Easy flash messaging in WordPress

15 Dec 2017 Generic

WordPressComposer

Flash messaging, a very effective thing to give notifications to the users. This way you can make your UX very effective as well as interactive. Now question is, how can we do this ? Well, there are several ways we can manage to do it. Common approaches are through a $_GET variable or with cookies or with SESSION. Among them SESSION is the most preferred and best solution. Cause with $_GET variable the disposal of the notification message is tough. For cookies, it depends on browser and custom user settings can deny the message notification to be stored in the browser. Now, comparing to those two approaches, the SESSION approach is far more safe as well as feasible. Yea, it can be a little trouble with some server configurations. But that depends on the server administrator and developer. With a little careful tuning to the server we can easily avoid the issues.

However, for my personal usages I’ve built a Composer package to handle flash messaging easily. I’ve named it TheDramatist WP Flash Message. Here below has been given the requirements with a brief instruction for installing and using this package.

Requirements

PHP >= 5.6
Composer
WordPress >= 4.0 (Lowest Tested Version)

Installation

The best way to use this package is through Composer:

$ composer require rnaby/wp-flash-message

Usage

Step 1

Instantiate the FlashMessage class object like below-

$flash_message = new \TheDramatist\WPFlashMessage\FlashMessage();

Step 2

Turn on the SESSION in PHP like below-

$flash_message->start_session();

Step 3

Set you message like below-

$flash_message->error(
    __(
        'Your message here',
        'text-domain'
    ),
    // This is the URL where you want to redirect.
    home_url()
);

Step 4

Display the SESSION message like below-

// Display the messages
$flash_message->display();

Step 5

Write CSS style as you want to style the message.

If you are using prcedural approach then you may need to use PHP super global to store the instance of the class.
$GLOBALS['FlashMessage'] = $flash_message
That’s why procedural approach is highly discouraged.

Coding styles and technique

All input data escaped and validated.
PSR-4 autoloading used.
Developed as Composer package.
YODA condition check applied.
Maintained Right Margin carefully. Usually that is 80 characters.
Used true, false and null in stead of TRUE, FALSE and NULL.
INDENTATION: TABS has been used in stead of SPACES.
PHP Codesniffer checked.
WordPress VIP coding standard followed mostly.

License and Contribution

This package is free for everyone! Since it’s released under the MIT License you can use it free of charge on your personal or commercial website. Plus all feedback / bug reports / pull requests are welcome.

TheDramatist