Better Plugin List in WordPress 3.0

One of the main reason why WordPress is so popular is the amount of available Plugins. Most users using Plugins via the most popular way – in the folder plugins under wp-content, and activate them in the backend of WordPress. For other possibilities of plugin integration WordPress 3.0 try to provide a more user friendly way.

WordPress offers many possibilities to hook into the system, sometime they are better and faster.

For this reason the admin can find a new tab on the Plugin page “Drop-ins”, see screenshot below of the current beta 1.

drop-ins-plugins

In comparison a screenshot of WordPress 2.9.
drop-ins-plugins2

There is also a tab for must-use plugins. Plugins can be stored in a “WordPress MU”-plugins folder.
must-use-plugins


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10 responses to “Better Plugin List in WordPress 3.0”

  1. Matt Wiebe Avatar

    Nice, I hadn’t noticed the Drop-ins page. Also worth noting is that there’s also a “must-use” page if you’ve activated Multisite and have plugins in the mu-plugins directory.

  2. Dalton Avatar

    I don’t see this on my installation of 3.0 beta 1. Is this for multi-site installs only?

  3. Andrea_r Avatar

    Heh, I was just going to leave a comment about the mu-plugins folder list, because the screenshot didn’t show in the feed.

  4. Frank Avatar

    @Dalton: you can find also this, when you have a plugin in wp-content or other folder, maybe languages.

    @Andrea_r: this was add later 😉 – sorry

  5. Michael Avatar

    @Andrea_r: We did a little update after the post was published 😉

  6. Nacin Avatar

    I’m real proud of these. Thanks for the write-up!

    You’ll only see the Drop-ins and Must-Use menus if you have any. Also, mu-plugins have worked in a regular WP install since 2.8, so no need to actually enable multisite to use them.

  7. Tomáš Kapler Avatar

    hmm, nice, how to use drop-ins? it is first time i see it. I can overwrite every class or function?

  8. Frank Avatar

    You can use drop-ins plugins before 3.0. But the plugins was not listed in backend. WP als for files in wp-content, db.php is one of example. Other site you can use a plugin in folder languages – this was used, when set a language in wp-config.php. Often is this ways faster and better for performance. I dont no sites for more information, i read the source of WP.

  9. Konstantin Avatar

    I’m sorry Frank, but I don’t really get the concept behind drop-ins either. Unfortunately in this post you just say “There’ll be a drop-ins page” without really explaning what drop-ins are.
    So what are drop-ins? 🙂

    Greets

  10. hakre Avatar

    @Konstantin: Drop Ins is stuff like a database class replacement file. You place it in defined locations (those differ per drop-in component, basically those are locations if a file exists there) and then you have a drop-in. For example your own database class implementation.