LifeLines WP Registry grade A. No security issues foundWP RegistryNo security issues foundOpen the reportA

A standalone real-time lookup tool for UK place, service and helpline data.

LifeLines imports a UK dataset (place / service / helpline records) that you upload as a CSV into its own table, and exposes a fast, public smart lookup: partial-match search across admin-configurable columns, with results rendered in real time as you type. It is self-contained — it has no plugin dependencies and registers entirely on core WordPress hooks.

Dependencies: none License: MIT (Modified — see License) Author: The Bleeding Deacons

Table of Contents

• Requirements
• Installation
• Smart Lookup
• Architecture
• Kill Switch
• Extending LifeLines
• Building for Production
• License

Requirements

• WordPress 6.1 or later
• PHP 8.1 or later
• No other plugins required

Installation

1. Build the lifelines.zip archive (composer build) or clone this repository into wp-content/plugins/lifelines.
2. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, or activate it from the Plugins screen if cloned.
3. On activation LifeLines creates its (empty) table and adds a public Lookup page.
4. Load your data: on LifeLines → Smart Lookup, upload a CSV whose first row is the column names (see Smart Lookup).

Smart Lookup

LifeLines provides a self-contained, real-time lookup over a UK dataset (place / service / helpline data) that you import into its wp_life_lines table. No data is bundled with the plugin — you upload a CSV (first row = column names) from the admin screen, and can export the current data back to CSV. It is fully self-contained — no plugin dependencies; it registers on core WordPress hooks.

Public page. On activation the plugin creates a published Lookup page containing the [lifelines_lookup] shortcode (you can also drop that shortcode on any page). As you type, results are fetched from admin-ajax.php and rendered live, matching partial values across the configured columns. The results list is responsive — a table on wider screens, stacked cards on phones.

Remembered state. The search term is mirrored to the URL (?q=…) and to sessionStorage, and the scroll position is stored too. If a visitor searches, navigates away, and returns to the page, their term, results, and scroll position are restored. A URL with ?q= pre-fills and runs that search (shareable links).

Admin settings (LifeLines menu → Smart Lookup):

• Searchable columns — which columns the typed text is partial-matched against.
• Displayed columns — which columns (and in what order) appear in the results.
• Maximum results and minimum characters before a search fires.
• Import / export data — upload a CSV (first row = column names; unknown columns ignored, blank cells stored as NULL) to replace the current rows; the uploaded file is then deleted. Export downloads all rows as CSV. A live row count is shown. Embedded commas/quotes are handled via fgetcsv/fputcsv.

Security. Column identifiers are never taken from user input: admin-chosen columns are validated against a fixed whitelist (Lookup\Columns) before being back-ticked, and the search term is bound via $wpdb->prepare(). The public search endpoint is read-only and nonce-free by design, so it survives full-page caching.

Key classes live under src/Lookup/: LookupBootstrap (wiring + activation), TownSchema (table + import), TownRepository (search), LookupController (shortcode + AJAX + assets), SettingsPage (admin), LookupSettings and Columns (config + whitelist).

Architecture

• lifelines.php — plugin header, constants (LIFELINES_VERSION, LIFELINES_PLUGIN_DIR, LIFELINES_PLUGIN_URL), the LIFELINES_KILL kill switch, a PSR-4 autoloader for the LifeLines\ namespace, and registration of the lookup subsystem on the plugins_loaded and activation hooks.
• LifeLines\Lookup\LookupBootstrap — wires the subsystem together and runs activation (install table, import data, create the public page).
• LifeLines\Lookup\TownSchema — the single source of truth for the wp_life_lines table: it creates the schema (via dbDelta), imports row data from an uploaded CSV (batched inserts; header matched against Columns), and exports the table to CSV.
• LifeLines\Lookup\TownRepository — the partial-match search query.
• LifeLines\Lookup\LookupController — the [lifelines_lookup] shortcode, front-end assets, and the public AJAX search endpoint.
• LifeLines\Lookup\SettingsPage — the admin settings screen.
• LifeLines\Lookup\LookupSettings / Columns — configuration and the fixed column whitelist that keeps identifiers safe.

Kill Switch

Stand the plugin down without deactivating it by adding this to wp-config.php:

define('LIFELINES_KILL', true);

Extending LifeLines

1. Add a class under src/ (namespace LifeLines\…).
2. Hook it up from LookupBootstrap::register() (or add a new bootstrap wired in from lifelines.php).
3. To broaden the dataset, extend the whitelist in Lookup\Columns and the table definition in Lookup\TownSchema.

Building for Production

composer install
composer build          # → build/lifelines.zip (production)
composer build:dev      # includes tests
composer build:clean    # clean the build directory

Testing

Install the dev dependencies and run the suite from the plugin directory:

composer install

Line coverage is reported to Coveralls on every CI run — see the coverage badge at the top of this file.

License

MIT (Modified) — see LICENSE. The licensee may not sell the Software, alone or as part of an aggregate software distribution containing the Software.