How to Talk to WordPress with AJAX

Are you a burgeoning theme or plugin developer looking to improve the interactivity of your UX with AJAX? In this mini-workshop we’ll explore and implement two different ways of (properly) implementing AJAX calls in WordPress with jQuery. First, we’ll walk through building a basic script that utilizes WordPress’ built-in wp_ajax hooks to store and/or fetch options, an approach useful for plugin configurations or user-facing actions like voting or fetching the weather (it can also be a way around caching in a pinch). After that, we’ll explore using AJAX in combination with template overrides, so that your themes can leverage the power of ajax while still benefitting from things like caching and pagination. At the end of the workshop you should leave feeling comfortable knowing which approach to use when, and be able to implement either!