Learn about Local Development Enviroments and WordPress Multisite. Learn how to create a simple plugin or custom theme. Local Development tools are also covered.

1. WP 101: Local Development–Themesand
Plugins
Joe Querin – www.joequerin.com
WordCamp Kent - Online – May 31, 2020
@joequerin joecue
joecue

2. { Overview }
• WordPress Multisite
• Site Backups
• Child Theme vs Custom Theme
• Plugin Development
• Local Development – Tools, Workflow, Code
Repositories
• Questions

3. { WordPress Multisite }
• Exists within WordPress
• Just needs to be enabled.
/* Multisite */ define(
'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true );
http://bit.ly/CreateWPNetwork

4. { Site Backups }
• UpDraftPlus
• BackWPUp
• Duplicator – backups and site migrations

5. { Child Theme vs Custom Theme }
• Child theme
• Allows you to modify elements of a theme that
you need to change.
• Allows the parent theme to still be updated.
• Only need to change the files, styles,
elements that you need altered.
• Almost any theme can have a Child Theme
created for it.

6. { Child Theme vs Custom Theme }
• Custom Theme
• Entire theme needs to be built.
• Starter theme from
• underscores.me
• wprig.io
• Use a “twenty” theme to start from.

7. { Child Theme vs Custom Theme }
• If you are making more than a “few” style
edits and a “few” template changes, it’s
recommended to make a custom theme.
• A child theme can just be a set of style sheet
changes, or also include template changes
as well.
• Only need to change the template files that
need to be changed, no need to change
everything!

8. { Plugin Development }
• WordPress Plugin Boilerplate -
https://wppb.me/
• Theme Specific Plugin -
http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-
guide/what-why-and-how-tos-of-creating-
a-site-specific-wordpress-plugin/

9. { Local Development }
• Why local development server?
• WordPress needs PHP and MySQL to
support the site.
• PHP renders HTML to browser
– Web server, serves the theme files.

10. { Local Development }
• WAMP
• DesktopServer
• Local by Flywheel
• Vagrant/VVV
• Docker
• Hosted development server

11. { Local Development }
• Source Code Repositories
• Github – Github Desktop
• Bitbucket
• Gitlab
• WP Pusher

12. { Local Development }
• Source Code Editors
• Brackets – Adobe
• VSCode – Microsoft
• Atom - Github
• Gulp
• JavaScript Task Runner
• Grunt - Alternative
• AutoPrefixer
• SASS compiling
• JavaScript Linting (debugging)

13. { Thanks! }
Joe Querin
www.joequerin.com
@joequerin
joecue
joecue