WP Plugin Info is mostly addressed to plugin developers. It lets you show, in a post or page, any kind of information related to a plugin hosted on WordPress.org. I developed it for my own use on sitetreeplugin.com, some of the information shown in the homepage and other areas of the website are fetched with this plugin.

Features

• Shortcode-based plugin: you just need the shortcode [wp-plugin-info] to use it.
• The information retrieved are cached and refreshed once per hour. It is able to efficiently manage the caching of multiple arrays of information (each one related to a different plugin) at the same time.
  
• Optimised performance: even if you insert the shortcode multiple times into the same page, the access to the cached data will be performed just once.
• Template tags to use the plugin directly into a template file.

Shortcode Attributes

plugin_id (Required)
Description: The slug name of the plugin whose information you want to retrieve.
Value: the basename of the url of the plugin page.

For example, the value of plugin_id for this plugin is wp-plugin-info, because the url of this plugin page is http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-plugin-info/.

info_id (Required)
Description: The unique identifier associated to the information to retrieve.
Accepted values: name, slug, version, author, author_profile, contributors, requires, tested, rating, num_ratings, downloaded, last_updated, added, homepage, download_link, description, installation, screenshots, changelog, faq

default (Optional)
Description: The string to show if an error occurs while retrieving the information.
Default: The character "-".

date_format (Optional)
Description: The format of the date to show. This is an attribute to be used only when retrieving a date.
Value: A valid PHP date format.

Template Tags

The following tags can be used directly into a template file.

<?php wp_plugin_info( $info_id, $args ); ?>

$info_id (Required): a string value
$args (Optional): an associative array

<?php

$args = array(
    'plugin_id'     => WPPI_PLUGIN_ID,
    'default'   => '-',
    'date_format' => null
);

?>

If you want to manipulate the result, use the tag below instead. The arguments are the same.

<?php get_wp_plugin_info( $info_id, $args ); ?>

Configuration

The plugin is ready to use just after its activation, however, there are a couple settings you can customise through the php constants listed below.
It is recommended to define these constants in your wp-config.php file instead of directly editing them in the main plugin file. In the latter case you should set them every time you update the plugin.

• WPPI_CACHE_EXPIRATION: cannot be set a value lower than 600 (seconds).
• WPPI_PLUGIN_ID: if set, you don't need to include the attribute plugin_id into the shortcode. However, The attribute plugin_id has an higher priority, so it can override the value of the constant.
• WPPI_ENABLE_SHORTCODE: the default value is true. Set it to false if you want to disable the shortcode feature – recommended if you don't use it.

In Practice

Suppose you want to show the information listed in the homepage of sitetreeplugin.com and you set the php constant WPPI_PLUGIN_ID, what you would write in a post or page should look like this:

Version: [wp-plugin-info info_id="version"]
Requires: WordPress [wp-plugin-info info_id="requires"] or higher
Release date: [wp-plugin-info info_id="last_updated" date_format="Y-n-j"]
Downloads: [wp-plugin-info info_id="downloaded"]

The same can be achieved with the template tag:

Version: <?php wp_plugin_info( 'version' ); ?>
Requires: WordPress <?php wp_plugin_info( 'requires' ); ?> or higher
Release date: <?php wp_plugin_info( 'last_updated', array( 'date_format' => 'Y-n-j' ) ); ?>
Downloads: <?php wp_plugin_info( 'downloaded' ); ?>

1. Upload the folder wp-plugin-info to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress

1.1.3

• The cache expiration date is now displayed in the admin area.
• Minor changes.

1.1.2

Fixed an error in the documentation.

1.1.1

• Added the template tag get_wp_plugin_info()

1.1

• Reduced the number of database queries performed in the worst case.
• Added a button to delete the cache.
• Added the template tag wp_plugin_info().
• Added the configuration constant WPPI_ENABLE_SHORTCODE.
• Minor fixes.

1.0

• Initial release.