Create a Settings Options Page for a Plugin

90% of the plugins you use, will have some options in the dashboard. It makes sense to allow users some setting options, to tailor the functionality of a plugin, according to their preference. This can increase the usability of a plugin.

Create an Options Page for a Plugin under Settings Menu

To create a sub-menu for your plugin in the dashboard ‘Settings’ menu, you should use the Settings API provided by WordPress. Using this API, you can register a new options page, with fields for settings. Additionally, you can add settings to an existing options page.

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Register Settings For a Plugin

For settings belonging to a particular plugin, you need to register the settings in a single group, with a unique id. For example, you need to write something like the following:

function myplugin_register_settings() {
   add_option( 'myplugin_option_name', 'This is my option value.');
   register_setting( 'myplugin_options_group', 'myplugin_option_name', 'myplugin_callback' );
}
add_action( 'admin_init', 'myplugin_register_settings' );

Here, all the settings fields for the plugin will be grouped under myplugin_options_group. In an options page, this id will be used to display the fields.

Creating an Options Page

An options page will be used to display all your settings. This page will be added as a sub-menu to the Settings menu.

function myplugin_register_options_page() {
  add_options_page('Page Title', 'Plugin Menu', 'manage_options', 'myplugin', 'myplugin_options_page');
}
add_action('admin_menu', 'myplugin_register_options_page');

myplugin_options_page will be the function that will be called, when this page is displayed.

function myplugin_option_page()
{
  //content on page goes here
}

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Display Settings on the Option’s Page

To display your settings on the option page, you have to link the settings group id to the options page using settings_fields function. Then using get_option, you can get the value of the settings. Remember to format the fields and text on your options page.

<?php function myplugin_options_page()
{
?>
  <div>
  <?php screen_icon(); ?>
  <h2>My Plugin Page Title</h2>
  <form method="post" action="options.php">
  <?php settings_fields( 'myplugin_options_group' ); ?>
  <h3>This is my option</h3>
  <p>Some text here.</p>
  <table>
  <tr valign="top">
  <th scope="row"><label for="myplugin_option_name">Label</label></th>
  <td><input type="text" id="myplugin_option_name" name="myplugin_option_name" value="<?php echo get_option('myplugin_option_name'); ?>" /></td>
  </tr>
  </table>
  <?php  submit_button(); ?>
  </form>
  </div>
<?php
} ?>

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Your resulting options page would look something like this:

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Using methods provided by Settings API can help you easily create a settings options page for your plugin. But this only allows you to make a sub-menu in the dashboard settings menu.

Stay tuned for more articles, to help you make a separate dashboard menu for your plugin and create multiple option pages.

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