Welcome to the 2018 – 2019 PACS program year.
We’re kicking off the new year with a new schedule and a number of new SIGs. This post comes to you courtesy of the WordPress SIG, not a new SIG by any means, but with a new room, a new time and a new face at the front. In order that would be Scenic Room, 11a, and Matt Ryan. Same great topic though. With that, let’s jump right in.
Let’s create a dev site.
Here’s my thinking.
Everyone visiting the WordPress SIG, by definition, has some level of interest in WordPress. Whether you like to build WordPress websites in your spare time, or you do it professionally, maybe you maintain a website for an organization you volunteer for, or are kicking the tires on a new hobby, we all share one common interest – WordPress websites.
For the September meeting we will be making a copy of an existing live website, aka a ‘production’ website, to create a ‘development’ website. The development, or dev site, is where we will make changes to our website to preview the new functionality, or design, before making those changes to the production site. Changing untested code on a production website, mockingly referring to as Cowboy coding, is strongly recommended against.
To create our dev site we are going to use the following tools:
- Local website server – Local by Flywheel
- Adminer Database Management – included/installed with Local by Flywheel
- FTP Client – Filezilla
- Database Migration Plugin – WP Migrate DB
- Text Editor – Visual Studio Code
Local by Flywheel ‘local’ is a big download. If you want to use this during the session, please download the file and install it prior to attending the SIG meeting. We will not go over the download and install of the local server on your development computer. Local runs on both Mac and Windows, as do each of the other tools we will be using.
Steps we will take.
- Create development website in Local by Flywheel
- Configure the migration plugin
- Run migration export of database
- Copy content to dev site
- Set active theme
- Import live database into dev site
- Flush Rewrite rules
- Visit front end of dev site
We will fill in the details during our gathering.
This year will be filled with a selection of ‘How To’ topics combined with a sprinkling of WordPress best practices for website development and on-going maintenance. We will talk about optimizing your website for search engines, and take another look at plugin development and step into building our own WordPress starter theme.
One final note. Our October PACS meeting is scheduled for Saturday, October 27, the 4th Saturday in October. I will not be at PACS that day as I will be participating in the Philly WordCamp. It’s still up in the air whether or not I’ll have a guest speaker for our SIG that day. Suggestions are welcomed. Not trying to minimize the value of our monthly PACS meetings, but do consider the Philly WordCamp on Saturday October 27 and Sunday, October 28. The schedule is robust and there will be plenty of opportunity to meet other WordPress folks.
See you later in September.
Mike Wanner says
Hey Matt
Sounds Great
I Love How To-s
I would rather watch somebody else make mistakes than do it myself.
See You There.
You will be our WordPress Word-Star SIG-Star