- Contributors: Andy Fragen, Gary Jones, Seth Carstens, contributors
- Tags: plugin, theme, update, updater
- Requires at least: 3.8
- Tested up to: 4.1beta
- Stable tag: master
- License: GPLv2 or later
- License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
A simple plugin to enable automatic updates to your GitHub or Bitbucket hosted WordPress plugins and themes.
This plugin is not allowed in the wp.org repo. 😦
This plugin was designed to simply update any GitHub hosted WordPress plugin or theme. Your plugin or theme must contain a header in the style.css header or in the plugin's header denoting the location on GitHub. The format is as follows. The folder name of the theme or plugin must be the same as the repo name.
GitHub Theme URI: afragen/test-child
GitHub Theme URI: https://github.com/afragen/test-child
or
GitHub Plugin URI: afragen/github-updater
GitHub Plugin URI: https://github.com/afragen/github-updater
...where the above URI leads to the owner/repository of your theme or plugin. The URI may be in the format https://github.com/<owner>/<repo> or the short format <owner>/<repo>.
Run the composer command: composer require afragen/github-updater
- Download the latest tagged archive (choose the "zip" option).
- Go to the Plugins -> Add New screen and click the Upload tab.
- Upload the zipped archive directly.
- Go to the Plugins screen and click Activate.
- Download the latest tagged archive (choose the "zip" option).
- Unzip the archive.
- Copy the folder to your
/wp-content/plugins/directory. - Go to the Plugins screen and click Activate.
Check out the Codex for more information about installing plugins manually.
Using git, browse to your /wp-content/plugins/ directory and clone this repository:
git clone https://github.com/afragen/github-updater.git
Then go to your Plugins screen and click Activate.
- Choose a method from above for installation.
- DO NOT activate!
- Symlink
wp-content/plugins/github-updater/mu/ghu-loader.phpinwp-content/mu-plugins.
cd <WordPress root>
ln -sv wp-content/plugins/github-updater/mu/ghu-loader.php wp-content/mu-plugins
cd /D <WordPress root>
mklink wp-content\mu-plugins\ghu-loader.php wp-content\plugins\github-updater\mu\ghu-loader.php
This way you get automatic updates and cannot deactivate the plugin.
There must be a GitHub Theme URI or Bitbucket Theme URI declaration in the style.css file.
/*
Theme Name: Test
Theme URI: http://drfragen.info/
Version: 0.1.0
Description: Child theme of TwentyTwelve.
Author: Andy Fragen
Template: twentytwelve
Template Version: 1.0.0
GitHub Theme URI: https://github.com/afragen/test-child
GitHub Branch: master
*/There must be a GitHub Plugin URI or Bitbucket Plugin URI declaration in the plugin's header. The plugin's primary file must be named similarly to the repo name.
/*
Plugin Name: GitHub Updater
Plugin URI: https://github.com/afragen/github-updater
Description: A plugin to automatically update GitHub hosted plugins and themes into WordPress. Plugin class based upon <a href="https://github.com/codepress/github-plugin-updater">codepress/github-plugin-updater</a>. Theme class based upon <a href="https://github.com/WordPress-Phoenix/whitelabel-framework">Whitelabel Framework</a> modifications.
Version: 1.0.0
Author: Andy Fragen
License: GNU General Public License v2
License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
Domain Path: /languages
Text Domain: github-updater
GitHub Plugin URI: https://github.com/afragen/github-updater
GitHub Branch: master
*/Optional headers GitHub Access Token, GitHub Branch, and Bitbucket Branch are available but not required.
To specify a branch that you would like to use for updating, just add a GitHub Branch header. If you develop on master and are pushing tags, GitHub Updater will update to the newest tag. If there are no tags or the specified branch is not master GitHub Updater will use the specified branch for updating.
The default state is either GitHub Branch: master or nothing at all. They are equivalent.
If you want to update against branch of your repository other than master and have that branch push updates out to users make sure you specify the testing branch in a header, i.e. GitHub Branch: develop. When you want users to update against the release branch just have them manually change the header to GitHub Branch: master or remove it completely. Tags will be ignored when a branch other than master is specified. In this case I would suggest semantic versioning similar to the following, <major>.<minor>.<patch>.<development>.
If GitHub Branch or Bitbucket Branch is not specified (or is set to master), then the latest tag will be used. GitHub Updater will preferentially use a tag over a branch in this instance.
The Bitbucket Branch header is supported for both plugins and themes.
Instead of the GitHub Plugin URI header you will need to use the Bitbucket Plugin URI header.
Instead of the GitHub Theme URI header you will need to use the Bitbucket Theme URI header.
In order to specify a private repository you will need to obtain a personal access token. Once you have this, simply add the token to the appropriate plugin or theme in the Settings page.
In order to specify a private repository you will need to add your Bitbucket password to the appropriate plugin or theme in the Settings page.
Regrettably, I still get an error when trying to download a Bitbucket private repository. I could use some help in figuring this one out, though it seems Bitbucket knows this is an issue and won't fix. If someone wants to figure out and create a PR for oAuth...
If you use the Check Again button in the WordPress Updates screen then all the transients will be deleted and the API will be queried again. Be careful about refreshing the browser window after this as you may be continually deleting the transients.
If you develop your plugin on GitHub and it also resides in the WP.org repo, the plugin will preferentially pull updates from WP.org if GitHub Branch: master. If GitHub Branch is anything other than master then the update will pull from GitHub. Make sure that the version of your plugin uploaded to WP.org has GitHub Branch: master.
The same applies for Bitbucket hosted plugins.
szepeviktor has created an add-on plugin to GitHub Updater that identifies all plugins with an icon in the plugin view for GitHub or Bitbucket depending upon where they get updates. It's very clever. https://github.com/szepeviktor/wordpress-plugin-construction/tree/master/github-link
Please log issues on the GitHub at https://github.com/afragen/github-updater/issues
If you are using a WordPress Multisite installation, the plugin should be network activated.
When first downloading and installing a plugin from GitHub you might have to do the following.
- Unzip the archive.
- Fix the folder name to remove to extra stuff GitHub adds to the download, like -master.
- Copy the folder to your plugins directory.
See CHANGES.md. In your project create a CHANGES.md or CHANGELOG.md file.
This plugin's theme updater class was based upon Whitelabel Framework's updater-plugin.php, which was based upon https://github.com/UCF/Theme-Updater.
The plugin updater class was based upon codepress/github-plugin-updater.
Includes Emanuil Rusev's Parsedown for rendering ChangeLogs.
Please fork and submit pull requests against the develop branch.