Beschreibung
Sometimes, you run into a situation where you just need to manually run a script. The actual logic might be as simple as generating a csv from a query, or changing a user’s settings, or even just running a single line of SQL. WordPress makes this difficult.
There are many hacky solutions to the problem, but most of them lack security or are too difficult for anyone but a developer to run or just take too long to build. That’s where we come in.
WP Utility Script Runner lets you start with a simple 17 line template, add in your custom code, save to the server, and in minutes you have a secure, fully featured utility, that you can safely run from the WordPress dashboard.
But that’s not all! With a few extra lines of code, your utility can:
- Accept user input
- Accept file input
- Run at a future date and time
- Run on a recurring schedule
- Run large tasks by breaking them up into several smaller tasks, and saving state.
- Create reports and other output files
Screenshots
Installation
- Upload the plugin files to the
/wp-content/plugins/plugin-name
directory, or install the plugin through the WordPress plugins screen directly. - Activate the plugin through the ‚Plugins‘ screen in WordPress
- Use the Settings->Utility Scripts screen to manage and run utility scripts
FAQ
- Why would I ever need to run a script on-demand, rather than on page load?
-
There are many times running on page load is not the best option:
- You may want to ensure that a task only happens once, when many people may be visiting the page
- You may need to capture some form of output from the script, without showing it to all users
- You may have multiple team members working on the site, and not want to harm their workflow with your debugging output
- You may need to be able to have non-developers run the script periodically, for tasks like report generation
There are too many other use cases to count. If you don’t see a use case, you probably don’t need this tool, and that’s ok.
- Why not just write some custom PHP and tuck it in a subfolder?
-
There are many caveats to taking this approach, but mostly it just leaves you writing a lot of (probably insecure) code.
To build a custom script properly, you need to:
- Handle security on your own.
- Either duplicate or side-load any WordPress functions you need
- Build an interface and form handler
- Handle downloads
- Handle cron
- Get around PHP_MAX_EXECUTION_TIME
That can be a massive amount of code, for a script that could be as simple as a single SQL query.
- Why not WP-CLI?
-
We love WP-CLI, but sometimes the command line is just not the right tool for the job. Often you can’t get WP-CLI on shared hosts, and users who may need to use the utilities may not be comfortable with the command line. But stay tuned, WP-CLI integration is on our roadmap.
- Why not (Insert Solution Here)?
-
The most common answer is feature completion and ease of access. A utility script can contain as little as 17 lines of overhead, before you are free and clear to write whatever you need. We dare you to find a lighter-weight, more feature-complete option. We wrote WP Utility Script Runner because there wasn’t one.
- Is it possible to get down to under 17 lines of boilerplate?
-
Technically? Yes. But you’ll be sacrificing a lot of features. You can write your utility in „legacy mode“, where it can be written as simply as:
<?php
// Utility Name: My Legacy Utility
// Description: An example of a legacy utility
echo „Hello World“; // your custom code goes hereYou will not get native handling for inputs, files, state, downloads, or error output, but it is pretty darn short.
- Why aren’t there any useful utilities bundled in?
-
Most of the time, we find that Utility Scripts are very custom to the specific site and hosting environment. We have plans to build a library of useful scripts, but for now, we just included a couple examples to help you get started writing your own.
- Your plugin is bad, and You should feel bad!
-
While that’s not exactly a question, we do take bug reports and reviews very seriously. In addition, you can always contact us directly with your thoughts, at support@burlingtonbytes.com.
Rezensionen
Mitwirkende & Entwickler
„WP Utility Script Runner“ ist Open-Source-Software. Folgende Menschen haben an diesem Plugin mitgewirkt:
MitwirkendeÜbersetze „WP Utility Script Runner“ in deine Sprache.
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Änderungsprotokoll
08/29/2018 – 1.1.0
- Bugfix for form fields with hyphens in name improperly serializing
11/16/2017 – 1.0.1
- Bugfix for sample Comment2Post utility
08/19/2017 – 1.0.0
- Initial Release!