Developing a WordPress REST API App: Getting Started

WordPress REST API: Open a new chapter in WordPress development

This article will take you step by step to learn how to use the WordPress REST API for development, so you can easily get started even without a technical background. We will use a simple JavaScript application example, combined with Facebook's React library to demonstrate how to use the REST API to interact with a WordPress site to obtain and display WordPress content.

Core points:

• The WordPress REST API is an important tool for developers to interact with WordPress sites, allowing data to be created, read, updated, and deleted using HTTP requests. This brings endless possibilities to WordPress development, such as creating mobile applications, customizing management interfaces, and integrating with third-party services.
• This series of tutorials is designed to provide a hands-on learning experience for users with non-technical backgrounds. We will guide you in building a simple JavaScript application powered by WordPress content and presented using Facebook's React library.
• REST API has been adopted by many large websites around the world and is becoming increasingly popular in the WordPress field. Now is the best time for developers and website owners to embrace the technology, as it will most likely define the future of their website.

REST API: Take action now

While the enthusiasm surrounding the WordPress REST API continues to rise, we are still in the early stages of our practical significance for website owners and developers.

Although I have written extensively about the potential impact of the REST API, I have not really started it yet. With the official launch of the REST API, now seems like a great time to dig into the details. In this series of tutorials, I will experience the charm of the REST API by building a simple JavaScript application that uses the REST API to get content. This will be an in-depth learning experience, but hopefully it will also help users with non-technical backgrounds.

My background

Although I have always been passionate about WordPress, I have been a writer and entrepreneur in my career. I can't pretend I have any serious development background. "A brief understanding is enough to protect myself" is the most appropriate description of my coding experience.

Therefore, this series of tutorials will not be as in-depth as Jack Lenox (theme professional) or Ramsay Lanier (a veteran web developer). I don't deal with this from the perspective of top digital institutions looking to test the latest technology.

Large organizations, such as Modern Tribe, are already using the REST API. This series of tutorials is more like ordinary WordPress users mastering the next generation of platform technology through a practical exploration project.

Hopefully this approach resonates with many other website owners, too. Let me put it this way - if your eyes start dazing when you see other (admittedly excellent) tutorials, then this series of tutorials is right for you:

Over the next few weeks, I will explain through a series of articles how I use Node.js and Express on the backend, and a GraphQL server that connects to a MYSQL WordPress database that uses Apollo to fetch data and import it into React components . Don't worry, I'll still use the proven WordPress management interface.

Why is now the best time to embrace the REST API

In late 2015, Calypso's release and Matt Mullenweg's annual report clearly demonstrated the future direction of WordPress. In short, REST API will become the core of the future development of the platform, and developers need to master JavaScript as soon as possible.

We have seen that despite the late launch of the REST API, there have been entire conferences dedicated to exploring its impact, and more and more actual projects are built on it. From Microsoft to The New York Times, major companies around the world are eager to explore their powerful features.

If you are a theme or plugin developer, you can rest assured that the vast majority of competitors are at least actively researching this topic. If you are a website owner, you can expect that your website development will depend heavily on the possibilities brought by the REST API for the next five years or more. In any case, now is the best time to join this train.

The objectives of this series of tutorials

In this tutorial series, we will start with a local installation and use WordPress to store a collection of famous quotes from a great American original person, Mr. Henry David Thoreau. After we safely store these mottoes in a WordPress backend, we will look at how to interact with them through the REST API and build a simple JavaScript frontend to display them in multiple ways using Facebook's React library.

In the process, we will cover topics such as other front-end solutions, integration with mobile applications, design tips and tweaks, and integration with third-party APIs for enhanced functionality. After this series of tutorials, you should have a more solid and practical understanding of the practical application of the REST API.

We will use WordPress 4.5.3 running in a local development environment, REST API version 2 as a plugin, React, and a lot of patience and perseverance to complete our project. If you stick with it, you will definitely learn a lot of useful information!

Conclusion

Tools using the REST API already exist, it has been used in production environments by multiple large websites around the world, and will soon be widely used in mainstream WordPress. Now it's time to learn the REST API.

This series of tutorials is aimed at relatively non-technical users and will take you to quickly master REST API development. You don’t need a computer science degree to study—just a little time, patience, and perseverance.

Stay tuned for the second part, where we will launch the local site, add some data to it, and start researching basic read and write functions through the REST API.

You can read other articles in this series here.

(FAQs should be added here, the content is the same as the original text)

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