EDD Extension Boilerplate: A Quick Start to Creating Add-Ons for Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads launched its open source download delivery system for WordPress in 2012 and has since grown to amass a global network of contributors and developers. The project’s marketplace, which now boasts more than 100 extensions and dozens of themes, shows no signs of slowing down. With global WordPress usage on the rise and digital downloads becoming an increasingly popular vehicle of commerce, EDD is well-positioned to corner the market on download delivery.

Developers looking to start creating add-ons for the platform have a new tool at their disposal. The EDD Extension Boilerplate gives you a head start on building an extension that conforms to EDD coding standards.

The boilerplate was created by WordPress developer Dan Griffiths. His objective was to create a solid foundation for EDD extension developers to use when building their own creations. The advantages of using the boilerplate include:

• The Plugin Boilerplate is fully-based on the WordPress Plugin API.
• Uses PHPDoc conventions to document the code.
• Example values are given, so you can see what needs to be changed.
• Uses a strict file organization scheme to make sure the assets are easily maintainable.

The boilerplate comes in the form of a plugin that you install, although it has no real functionality in WordPress. After adding it, you’ll need to follow all of the configuration instructions in the readme file for renaming all instances of ‘plugin-name’ with that of your plugin.

The boilerplate also includes libraries, assets, and css/img/js subdirectories as placeholders, so you can easily organize your files. The idea is to tweak a few things in the boilerplate so you can quickly get to the task of coding your add-on, without having to wonder if you’re structuring everything the right way. The EDD Extension Boilerplate is available on GitHub. Bookmark it for the next time you need a quick start for creating an EDD add-on.