How to convert custom cms to worpdpress plugins

Question

I have my own custom gallery CMS which is built using php & mysql. Now I want to make this as a wordpress plugin for my client, meaning my custom gallery admin panel will be shown in wordpress as a single plugin.

How can convert my script to be a wordpress plugin? I am new to wordpress so I really have no idea about making plugins, so I'm wondering if I can just add a few lines of code and just by making a few changes to my script I can make it all work as a plugin?

Answer 1

Before you go any further, you should really question integrating your own CMS into WordPress. I've done this before, and it ended up having a lot of disadvantages in the long-term, like not benefiting from functionality and security updates from the WordPress team. The newer versions of Wordpress provide a lot of useful functions to generate your own custom admin functionality within WordPress, including Custom Post Types, Custom Taxonomies, Custom Meta Boxes, etc.

As an experienced WordPress developer, if I had a client that demanded more than the built-in gallery functionality that WordPress already provides, I would go one of two routes, depending on the requested functionality:

1. Add functionality to the existing WordPress gallery via hooks and filters

This site is an excellent resource to see just how deeply you can modify WordPress with hooks and filters: http://adambrown.info/p/wp_hooks

2. Create a custom post type, client uploads images to the post as normal

This method you would just create a new 'gallery' post type, and the client would upload images with all of the built-in WordPress interfaces. You can add any additional functionality you need with functions like 'add_meta_box'... here's all the relevant links, including taxonomies if you need categorization and a good sort-by-taxonomy tutorial:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Post_Types

http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/add_meta_box

http://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies

http://justintadlock.com/archives/2011/06/27/custom-columns-for-custom-post-types

If you're absolutely hellbent on using your existing CMS, you can always load your code into an iframe on a custom WordPress admin page, but I don't recommend it based on experience. Here's a link that will guide you in that direction:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Administration_Menus

Just as a post-script, you can do any or all of these things either via a WordPress plugin or a custom WordPress theme. I tend to prefer adding functionality to a theme if I don't plan on sharing it with the world and documenting it, or if the functionality is very client-specific and not reusable.