Automatic Activation of Plugins

A long time “want” for WordPress, especially since dealing with a large number of blogs at b5media, has been to have a WordPress MU feature that provides a directory whereby all plugins are automatically activated. I have asked for it on back channels for several months now, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized how simple (and how backwards) the same functionality could be. I have to give credit to Barry and Matt at Automattic for pointing this out to me. Oh, Ryan did too.

The answer is the long-time hidden resident of WordPress, the my-hacks.php file. You create a plugin directory where all plugins will be activated from (we call it b5-plugins), and then simply update the my-hacks file as such:


<php
require_once('wp-content/b5-plugins/my-plugin.php');
?>


We could probably go one better and read all the files in that directory into an array an execute, but my security fritz goes off when I get to that level of blind automation.

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About the Author: Aaron Brazell is the lead editor of Technosailor.com and a social media expert. His passion is to see companies and individuals use the internet and web technologies wisely and effectively to promote their brands and companies. He is Business Development Manager for Lijit and he worked as Director of Technology at b5media from 2005-2008 and is currently an independent consultant.