Book excerpt: WordPress is much more than a blogging platform. As this practical guide clearly demonstrates, you can use WordPress to build web apps of any type—not mere content sites, but full-blown apps for specific tasks. If you have PHP experience with a smattering of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you’ll learn how to use WordPress plugins and themes to develop fast, scalable, and secure web apps, native mobile apps, web services, and even a network of multiple WordPress sites. The authors use examples from their recently released SchoolPress app to explain concepts and techniques throughout the book. All code examples are available on GitHub. Compare WordPress with traditional app development frameworks Use themes for views, and plugins for backend functionality Get suggestions for choosing WordPress plugins—or build your own Manage user accounts and roles, and access user data Build asynchronous behaviors in your app with jQuery Develop native apps for iOS and Android, using wrappers Incorporate PHP libraries, external APIs, and web service plugins Collect payments through ecommerce and membership plugins Use techniques to speed up and scale your WordPress app