About this plugin
The WordPress Updates API is pretty much a mystery to many developers for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that there is no documentation for it.
For plugins hosted in the WordPress Plugin Directory and themes hosted in the WordPress Theme Directory (and core itself), the API “just works”.
Plugins and themes hosted externally (such as premium plugins/themes) need to hook into the API and ensure the proper information is populated in the proper site transients so that core can offer updates for those externally hosted plugins/themes. What site transients are those:
- update_plugins
- update_themes
(and of course, update_core for core updates).
This plugin attempts to demystify the Updates API by allowing you to inspect:
- how the API is queried by core
- what the API returns in respose to a query
- what’s in the site transients core uses when offering updates to admin users (whether manual or auto-updates)
0. 5 ).
My hope is that by providing an easy way for developers to inspect the API queries/responses and the site transients core populates from them, they will more easily be able to update their code so that the new UI works properly for them.
In future versions, I plan to add many other features, as well as more extensive on-screen help of an “educational” nature.