Wordpress: Package plugin with theme

Question

Okay, this may sound silly but stay with me.

I am packaging a Wordpress Premium Theme for sales in a major marketplace. The theme is heavily dependant on a couple of plugins (self-developed).

I cannot expect the buyers to manually install both my plugins before installing the theme. Now that I am packaging the themes for sale, how do I package the plugins with it?

I want the plugins to a part of the package I deliver to the buyers and the plugins should automatically install when the theme is installed.

On the other hand, I have seen Premium Theme developers packing some serious custom functionality into their themes. How is such extra functionality integrated with the themes? Can anyone link to any tutorials?

how do you require the plugin files? – Aug 20 '11 at 18:41 — , Aug 20 '11 at 18:41

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 20 '11 at 19:13

5

This class that I built with another developer should be a good solution for your problem. :)

https://github.com/thomasgriffin/TGM-Plugin-Activation

answered Oct 20 '11 at 19:13

Thomas

188
3
11

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 07 '11 at 16:57

4

A good way to do this is to put your plugins in a directory in your theme. In your theme's functions.php...

Require the plugin files
For widget plugins, use the widgets_init action hook to call register_widget() for each one

answered Aug 07 '11 at 16:57

Chris Carson

1,835
15
13

Thanks for the reply. I have managed to integrate one plugin into the theme. – Saddam Azad Aug 08 '11 at 16:42
But the second plugin has an install/uninstall scripts, database requiements and admin panels. Any ideas on how to integrate those as well? – Saddam Azad Aug 08 '11 at 16:43
There's a `switch_theme` action hook that will work for activation. I don't think there's a deactivation hook for themes. – Chris Carson Aug 08 '11 at 17:25

Wordpress: Package plugin with theme

2 Answers2