I just pushed a small repository to github that provides an object-oriented approach to authoring GetSimple plugins. For its part, GetSimple is a tiny content management system that’s worth a look on any project where WordPress seems too big. Both platforms share a very similar design, and developers versed in WordPress will find many similarities (for better and for worse) in GetSimple’s own plugins.

I’ve previously offered up a minimalist boilerplate for developing WordPress plugins, and many of its features are reflected in the GetSimple analog. Besides encouraging encapsulation and minimizing repetition, the boilerplate also exposes a declarative interface for several key plugin features, including:

• Registering actions, filters, styles, and scripts
• Setting and managing plugin defaults and user data
• Rendering content in MVC-style views
• Managing routes with URL- and path-related helpers

Translated into code, a trivial plugin derived from the boilerplate’s GetSimplePlugin class might end up looking something like this:

require_once('myplugin/get_simple_plugin.php');

class MyPlugin extends GetSimplePlugin {

	protected
		$_defaults = array('foo' => 'bar'),
		$_actions = array('theme-sidebar' => 'admin_menu');

	public function __construct () {
		$this->_info = array(
			'id' =>             basename(__FILE__, '.php'),
			'name' =>           'Demo plugin',
			'version' =>        '1.0',
			'author' =>         'RJ Zaworski ',
			'author_website' => 'http://rjzaworski.com/', 
			'description' =>    'Demo plugin',
			'page_type' =>      'theme',
			'menu_callback' =>  'admin_view'
		);
		parent::__construct();
	}

	public function admin_menu () {
		createSideMenu($this->_info['id'], 'Contact Link');
	}

	public function admin_view () {
		/** Implement admin view here **/
	}
}

new MyPlugin();

Source code for a demonstration plugin is available on Github.