README

A reusable Composer package that registers the shared AcrossAI top-level admin menu and a Settings submenu inside WP Admin. The Settings page is rendered with the WordPress Settings API — consumer plugins extend it by registering their own sections, fields, and options against the shared page slug.

Designed to be installed in multiple plugins side-by-side: automattic/jetpack-autoloader ensures only the highest-version copy boots, so the menu is registered exactly once regardless of how many plugins ship the package.

Requirements

PHP 8.1+
WordPress 6.0+
automattic/jetpack-autoloader: ^5.0 in your plugin's composer.json

Installation

composer require acrossai-co/main-menu

Load the autoloader in your plugin (jetpack-autoloader generates vendor/autoload_packages.php):

require_once plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) . 'vendor/autoload_packages.php';

Quick start (consumer plugin)

In your plugin's main file:

add_action( 'plugins_loaded', function () {
    new \AcrossAI_Main_Menu\SettingsPage();
} );

That's it. The first plugin (by jetpack-autoloader version resolution) to boot registers:

AcrossAI parent menu (add_menu_page, slug acrossai)
Settings submenu (add_submenu_page, slug acrossai-settings, hooked at admin_menu priority 1000 so it lands last)
The Settings page renders a standard <form action="options.php"> with settings_fields(), do_settings_sections(), and submit_button()

If 3 plugins all ship this package, you still get one menu and one Settings page. Every other copy becomes a no-op via jetpack-autoloader's version resolution.

Adding settings from your plugin

The shared identifier is acrossai-settings — it is both the page slug (for add_settings_section / add_settings_field) and the option_group (for register_setting / settings_fields). Use it as the target everywhere.

add_action( 'admin_init', function () {
    // 1. Register each option you want saved.
    register_setting(
        'acrossai-settings',          // option_group — must match the page slug
        'plugin_a_api_key',           // option_name
        [
            'type'              => 'string',
            'sanitize_callback' => 'sanitize_text_field',
            'default'           => '',
        ]
    );

    // 2. Add a section to the shared page.
    add_settings_section(
        'plugin_a_section',
        __( 'Plugin A', 'plugin-a' ),
        function () {
            echo '<p>' . esc_html__( 'Plugin A configuration.', 'plugin-a' ) . '</p>';
        },
        'acrossai-settings'           // page slug
    );

    // 3. Add fields to that section.
    add_settings_field(
        'plugin_a_api_key',
        __( 'API Key', 'plugin-a' ),
        function () {
            printf(
                '<input type="text" name="plugin_a_api_key" value="%s" class="regular-text" />',
                esc_attr( get_option( 'plugin_a_api_key', '' ) )
            );
        },
        'acrossai-settings',          // page slug
        'plugin_a_section'            // section id from step 2
    );
} );

That's the entire extension. No JS, no enqueue, no PHP routing — just standard WP hooks. The Settings page will display Plugin A's section automatically.

How the page composes across plugins

do_settings_sections( 'acrossai-settings' ) iterates every section registered against that page slug, in registration order. So:

0 active plugins registering sections → empty page (just the Save button)
1 plugin → its section is shown
2+ plugins → sections are stacked top-to-bottom in registration order

All registered options share one Save button. A single POST to options.php saves every option whitelisted via register_setting( 'acrossai-settings', ... ) regardless of which plugin registered it.

Controlling section order

WP renders sections in the order they're registered. If you need deterministic ordering, hook your admin_init callback with an explicit priority:

add_action( 'admin_init', 'plugin_a_register_settings', 10 );  // first
add_action( 'admin_init', 'plugin_b_register_settings', 20 );  // second
add_action( 'admin_init', 'plugin_c_register_settings', 30 );  // third

Public PHP API

Symbol	Purpose
`\AcrossAI_Main_Menu\SettingsPage`	Entrypoint. Construct once per request: `new SettingsPage();`. Safe to construct from every consumer plugin — jetpack-autoloader picks one copy to boot.
`\AcrossAI_Main_Menu\SettingsPage::PARENT_SLUG`	`'acrossai'` — the parent menu slug.
`\AcrossAI_Main_Menu\SettingsPage::SETTINGS_SLUG`	`'acrossai-settings'` — the Settings submenu slug, page slug, and option_group.

Notes for multi-plugin installs

Version pinning matters: jetpack-autoloader picks the highest version of acrossai-co/main-menu across all active plugins. Bumping the version in one plugin's composer.lock makes that plugin's copy "win".
All plugins should agree on the major version to avoid API drift across vendor copies.
If you forget to load vendor/autoload_packages.php, the class won't be found and the menu silently won't appear.
Option names must be globally unique across plugins (standard WP rule). Prefix them with your plugin slug (e.g. plugin_a_api_key) to avoid collisions.

acrossai-co / main-menu

Maintainers

Package info

Statistics

Security