If you create a WordPress plugin, you want to allow users to change settings from the WordPress dashboard. Adding a WordPress admin menu lets you allow users to customize your plugin to fit their needs.
At this point in your WordPress plugin development, you should already have started to create the WordPress plugin function to control what your plugin does.
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Create WordPress admin menu link
To make your WordPress plugin settings easily accessible, it’s best to create an admin menu in the dashboard. This menu should have fields where users can customize your plugin to fit their exact needs.
Use the WordPress function add_action along with admin_menu to let WordPress know we’re building an admin menu. Then pass the function name of your menu extra_post_info_menu that sets up your menu item.
add_action( 'admin_menu', 'extra_post_info_menu' ); function extra_post_info_menu(){ $page_title = 'WordPress Extra Post Info'; $menu_title = 'Extra Post Info'; $capability = 'manage_options'; $menu_slug = 'extra-post-info'; $function = 'extra_post_info_page'; $icon_url = 'dashicons-media-code'; $position = 4; add_menu_page( $page_title, $menu_title, $capability, $menu_slug, $function, $icon_url, $position ); }
| Variable name | Description |
|---|---|
| $page_title | The title shown in the web-browser when viewing your plugin page |
| $menu_title | The title for the menu button shown in the WordPress dashboard |
| $capability | manage_options allows only Super Admin and Administrator to view plugin |
| $menu_slug | URL to access plugin such as: /wp-admin/admin.php?page=extra-post-info |
| $function | The function that contains the code for what to actually display on your plugin page |
| $icon_url | Icon used in dashboard. You can use WordPress dash icons, or direct images like: $icon_url = plugins_url( ‘extra-post-info/icon.png’ ); |
| $position | Icon position in dashboard
WordPress position numbers: 2 Dashboard 4 Separator 5 Posts 10 Media 15 Links 20 Pages 25 Comments 59 Separator 60 Appearance 65 Plugins 70 Users 75 Tools 80 Settings 99 Separator
|
| Function name | Description |
| add_menu_page | The WordPress function that hooks in and builds our plugin menu in the dashboard |
Blank plugin page accessed from dashboard menu
At this point you should be able to see your WordPress plugin menu in the dashboard. If you click on it, you’re just going to get a blank page as you haven’t told WordPress what to put here yet.
Create WordPress plugin page
Once your admin menu is made, the next thing you’ll want to do is create a WordPress plugin page.
Thank you! 🙂
This tutorial helped a lot. Thanks for covering the topic so clearly.
Thanks for your feedback!
Ok, nice start. But which file do we add this code to for it to show up in WordPress Dashboard?
Hello!
The code should be added to the custom PHP script in your plugin’s directory. That file should be created into the wp-content/plugins/plugin-name/ directory. If your website’s document root directory is the default public_html directory, then the location of the file would be similar to:
/home/userna5/public_html/wp-content/plugins/custom-plugin-name/custom-plugin-name.php
I recommend reviewing our guide on how to create a WordPress plugin script, for more details. I hope this helps!
Sincerely,
Carlos D