Title: Plugin functionality / behavior customization
Last modified: July 24, 2020

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# Plugin functionality / behavior customization

 *  [Shopix Romania](https://wordpress.org/support/users/shopixro/)
 * (@shopixro)
 * [5 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-functionality-behavior-customization/)
 * Hi,
 * I was wondering what would be the best option to customize a plugin functionality/
   behavior without changing the plugin itself so future updates will not result
   in loss of customizations. Has anyone tried this before?
 * Thanks!
    -  This topic was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by [Jan Dembowski](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jdembowski/).
      Reason: Moved to Fixing WordPress, this is not an Developing with WordPress
      topic

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  [Luka](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lukaxx/)
 * (@lukaxx)
 * [5 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-functionality-behavior-customization/#post-13164081)
 * This vastly depends on the things you want to achieve with that. Most popular
   plugins also have a documentation for extending them so that might be a good 
   starting point.
 *  Thread Starter [Shopix Romania](https://wordpress.org/support/users/shopixro/)
 * (@shopixro)
 * [5 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-functionality-behavior-customization/#post-13164268)
 * Hi Luka,
 * While you are right and most popular plugins have a good documentation on extending
   them, we face similar issues with plugins that are not as well documented. PErhaps
   you also ran into this problem and could let us know how you proceed in those
   cases?
 * Thanks!
 *  [Luka](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lukaxx/)
 * (@lukaxx)
 * [5 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-functionality-behavior-customization/#post-13164372)
 * If the plugin has no documentation and does not support extending it, I’m afraid
   that there’s no easy option to keep things easily maintainable.
 * You can always copy ‘parent’ plugin code and create ‘child’ plugin and modify
   things in there, however that’ll require some manual work once you want to update‘
   parent’ code.
 * There’s also another option, and that’s to create a wrapper for the plugin in‘
   theme’ directory. As an example, if plugin contains function called `XX()` and
   you want to modifying it’s behaviour, you’d create a wrapper function `wrapperXX()`,
   and store it somewhere in your activated theme folder. Inside of `wrapperXX()`
   you’d call `XX()` and do any modifications on it you need. Also, once you update
   plugin, you won’t have to modify anything (most likely) in theme’s folder. This
   approach however is not usable in all cases.
 * Nonetheless, as you’re probably aware, there’s no right approach for this, if
   you’re stuck with a plugin that is not extendable.
 *  Thread Starter [Shopix Romania](https://wordpress.org/support/users/shopixro/)
 * (@shopixro)
 * [5 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-functionality-behavior-customization/#post-13165111)
 * Haven’t really thought about the wrapper idea, but I believe that should work
   in our situation as changes are fairly minimal; a twitch in here and there, nothing
   major.
 * How does this work exactly? Is it by hooking the wrapper to the XX function or
   is it another mechanism?

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘Plugin functionality / behavior customization’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [custom](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/custom/)
 * [customization](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/customization/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Shopix Romania](https://wordpress.org/support/users/shopixro/)
 * Last activity: [5 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-functionality-behavior-customization/#post-13165111)
 * Status: not resolved

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