In this episode of Pressbits I discuss my pet peeve of plugin developers deleting my options settings on deactivation, rather than upon uninstallation.

You should listen to it, especially if you’re a plugin developer.

Download audio file (Pressbits-0005-plugin-options-and-deactivation.mp3)

If you would rather download it directly you can do that too, or subscribe to this show via RSS or on iTunes. If you would prefer a written summary, you can also read that just after the jump.

Deactivating and uninstalling a plugin are not the same thing

Let’s talk about plugin options. Specifically, what I expect as a user when I deactivate a plugin, versus uninstall one. WordPress has some hooks built in that help enable plugin others to do things, namely register_activation_hook, register_deactivation_hook, and register_uninstall_hook. The deactivation hook and uninstall hook are great places to trigger certain things. Unfortunately, too many plugin authors unset options in the wrong one.

When I deactivate a plugin, I’m not really trying to totally remove the plugin from my site, but rather just turn it off. So when a plugin author deletes all of the options I’ve selected on a plugins’ settings screen on the deactivation hook, it makes me angry that I have to go and reset them when I turn it back on. So angry that I might just find another solution for what your plugin is doing.

What they should be doing instead, is removing these options, and everything else, with the uninstall hook. When i uninstall a plugin completely, it is safe to assume I am finished with it, and it is the appropriate place to take such action. But when I simply deactivate, in all likelihood I’m just debugging something in my theme or another plugin, or maybe backing up or upgrading something.

So consider this a friendly message to plugin developers, and future plugin developers – remove options on the uninstall hook, and not the deactivation hook.

The post Pressbits 005: Don’t delete plugin options on deactivation appeared first on WPCandy.