In my second post of the series on WP-Table Reloaded Extensions, I will show you a way to change the name of the plugin in the WP Admin Menu.

Remember, Extensions are small code snippets that customize or extend the functionality of WP-Table Reloaded, by using the many “Plugin Hooks”. To get started, you should read the introduction on WP-Table Reloaded Extensions and follow the included instructions to set up the foundation. I also recommend reading the first post of this series, where I add an Automatic Converter for URLs to Links. You don’t need the code from there, but it might be helpful to better understand the concept.
» Read more: Extension 2: Custom Name in the Admin Menu

Just recently I introduced WP-Table Reloaded Extensions, small code snippets that add further functions to the plugin by using the provided “Plugin Actions” and “Plugin Filters”.

The first such Extension that I’m going to present here, is an Automatic Converter for URLs to Links. » Read more: Extension 1: URL to Link Conversion

One of the main additions to version 1.5 of WP-Table Reloaded were so-called “Plugin Actions” and “Plugin Filters”. Both are part of the “Plugin Hooks”, a widely used concept within WordPress. This explanation from the WordPress Codex sums it up.

The way Plugin hooks work is that at various times while WordPress is running, WordPress checks to see if any Plugins have registered functions to run at that time, and if so, the functions are run. These functions modify the default behavior of WordPress.

Well known hooks are for example “wp_head” and “wp_footer”, which allow adding functions to the head and footer of a page that was generated by WordPress.

Actions and Filters can not only be used by the WordPress Core, but also by plugins and it is possible to add new ones. And this is what I did in WP-Table Reloaded 1.5. Many of these hooks were added to the plugin which now allow other plugins to add or change functions in WP-Table Reloaded.

These new functions may be as short as one line or as long as a complete new plugin. For WP-Table Reloaded, I will – over the course of the next weeks and months, but with no fixed time frame or frequency – present such pieces of code on this website, as a series of blog posts. As these code snippets are not complete WordPress plugins, I will call them WP-Table Reloaded Extensions, as that describes what they are a little bit better. » Read more: Introducing WP-Table Reloaded Extensions