Commonly used plugins

Since the introduction of the Plugin Architecture a lot of plugins for different functions have been created. There are specialized plugins that only provide one function and other more common plugins that act as a sort of container for several functions.

When creating new plugins, you should first check for already existing functionalities. Let's look at some of these plugins.

The settings plugin

You have already downloaded and installed the settings plugin in the previous chapter, but what is this settings plugin actually being used for?

Functionality

The settings plugin is a container for commonly used functions. These functions include:

• E-mail sending

• DNS lookup

The e-mail sending functionality takes care of the different options available. PHP provides an internal function, but in some situations, it makes sense to either use the tools provided by the operating system (for example, sendmail) or connect to an external mail system via SMTP. The different options and methods...