“Mobile” WordPress Sandboxing

December 21, 2008 by Nicki

With both Jessie and Jim being sick this weekend, I decided that it would be as good a time as ever to update my test WordPress installs so I could work on updating my themes for 2.7 as well as make sure there’s backward compatibility for previous versions of WordPress.

A while back, Jeremy Flint had posted about how he created his WordPress sandbox using Super Satellite’s WP Content Framework. Basically, you can take any empty WordPress blog and instantly fill it with content similar to that seen on the WordPress Themes preview pages. It comes with pages and sub-pages, categories and sub-categories. There are comments and formatting elements. This is especially handy for those of us who develop or want to update a WordPress theme to ensure that all elements are formatted properly.

I decided to take this a step further and want to have a WordPress test site for each of the last 3 or 4 major version releases. Rather than keep installing on my server, I decided to make it portable.

I love love LOVE portable apps!

I hopped on over to the MoWeS site and created a fresh install of Apache2, MySQL5, PHP5, PHPMyAdmin, and WordPress — it currently has WP 2.6.1, which is fine because you can get any version you want from the WordPress release archive! Once the package is compiled and downloaded, then installed, simply run the mini web server then add more WordPress installs as needed.

To populate your WordPress install, download the framework file from Super Satellite and import into your WordPress install.

Note: In WP 2.7, go to Tools, Import. For 2.6 or earlier, go to Manage, Import.

Choose the WordPress import option. It works so far for 2.5, 2.6, and 2.7 here. I plan on adding 2.1 and 2.3 later tonight. :happy_tb:

Once I have everything set up just the way I like it, I copy everything to my handy-dandy thumbdrive and ‘Voila!’ — a “mobile” portable set of test environments for my theme designing and general muck-abouts and funnery. :thumbup_tb:

Filed under: Cool Stuff, Link Love, Loved Ones, Website
Tagged as: Geek, theme design, WordPress

Comments

6 Responses to ““Mobile” WordPress Sandboxing”

Create Portable WordPress Sandbox — WPCandy — WordPress Themes, Plugins, Tips, and Tricks on December 21st 2008 at 11:44 pm

[...] Quick tutorial on creating a portable install of Apache2, MySQL5, PHP5, PHPMyAdmin, and WordPress. Great for testing purposes or even just playing around with WordPress. Windows only (supports from Win 98 to Vista). [Link] [...]
Ann Arbor Web Site Graphics Design (2 comments.) on December 29th 2008 at 12:14 am

Hey, That’s very well done. Does it simplify the site testing?!!
- Nicki (657 comments.) on December 29th 2008 at 8:01 am
  
  I’ve found it very helpful in testing my themes for backward compatibility. I was able to confirm that all worked well in WP 2.5, did pretty well in 2.3, and failed miserably in 2.1 (pre-widgets!).
  
  I think it will make testing new designs easier as well.
Create Portable WordPress Sandbox | Castup on December 29th 2008 at 7:36 am

[...] Quick tutorial on creating a portable install of Apache2, MySQL5, PHP5, PHPMyAdmin, and WordPress. Great for testing purposes or even just playing around with WordPress. Windows only (supports from Win 98 to Vista). [Link] [...]
Últimas Notícias do Ano | pBlog on December 30th 2008 at 4:53 am

[...] WordPress portátil – saiba como criar e configurar um servidor local com WordPress em um pendrive (em inglês). [...]
Gary Viray (1 comments.) on January 9th 2009 at 7:40 am

this is interesting. I never thought of it not until I read your post.

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