It’s pretty easy to hijack some core WordPress code and use it to extend the functionality of your WordPress site while keeping a cohesive look and feel. Basically, this technique creates a WordPress ’shell’ that you can code inside of; utilizing all of WordPress’s functions and themes, but leaving out the blog. I use this technique to add on functionality to my WordPress sites that don’t fit within the WordPress framework, such as zip code locators and other custom database applications. You can even use this technique to build custom includes based on WordPress functions. Lets get to it…

Assumtions

First I need to tell you about how my WordPress blogs are set up. I usually set up my blogs in the root directory, and that is how this tutorial assumes you have done it as well. This means all of our coding will be going on inside of the WordPress install. Of course, your setup may be different than this, so just keep that in mind.

I’m also assuming that you’ve been good and have upgraded to WordPress 2.6. The WP developers have changed how the core code is included in WP 2.6 and this tutorial reflects that.

Set Up

To begin create a directory in your WordPress install for testing (this directory should be parallel to the wp-content folder). You can call it anything you like – I’m calling mine ‘tool’. Next, create a blank index.php file in that folder.

Go on to learn how to include the WordPress core code…