How to write plugins for WordPress with ChatGPT (or any other AI tool) - voila! Marketing and digital

WordPress. (Photo: Unsplash)

Everyone who has a WordPress website encounters at one point or another the need to customize their plugins or design templates.

In most cases we will look for a freelancer or a company to do the work for us and it may cost quite a bit of money, and also take more time than you planned.

Until today, those who tried to do this on their own without knowing PhP, the programming language of WordPress, could easily find themselves in a situation where the site crashes and the attempt fails.

All this changed as soon as the artificial text generators went live.

Today, instead of looking for programmers and wasting valuable time, you can describe to ChatGPT or other AI engines the feature you want to add, and ask them to write the code for you.

In the answer, you will get a detailed explanation of what the code does and where you should implement it.

But before we dive into the details, full disclosure.

When we conducted these tests we used GPT-3.5, or as it is more commonly known, ChatGPT.

Since then, a new version has been released, GPT-4, and experts predict that it will be much more powerful than its predecessor.

This of course does not change what we have to say about writing code for WordPress using GPT, because the principle is the same in all text generators.

The good news is, apparently, this is just the beginning.

So how do you use AI to write WordPress plugins?

Before you approach the work of creating the code, you must understand precisely the requirements and features you need from your plugin and formulate them clearly, as you would to draft an ad, article or any other text.

Then, send the instructions to ChatGPT, Jasper, or any other text generator, and in seconds you will receive a code, which you can embed on your site.

It's that simple.

It may take you a few tries until you reach the desired result, but in general, a job that once took hours or days, and left you dependent on programmers and developers, can today come down to a few simple actions that do not require a fancy technical background.

In the following paragraphs we will give examples that will show what we wrote to the AI ​​and what we received as an answer.

How did we use ChatGPT to make WordPress adjustments?

Most WordPress programmers are familiar with the ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) plugin, which allows you to add fields to the WordPress database and create dynamic content adapted to the site's needs.

But when you choose to add an area with a check box, the plugin adds unnecessary punctuation to each line.

We wanted to remove those punctuation marks.

The first option we used to go for in the past was to ask the programmer who built the site for us or try to find the information on Google and the various forums, so for the sake of comparison this is exactly what we did.

True, we found several solutions to the problem, but we did not find an exact answer, and in none of them did we find an explanation of where to implement the new code.

Needless to say, such a search takes time, and sometimes a very long time.

So we went and asked ChatGPT and believe it or not, in less than 3 seconds we got a new, detailed code with an exact explanation of how and where to plant it, we copied the code and it just worked like a charm.

We asked ChatGPT in the simplest and most direct way,

This is the answer we received:

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ChatGPT's answer. (Photo: screenshot, OpenAI)

As you can see, we received a code, and instructions in the most orderly way we could ask for.

This is how it looked before and after we implemented it (photo: screenshot, WordPress)

Let's take another example.

Elementor is a great plugin for building WordPress pages, but it doesn't always have the widget or function we want to produce.

The existing plugins for Elementor are expensive and burden the site's resources.

For example, an animation effect for a picture or icon is something that does not come in the Elementor kit, so until today, to do it without the help of a programmer, you would purchase a plugin, but not anymore!

From today you simply ask ChatGPT and in a few moments you have a code ready to be embedded on the website.

In this case we wanted to create an animation that would change the color when moving the mouse from bottom to top, using CSS code.

This is what we asked ChatGPT:

As you will see below, even when we gave the instructions in a dim form, we not only received the correct code but also instructions and a precise explanation of what to do with the code and where to embed it.

Within seconds, we achieved the result we wanted, and it worked on the first try.

Just say what you need and you will get it. (Photo: screenshot, OpenAI)

And this is what the result looks like. (Photo: screenshot, WordPress)

In conclusion,

The next time you want to make a technical change that requires knowledge you don't have, before you turn to a programmer or purchase paid plugins, you should ask ChatGPT.

Not only will you find what you were looking for, but you will also be surprised at how easily and quickly you solved a task that previously would have cost you a lot of time and money.

• Marketing and digital

• MarTech

Tags

• WordPress

• artificial intelligence

• Software

• Web Development