ‘admin-post.php?motion=content_duplicator_duplicate_post&post_id=’ . $post->ID ), ‘content_duplicator_duplicate_post’ ) . ‘” title=”Duplicate this merchandise” rel=”permalink”>Duplicate</a>’;
}
return $actions;
}
add_filter( ‘post_row_actions’, ‘content_duplicator_add_duplicate_link’, 10, 2 );

// Duplicate the publish
operate content_duplicator_duplicate_post() {
if ( isset( $_GET[‘post_id’] ) ) {
$post_id = absint( $_GET[‘post_id’] );

if ( current_user_can( ‘edit_posts’ ) && wp_verify_nonce( $_GET[‘_wpnonce’], ‘content_duplicator_duplicate_post’ ) ) {
$publish = get_post( $post_id );

$args = array(
‘post_title’ => $post->post_title . ‘ (Duplicate)’,
‘post_content’ => $post->post_content,
‘post_type’ => $post->post_type,
‘post_status’ => $post->post_status,
‘post_parent’ => $post->post_parent,
‘post_author’ => get_current_user_id(),
);

$new_post_id = wp_insert_post( $args );

if ( $new_post_id ) {
// Duplicate meta fields
$meta_fields = get_post_custom( $post_id );
foreach ( $meta_fields as $key => $values ) {
foreach ( $values as $worth ) {
add_post_meta( $new_post_id, $key, $worth );
}
}

// Redirect to the duplicated publish
wp_redirect( admin_url( ‘publish.php?motion=edit&publish=’ . $new_post_id ) );
exit;
}
}
}
}
add_action( ‘admin_post_content_duplicator_duplicate_post’, ‘content_duplicator_duplicate_post’ );

It even offered a set of directions after producing the code.

The code not solely comes with directions, however ChatGPT even says “Please”!

I then uploaded the brand new plugin file to the wp-content > plugins listing of my check web site utilizing The Hub’s file supervisor.

There’s lots of motion to unpack on this screenshot.

And created a dummy publish to check the plugin with…

Did the plugin duplicate this tacky publish? Let’s discover out!

Listed here are the publish’s menu choices earlier than activating the plugin…

A default publish with default choices.

After activating the plugin…

“Activate Content material Duplicator” – Appears like a line from a Star Trek film.

Success!

A gratuitous screenshot proving that the plugin efficiently activated.

The plugin activated. However did it really work?

Right here’s my check publish once more (observe that the plugin added a brand new “Duplicate” merchandise to the menu after activation). I then clicked on “Duplicate” to see what occurs…

ChatGPT even added a “Duplicate” menu merchandise tooltip to the code!

And a reproduction publish was created!

A reproduction of the unique publish.

Right here’s the desk of posts displaying entries for the unique and duplicated publish.

The unique publish and its cloned model.

I’m certain that with higher immediate engineering and a few code tweaking, the plugin may have been considerably improved. For instance, I would like if the plugin set the publish standing of the newly-duplicated publish to ‘draft’ as a substitute of publishing it, however ChatGPT delivered a easy WordPress plugin that labored. It was fundamental, however it did the job.

The final step was to ask somebody who codes WordPress plugins for a dwelling to scrutinize the code and get their opinion about utilizing a software like ChatGPT to code plugins.

Suggestions from Our Skilled Plugin Builders

Shortly after importing the plugin to certainly one of our testing channels, I acquired a ping from certainly one of our builders. Listed here are a few of the key factors offered of their suggestions:

“ChatGPT et al are respectable at answering questions you already know the reply to.”
“I additionally used it previously to construct a easy plugin for me, however so long as I used to be giving extra complicated prompts, it began to mess issues round, so finally I manually debug the given code to work, trigger else it’d take ages for it to really debug it line by line.”
“Mainly, it does what it says. Nonetheless, it does what it says very actually. As in, it’s going to duplicate a publish and its corresponding postmeta (customized) fields. Nonetheless, it doesn’t seem to be it’s going to propagate any taxonomies to the duplicated publish (the plugin ought to copy and assign the identical taxonomy phrases, resembling classes or tags, from the unique publish to the duplicated publish).”
If I used to be to be super-nitpicky about this, I’d additionally point out that it’s not L10n-ready – there gained’t be an choice to translate this plugin. However, that’s simply being very nitpicky – I don’t actually assume, nor would I anticipate, a prompt-generated plugin to be generic sufficient to be needing one thing like that in any respect. To me, it’s extra of a “very particular drawback area” type of a factor, together with the language used. On the finish of the day, it does do what it says it’s going to, which could be very good.”

