Video Course

Craft Plugin Development

by Ben Croker

Your guide to customizing Craft 2 by building your first plugin. Read the full description

What's in this Course?

This course covers building plugins for Craft CMS version 2

The first step in learning how to develop plugins for the Craft CMS.

In this video course, plugin developer Ben Croker will guide you through the concepts necessary to build your first Craft 2 plugin.

But this isn’t just a boring list of instructions. You will learn, step-by-step, how to build a working plugin called Entry Count.

Learn now, reference later

The course is broken up into small, absorbable chunks so you can learn in small increments and easily reference the material later. You’ll pull this course off the shelf from time to time to help you work through a problem during plugin development.

Here’s a video where Ben explains what the course covers:

Update Resources

There’s a bonus video on the most current information on moving your plugin to Craft 3 (still in beta, release date unknown).

Here’s what else you get with the course:

All videos to both stream and download,
PDF version of slides used in the course
Final version of the Entry Count plugin so you can compare your work.

An experienced teacher

Ben will get you from not knowing how to develop plugins to having your first plugin done and working! He’s an experienced teacher that clearly explains how you can start creating plugins for Craft.

Take it from Ben’s previous students:

Ben’s knowledge of Craft combined with his relaxed and informal teaching style makes for a great learning experience. -Steve Abraham

Ben is great at taking a complex subject and breaking it down in a way that you can wrap your mind around. I thought that plugin development was something I would never understand, and happily Ben proved me wrong! -Jonathan Melville

Ben’s teaching methods were really easy to follow. He’s enthusiastic and cares about his work, which really comes through in his teaching style. He was patient, and gave great examples to make complicated principles seems straightforward. -Daryl Knight

Is this course right for you?

The course is intermediate level. We assume you:

have PHP experience,
are familiar with Craft and the Twig templating engine,
are ready to build your first plugin for Craft,
want to increase the type of work you can do take on by knowing how to customize Craft.

Original music “Sounds Like Bruce!” by Chick Quest

What is the difficulty level?

BeginnerExpert

This is a course that teaches PHP developers how to develop plugins for the Craft CMS.

How long is the course?

The course is about 1 hour and 30 minutes long and broken up into 17 different videos so you can easily learn from and reference the material.

Are the code examples and slides available?

Yes. The complete sample plugin code and slides from the course are available along with the course videos.

What are the videos and topics covered?

Introduction
Preparation
Entry Count Plugin
Core Concepts
Plugin Specification
Setting Things Up
Plugin Settings
Records
Models
Services
Template Variables
Controllers
Hooks & Events
Element Actions
Translations
Logging & Debugging
Advanced Class Naming
Plugins in Craft 3

What if I have a suggestion?

We love feedback about our training materials. Please get in touch and let us know what you think.

Get in touch

About Ben Croker

Ben is the founder of PutYourLightsOn.net and has been developing Craft plugins since the 1.0 beta release. When he's not making your Internet more functional, Ben focuses on other passions like environmental and social sustainability issues. He is an avid traveller, an earnest teacher and more recently a mentor and coach.

What are our customers saying?

"Ben is great at taking a complex subject and breaking it down in a way that you can wrap your mind around. I thought that plugin development was something I would never understand, and happily Ben proved me wrong!"

Jonathan Melville