How can I create a basic PHP that can lives outside WP?

Question

I am trying to do an email subscriber form and I would like to implement my own solution. I do not want to spend hours trying to figure out which Plugins is the best. Spending more times to install it in the template. And then realize that I can't easily send back a confirmation email to the subscriber... All I want is a normal .php file and do my job real fast inside.

Let's call that page sign-up.php

But, if I POST (even if I only GET) on that page, my 404.php is being displayed. How can I avoid this? I could probably go edit my .htaccess but I do not know if WP is going to overwrite it to get rid of my instructions.

Any tips?

I am using WP 3.4.1

Answer 1

The core of Wordpress will not touch your .htaccess file outside the comments.

    # BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

Plugins such as WP Super Cache might but I've never experienced any loss of personal changes.

As to your request, you have options:

1/ i'd do a simple plugin so you keep all the benefits of wordpress (built-in security, awesome helper functions, etc.).

2/ You want your own php file, but use wordpress magic? You simply need to include wp-load.php . That's not recommanded though, but you're your own master...

3/ put your php file anywhere you want: it will work provided you have this rewrite condition before the rewrite rule : RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f : it says "if file exists, don't redirect to index.php".

Answer 2

You could display the form on your WP site using an iframe and then the user would get confirmation without leaving the page.

There may be a more advanced solution but an iframe is easy and works.