Simple custom login plugin

I’m pleased you find my help useful, you’re most welcome.
Dissecting little problems and learning exactly how everything works is a great way to learn and ensures you will find a solution, or at least know for sure a solution is not possible 🙂

Good point about the need to modify all available themes in multisite, and in which case the graphic residing in the theme folder would make no sense. However, since you are actually doing this with a plugin, all the sites would be using the same plugin resource, so the graphic residing relative to the plugin folder would work well.

But as you pointed out, such an approach may make sense if you were distributing the plugin to others. But since you are not, this is for your own use, it does make sense to keep the graphic where all of your other related files are. FYI, just like there are functions for theme and plugin paths, there are functions for content paths as well.

I don’t know where your media folder lies relative to all of this, but you may be interested to know it’s possible to move the /wp-content/ folder structure somewhere else on your server, it does not need to be one level below the installation folder, nor named wp-content. This can be done because no paths in WP are hardcoded. By hardcoding paths, you lock yourself into that particular state and changing things later on gets more complicated as time passes.

It’s OK to hardcode the location for your particular situation, but it would be a good exercise to reference graphics dynamically just the same 🙂

Yep, lots of stars! Beyond the required /* */ it’s all a matter of preferred style. WP developers try to follow the inline documentation Docblock standard. Probably the only important factor is what ever style you choose, you use it consistently. This makes it easier to quickly reacquaint yourself with long forgotten code when you suddenly need to update it to remain compatible with some API or something.

Sure, changing CSS like that is just fine. It might change the page flow a bit, but if you don’t like the result, you adjust. Whatever you like should be OK if it works. Your site, your rules 🙂

I did see your other question, I’ll reply here if you don’t mind. I’m hoping a lack of response on that thread might encourage someone else to join in on the conversation. Note that in your title you mention wp-content, which can be moved, as I mentioned previously. But in the text you ask about moving wp-admin. I don’t know why one would move wp-admin, I don’t think it’s even possible, but I don’t know this for sure. I’m going to assume you meant wp-content all along.

I think moving wp-content is fine if you have reason. If not, you could be asking for trouble if your theme or plugins are not using the proper functions to access wp-content resources. If everyone is following the rules, then you will not have any serious problems. Unless you’ve hardcoded paths in your own code 🙂 All code should be using path functions that get information from the constants WP_CONTENT_DIR and WP_CONTENT_URL.

All the paths in post content can be a big issue. A different wp-content folder is best done on a fresh site. If not, you could let wp-content remain, and just start using a different content location. You are then only moving themes and plugins, not images and other resources. O you could create a rewrite rule to correct any requests for the old location. Or you can globally edit your DB to bring all the old paths up to date. Because some paths could be stored in serialized arrays, you should not do this unless you really know what you’re doing. Fortunately, there is a tool meant for moving data to a new site that can be used to do this somewhat safely. Of course you backup everything before doing anything to your DB.

I’m unsure just how far you can move the folder, I believe anywhere on your server that’s publicly accessible will work. I have moved the folder on one of my installations, but it’s still at the same level, so any errant relative references will still work. There shouldn’t be relative references though. So I’ve really only renamed the folder, not effectively moved it. There remains a wp-content folder that is not used.

Why? Probably the main reason the folder gets moved for anyone and possibly the reason moving was allowed in the first place. For Subversion version management. I can leave wp-content exactly as it is on the subversion server and still customize my installation. As far as Subversion is concerned, I haven’t changed a thing. As far as the WordPress installation is concerned, it’s highly customized.

But unless you want to run a bleeding edge installation matched to the core trunk files, the rationale to move diminishes quickly. Some people move or rename it to obfuscate the fact their site is based on WordPress, usually in a misguided attempt to deter hackers and spammers. A form of security by obscurity (an oxymoron).

Perhaps someone had an existing site and converted it to WordPress. They didn’t want to alter their existing file structure and wanted WP to use some of the existing resources. That is a valid, though somewhat rare situation.

I’m not really thinking of any other reasons, valid or not, except for those in the “because I can” category. What’s your reasoning? Or is this just a question from curiosity?

Docblock is a suggested standard. There’s no penalty for not using it. Some people prefer a different style. There’s lots of people. Therefor you see lots of different styles. It’s no different than different colors in clothing, cars, houses, etc. Some communities try to manage what color people’s houses are, but there’s always deviants that try to do what they want.

I’ve never been inclined to do anything just because the big guys do it. I’m not convinced they always know the right reasons. I’d prefer to make my own decisions. Sure, I’ve made bad decisions. I’m the only one to blame for that. I’m OK with that.

I suspect the reason big sites move content is either because they converted to WordPress and wished to maintain a certain data structure or some misguided concept of increased security. Don’t get me wrong, moving content will deter a bunch of script kiddies. But it’s not a real security measure. Serious hackers aren’t going to be fooled by such a simple misdirection.

It sounds like you’re keen to do this. That’s fine. You may run into issues with poorly written plugins or themes. In a way it’s a good thing because you learn who is writing poor code.