Wordpress plugin advice: suggestions for writing a plugin the correct way

Question

I will write my first Wordpress plugin for the local animal shelter. The plugin will make a list of the animals in a category page(or a custom loop if that is a better way to do it) and make a little list with a thumb and some basic info about the animal with an anchor so people do not have to scroll down the entire page to see all animals they would be interested in.

I was thinking about what way to realize this. Some options I could think of:

• Look for certain strings in the content and if that one is found create a thumb from the posts image and put the stringline into the list.
• Add some text fields to the form to the new message form and get the data from those.
• Let the person who maintains the website add the listitems in a seperate form and paste a link to the correct animal.

What would be the best way to do it from my list? Or are there any better ways I could do this?

Answer 1

I would create a custom animal post type. For the thumbnail, use the featured image metabox. For the text fields, create a custom metabox, and store the data as part of the posts meta.