Along with analyzing the WordPress plugin code generated by ChatGPT and offering suggestions as proven above, our builders additionally agreed with the next key factors after assessing ChatGPT’s present capabilities to generate code:

1 – It’s necessary to train warning and never blindly settle for ChatGPT-generated code as right.

ChatGPT can present solutions, however it’s as much as the consumer to evaluate whether or not the reply is right or not.
There’s a danger of receiving incorrect or nonsensical solutions from ChatGPT, each apparent and refined.
It’s necessary to train warning and never blindly settle for the generated code as right.
ChatGPT’s output needs to be handled as autocomplete, making life simpler however requiring warning and verification.

The power to discern good code from unhealthy or nonsensical code, nonetheless, implies that…

2 – Customers ought to have enough data and understanding of WordPress plugin growth to guage and modify the generated code as wanted.

ChatGPT may also help simplify and expedite the method of constructing easy customized WordPress plugins, generate code snippets, and supply explanations. Something extra complicated, nonetheless, requires plugin growth expertise and coding expertise.
Utilizing ChatGPT with out enough data can result in unfavorable penalties or unreliable code.
Relying solely on ChatGPT with out crucial considering is just like blindly copying the primary reply from Stack Overflow (Stack Overflow threads present extra context, a number of solutions, and suggestions from different customers, making it a extra dependable useful resource, however Stack Overflow threads are usually extra generic, whereas ChatGPT can present particular solutions to particular person queries).

3 – Using different assets, resembling WordPress documentation, tutorials, and group boards, alongside ChatGPT can present a extra complete understanding of WordPress plugin growth.

As you discover the chances of utilizing ChatGPT for WordPress plugin growth, it’s invaluable to interact with the WordPress group. Share your experiences, ask for suggestions, and search steering from skilled builders. Taking part in boards, attending WordPress meetups, or becoming a member of on-line communities can present invaluable insights and aid you refine your plugin growth course of.
Moreover, take into account following WordPress safety greatest practices to safeguard your web site from potential vulnerabilities. ChatGPT can present suggestions on safety measures you possibly can implement to guard your plugin.
It’s additionally important to keep up a transparent understanding of your required performance and completely evaluation and check the generated code and safe your customized plugins earlier than deploying them to a manufacturing surroundings.

Can ChatGPT Flip You Right into a WordPress Plugin Developer?

On this article, we’ve explored how one can make the most of ChatGPT to construct easy customized WordPress plugins, even when you’ve got restricted coding expertise.

In different articles, we’ve seen that AI-powered instruments like ChatGP can streamline your workflow, enhance productiveness, and unlock new prospects (try our latest article on ways in which ChatGPT may also help you as a WordPress developer).

Whereas there are over 60,000 free WordPress plugins obtainable masking each kind of performance you possibly can think about, typically it’s possible you’ll want a customized answer to satisfy a consumer’s particular necessities.

Past the core performance of your plugin, you may also leverage ChatGPT to generate code for customized consumer interfaces. With its potential to grasp prompts and generate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript snippets, you possibly can create intuitive admin interfaces, front-end parts, and interactive parts that may improve the consumer expertise and help you ship a elegant remaining product.

By using the language mannequin’s capabilities, you possibly can generate code snippets, optimize performance, and create user-friendly interfaces. Nonetheless, it’s essential to grasp the generated code, evaluation and refine it, and completely check your customized plugins earlier than deploying them to your dwell web site.

The generated code can also require changes to align with coding requirements, naming conventions, or particular mission necessities. This requires a specific amount of coding data and expertise, as does optimizing the code and making certain it follows WordPress coding tips for higher maintainability.

The underside line:

Listed here are my findings after attempting to get ChatGPT to code me a plugin from scratch:

I couldn’t have gotten this carried out with out the assistance of our skilled builders.
Utilizing ChatGPT to generate code with out coding data is absolutely difficult – it helps to know what you’re doing 🙂
Whereas ChatGPT is a strong and invaluable software, it doesn’t seem to be AI will exchange expert coders any time quickly.

Concerned about Growing WordPress plugins?

Take a look at a few of our tutorials and articles on WordPress plugin growth:

Getting Began with WordPress Plugin Improvement
A Fast and In-Depth Information to WordPress Hooks
Creating WordPress Plugins in An Object Oriented Means