Blog2Social Hooks: Filters & Actions

Introduction: What are hooks?

Hooks are being classified into "Actions" and into "Filters" and allow an almost unlimited extensibility and customizability of functions and appearances of software applications without having to edit or influence the core files of the software code at the same time.

The actual software code is not modified, instead the developer "hooks" his additional code to the respective "hook" (hook) provided by the WordPress system or other providers.

Implemented hooks remain intact even after updates to the original website code, e.g. the WordPress core or a plugin like Blog2Social, as even implemented customizations "hooked" via hook are not overwritten.

The use of child themes is also recommended, as these prevent the overwrites during updates from the used theme and its "functions.php" file.

In addition to the standard hooks integrated in WordPress, Blog2Social has developed its own hooks for web developers and customers. So also self-developed functions, can "hook" into processes and functions of Blog2Social to work with the Blog2Social WordPress plugin in the background and/or trigger functions (actions) or retrieve (filter).

Hooks are very useful for developers and IT-affine Blog2Social users to implement custom solutions with Blog2Social using self-developed functions.

Actions and Filters:

Action hooks allow you to insert custom code in different places (depending on where the hook is executed).
Filter hooks allow you to modify a variable that you pass in and pass the customized variable back.

When using a hook to add or manipulate code, you can add your custom code to your theme's functions.php file.

Using action hooks

To execute your own code, you hook in by using the action hook "do_action('action_name');".
Here is where to place your code:

add_action( 'action_name', 'your_function_name' );
function your_function_name() {
// Your code
}

Using filter hooks

Filter hooks are called by using the code “apply_filter( 'filter_name', $variable )”.
To manipulate the passed variable, you can do something like the following:

add_filter( 'filter_name', 'your_function_name' );
function your_function_name( $variable ) {
// Your code
return $variable;
}

With filters, you must return a value.

Action and Filter Hook Reference

This is a list of action and filter hooks found within Blog2Social files:

 *available from Premium Business

Relevant Links:
https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks