Favorites — Plugixa Recipe

A lightweight heart / “save for later” system for logged-in users. Each user has a single favorites list backed by wp_plugixarecipe_favorites.

Frontend UX

Every recipe card and the single recipe page shows a ❤️ icon. Clicking it:

• For a logged-in user: toggles the favorite (insert / delete in favorites).
• For a guest: opens a sign-in prompt (configurable in Settings → Display).

Browsing favorites

A user can view their favorites by visiting a page with this shortcode:

[plugixarecipe collection="favorites-{user_id}"]

Or, more commonly, through the automatic Favorites collection on their account page (the plugin auto-creates one when the user first hearts a recipe — see Collections).

Data model

wp_plugixarecipe_favorites
id | user_id | recipe_id | created_at

Indexes: UNIQUE(user_id, recipe_id), recipe_id.

Why not use post meta?

Keeping favorites in a dedicated table means:

• Fast per-user counts (WHERE user_id = … COUNT(*)) — useful on the dashboard.
• Per-recipe counts show “145 people saved this”.
• Clean removal on user deletion.

Cached count

Each recipe stores a like_count (cached total favorites). This avoids a JOIN + COUNT on every card render. The counter is incremented/decremented transactionally with the insert/delete on favorites.

Frontend JavaScript

The favorite button uses a single REST endpoint:

POST /wp-json/plugixarecipe/v1/favorites
{ "recipe_id": 42 }

Returns the new favorite state and updated count. See assets/frontend/js/recipes.js.

Disabling favorites

Turn off Settings → Display → Show favorites button to hide all heart icons globally.