Easy Admin Notices

A PHP utility library for WordPress plugins that helps create admin notices.

Highlights

• Fluent interface.
• Persistently dismissible notices with optional dismissal duration.
• Show notices on specific pages.
• Show notices to users who have a specific capability.

Requirements

• PHP 5.3 or later.
• WordPress 4.2 or later.

Installation

Install with Composer:

composer require "yahnis-elsts/admin-notices"

Alternatively, you can install it manually:

1. Download the latest release.
2. Move the admin-notices directory to your plugin.
3. Load the library:

   require '/path/to/admin-notices/AdminNotice.php';

A note on load order: To ensure that persistently dismissible notices will work correctly, you should require the library before the admin_init action. For example, you can put the require in a plugins_loaded hook, or simply at the top of your plugin.

Usage

Basic example:

use \YeEasyAdminNotices\V1\AdminNotice;

AdminNotice::create()
	->success('Hello world!')
	->show();

Result:

You don't have to put this code in a hook. The show() method is smart. It checks if the admin_notices action was already executed and either displays the notice immediately or adds a new admin_notices hook that will display the notice when appropriate. It also checks any capability requirements and page filters before actually showing the notice (see Preconditions).

Type shortcuts

WordPress comes with several built-in CSS classes for different types of admin notices. You can use the following shortcut methods to simultaneously set the notice type and the contents of the notice.

success([$message])

AdminNotice::create()->success('Success')->show();

error([$message])

AdminNotice::create()->error('Error')->show(); 

warning([$message])

AdminNotice::create()->warning('Warning')->show();

info([$message])

AdminNotice::create()->info('Information')->show();

Content

Instead of passing a string to one of the type-specific methods, you can set the contents of the notice by calling one of the following methods.

text($message)

Set the contents of the notice to a text string. text() will escape HTML special characters like <, >, & and so on.

Example:

AdminNotice::create()
	->info()
	->text('<script>/* This will be displayed as plain text. */</script>')
	->show();

html($arbitraryHtml)

Set the contents of the notice to a HTML string. Unlike text(), this method does not perform any escaping or encoding.

AdminNotice::create()
	->info()
	->html('Tip: Go to <a href="#">Settings -&gt; My Plugin</a> to configure the plugin.')
	->show();

rawHtml($arbitraryHtml)

Usually, the contents of a notice are wrapped in a single paragraph (<p>) tag. To prevent this wrapping, use rawHtml() to set the notice content. This is useful if you want to use complex HTML or to display a long message where one paragraph is not enough.

AdminNotice::create()
	->rawHtml('<p>First paragraph</p><p>Second paragraph</p>')
	->show();

Dismissible notices

dismissible()

Add an "(x)" icon to the notice. Clicking the icon will hide the notice. However, this doesn't prevent the notice from reappearing in the future. Use persistentlyDismissible() for that.

AdminNotice::create()
	->text('You can hide this notice by clicking the "(x)" =>')
	->dismissible()
	->show();

persistentlyDismissible([$scope, $duration])

Make the notice persistently dismissible. When the user dismisses the notice, the library stores a flag in the database that prevents the notice from showing up again. Persistently dismissible notices must have a unique ID.

The $scope parameter controls whether clicking "(x)" will hide the notice for everyone or just for the current user. The supported values are:

• AdminNotice::DISMISS_PER_SITE - hide the notice site-wide. This is the default.
• AdminNotice::DISMISS_PER_USER - hide the notice only for the current user.

Example:

AdminNotice::create('my-notice-id')
	->persistentlyDismissible(AdminNotice::DISMISS_PER_SITE)
	->success('This notice can be permanently dismissed.')
	->show();

The $duration parameter controls how long (in seconds) the notice will be considered dismissed for. By default, notices will be dismissed permanently.

Example:

AdminNotice::create('my-notice-id')
	->persistentlyDismissible(AdminNotice::DISMISS_PER_SITE, WEEK_IN_SECONDS)
	->success('This notice can be dismissed for 1 week.')
	->show();

Notes:

• You must load AdminNotice.php before the admin_init action to make sure that the default AJAX handlers get set up correctly.
• It's safe to call show() on a dismissed notice. It won't display the notice, and it won't throw an error either.

dismiss([$duration])

Persistently dismiss the notice. Only works on notices that have been flagged as persistentlyDismissible().

The $duration parameter controls how long (in seconds) the notice will be considered dismissed for. By default, the duration is the same as the duration passed to persistentlyDismissible(). You can also pass AdminNotice::DISMISS_PERMANENTLY to dismiss the notice permanently.

undismiss()

Restore a previously dismissed notice.

isDismissed() : boolean

Check if the notice has been dismissed.

AdminNotice::cleanUpDatabase($prefix)

Delete all "this notice is dismissed" flags that have the specified ID prefix from the database. If you're using persistently dismissible notices, it's a good idea to call this function when your plugin is uninstalled.

For example, if your notice IDs start with myplugin-, you can remove the database entries like this:

AdminNotice::cleanUpDatabase('myplugin-');

Preconditions

These methods control where notices will appear and who will be able to see them.

onPage($screenId)

Show the notice only on the specified admin page(s). $screenId can be either the screen ID of a page (i.e. a string), or an array of screen IDs.

See Admin Screen Reference for a list of screens and their IDs. In the case of plugin and theme admin pages, the screen ID is usually the same as the value returned by the add_*_page() function.

Example:

AdminNotice::create()
	->info()
	->text('This message will only appear on the "Plugins -> Installed Plugins" page')
	->onPage('plugins')
	->show();
	
add_action('admin_menu', function() {
	$id = add_options_page(
		'Example',
		'Example',
		'manage_options',
		'example-admin-page',
		'__return_false'
	);

	AdminNotice::create()
		->info()
		->text('This will appear on "Settings -> Example"')
		->onPage($id)
		->show();
});

requiredCap($capability)

Show the notice only to users who have the specified $capability.

Show now or later

After creating a notice, call one of these methods to display it.

show()

Automagically show the notice on the current page when all preconditions are met.

showOnNextPage()

Show the notice on the next admin page that's visited by the current user. The notice will be shown only once.

This method is useful for plugin activation hooks, redirects, and other situations where you can't display a notice immediately for whatever reason. The library will store the notice in the database. It will display the notice the next time that the admin_notices action is called in the context of the current user, whether happens during this page load or the next one, or a week later.

outputNotice()

Immediately display the notice. This method bypasses any checks and preconditions and just outputs the notice directly. It's mainly intended for debugging.