A WordPress plugin extends the functionality of your WordPress website, they are considered to be a separation between the functionality and the design or put simply the “look and feel” and what the website does “programmatically”.
The logic and code of a WordPress plugin should be a stand-alone programmatic extension, it shouldn’t rely on the theme to function meaning that any plugin installed on your WordPress installation can be activated and deactivated without affecting the websites look and feel which is the job of the theme, similarly having a plugin active should seamlessly interact between the swapping of WordPress themes.
We provide functionality like this with almost all of our WordPress projects, we do this for several reasons but the main reason is that the client can choose to run with any WordPress theme they choose to and still retain any functionality we’ve created in a bespoke WordPress plugin because at the end of the day website designs change, by keeping the separation between design (look and feel) and programmatic functionality it should be easier to maintain ongoing functionality in the future or for as long as the website requires that functionality.
If you would like to extend the functionality of your WordPress theme or would like further consultation, feel free to contact us.