Displaying a pop-up dialog using the built-in ThickBox plugin

As annoying as they can be to visitors, pop-up dialogs are a feature that many website administrators use to help them advertise special offers or get readers to subscribe to their content. Since it uses pop-up dialogs in its own administrative pages, WordPress comes bundled with a jQuery script called ThickBox that can be used to display these types of dialogs.

Getting ready

You should have access to a WordPress development environment.

How to do it...

Follow these steps to load the ThickBox script and use it to render a pop-up dialog:

1. Navigate to the WordPress plugins directory of your development installation.
2. Create a new directory called ch9-pop-up-dialog.
3. Navigate to the directory and create a text file called ch9-pop-up-dialog.php.
4. Open the new file in a code editor and add an appropriate header at the top of the plugin file, naming the plugin Chapter 9 - Pop-Up Dialog.
5. Add the...