170 Plugin Release and Promotion

Your Plugin Readme.txt File

To prepare documentation for the public release of a plugin, you need to complete two steps.

1. Create a plugin readme.txt file that adheres to the WordPress plugin readme.txt file standard.
   Note: You can put your readme.txt file through the WordPress readme validator to check it.
   

   WordPress readme validator: Enter the URL to your readme.txt file or past your file to the form.

    

   

   WordPress readme validator: If you’ve done a good job, you’ll get high praise from WordPress.

    

2. Prepare a plugin page on your web site or the WordPress plugin repository to host your plugin.
   If you would like your own web site so you can host and support your plugins see my article, ‘Where to Register Domain Names“.

The readme.txt file is a standardized text file describing the plugin functionality, installation and usage manual. The contents of a readme.txt file are automatically parsed by the WordPress plugin repository to display the standard plugin information pages seen on WordPress.

 

There are the usual restrictions which WordPress imposes, i.e.

• Your plugin must be compatible with the GNU General Public License v2, or later version. Just use the same license as WordPress, “GPLv2 or later.”
• Don’t do anything illegal or immoral or spam. That just about sums up the detailed guidelines.
• To host your plugin with WordPress you have to use the Subversion repository.