Building a WordPress Sandbox

Joe Querin @joequerinhttp://www.joequerin.com

About Me• Graphic Design major• Self taught Web Developer for 19+

years • Current work full-time at Lorain County

Community College for 17+ years.• WordPress experience last 5 years • Built 8+ themes • Migrated 4 complete sites to

WordPress, built from scratch many more.

Why Build a Sandbox?• What is a WordPress Sandbox?• What are the benefits of a sandbox?• What options are there for a sandbox?

What is a WordPress Sandbox?

• Protected environment• Separated from your production

environment.• Possibly a shared space, generally

just for you.

Benefits of a WordPress Sandbox

• Test themes• Test plugins• Test updates• Try functionality

WordPress Sandbox• Local Web Server – (Windows IIS)• WAMP or MAMP• Desktop Server from ServerPress

WP Site Sync – Content Transfer

• VVV – Varying Vagrant Vagrants

Cons• WAMP/MAMP – Resource Intensive,

Cost• Desktop Server – Minor Cost• VVV – Can be intimidating, confusing.

This past spring, we taught 3 art students, VVVTwo MBPs, one Surface Book

Pros• WAMP/MAMP – Easy for a non-

technical person to install, use.• Desktop Server – Easy to use,

optimized for WordPress.• VVV – Closest dev environment to a

production environment.

Where to find the tools

• WAMP – http://www.wampserver.com/en/• MAMP – https://www.mamp.info/en/• Desktop Server - https://serverpress.com/• VVV - https://github.com/Varying-Vagrant-

Vagrants/VVV

QuestionsJoe QuerinTwitter: @joequerinWeb: http://www.joequerin.com