How to Build a Notification Popup Plugin for WordPress

Introduction

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) in the world, powering millions of websites. As a result, it has a huge community of developers who create all sorts of plugins to extend the functionality of WordPress.

One type of plugin that is popular is a notification popup plugin. These plugins allow you to display a popup notification to your website visitors. They can be used for a variety of purposes, such as displaying a special offer, promoting a new product, or announcing a site-wide sale.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to build a notification popup plugin for WordPress. We will cover everything from setting up the plugin structure to adding the necessary code to display the popup.

Setting Up the Plugin Structure

The first thing we need to do is set up the plugin structure. For this tutorial, we will be using the following directory structure:

notification-popup

notification-popup.php
js

notification-popup.js

notification-popup.css

The notification-popup.php file will be the main plugin file. This is where we will add the code to load the JavaScript and CSS files, as well as the code to display the popup.

The js and css directories will contain the JavaScript and CSS files for the plugin, respectively. In our case, these will be notification-popup.js and notification-popup.css.

Adding the Plugin Code

Now that we have the plugin structure in place, we can start adding the code.

The first thing we need to do is create the notification-popup.php file and add the following code:

Let’s take a look at what this code does:

The first thing we do is define the plugin name, description, version, author, and license. This information is used by WordPress when the plugin is installed and activated. It is also used by the WordPress Plugin Directory when the plugin is submitted for inclusion.
Next, we include the notification-popup.js and notification-popup.css files. These files are located in the js and css directories, respectively. Including these files ensures that they will be loaded when the plugin is activated.
Then, we define the notification_popup_display() function. This function will be used to display the popup. We will add the popup content to this function later on.
Finally, we add an action hook to wp_footer. This hook is executed at the end of the page, so it is the perfect place to display our popup. The notification_popup_display() function is passed to the hook so that it is executed when the hook is fired.

Adding the JavaScript

Now that we have the plugin code in place, we can start adding the code to display the popup.

The first thing we need to do is add the following code to the notification-popup.js file:

jQuery(document).ready(function($){
// Popup code goes here
});

This code uses the jQuery document ready function to ensure that the code is executed when the page has loaded.

Next, we need to add the code to actually display the popup. For this tutorial, we will be using the Bootstrap modal component.

Add the following code to the notification-popup.js file:

jQuery(document).ready(function($){
// Get the modal
var modal = $(‘#notification-popup-modal’);

// Open the modal
modal.modal(‘show’);
});

This code does the following:

First, it gets a reference to the modal using the jQuery $(‘#notification-popup-modal’) function. This function selects an element with an id of notification-popup-modal.
Next, it calls the modal(‘show’) function to display the modal.

Adding the CSS

Now that we have the JavaScript code in place, we need to add the CSS code to style the popup.

Add the following code to the notification-popup.css file:

#notification-popup-modal .modal-body {
padding: 30px;
}

#notification-popup-modal .modal-footer {
text-align: center;
}

This code adds some basic styling to the modal.

Adding the Popup Content

Now that we have the JavaScript and CSS code in place, we need to add the popup content.

Add the following code to the notification_popup_display() function:

function notification_popup_display() {
?>

<?php
}

This code does the following:

First, it defines a div element with an id of notification-popup-modal and a class of modal fade. The id is used by the JavaScript code to get a reference to the modal, and the class is used by Bootstrap to style the modal.
Next, it defines the modal content. This includes a header, body, and footer. The header and footer are optional, but we included them for this tutorial.
In the body, we added a paragraph tag with the text “Popup content goes here…”. You would replace this text with your own popup content.
In the footer, we added a button with a class of btn btn-default and a data-dismiss attribute of modal. The class is used by Bootstrap to style the button, and the data-dismiss attribute is used to close the modal when the button is clicked.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we showed you how to build a notification popup plugin for WordPress. We covered everything from setting up the plugin structure to adding the necessary code to display the popup.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.