When creating a website, it’s best not to make experimental changes to your code directly on your server for the whole world to see. What if you accidentally mess things up beyond all recognition and don’t remember exactly what you did? It’s a good idea to test developmental changes in a protected environment where you know they won’t effect anything that’s mission critical. Typically this is simple to do as you can just edit the files on your local machine before uploading them. Making a test bed for WordPress, however, is a bit more difficult due to the nature of dynamic page generation.
WordPress uses PHP to pull data from a database, and then subsequently creates the needed HTML based off of that data. Without the PHP, your page would merely render as junk. Thus, in order to see a design change made in your CSS, you’re usually forced to upload the file to your server so WordPress has access to its heart and soul. Not anymore…
The Sandbox
In an effort to make things easier on WordPress users wanting to customize the default installation, I’ve created a static version of the default WP template and have placed it in a zip file along with a clean copy of wp-layout.css and print.css. The template includes a sample entry that utilizes many common HTML elements so you can tell exactly what they would look like on your page.
In this developmental sandbox, you can make structural code changes, try out new CSS techniques, whatever you want…all without having to worry about messing up your live site. Once you get things the way you like them, simply update your real files accordingly, and you’re good to go!
Installation
- Download wp-design-sandbox.zip
- Create a new directory on your local machine in which you’d like to place the test files
- Unzip the three files into the newly created directory
- Design away
37 Comments
Thanks! This is exactly what I needed.
Same here, I find it so hard to work on the design with the dynamic WP templates. I was thinking of doing this myself, thanks for saving me the time and beating me to it.
Most Excellent! Thank you. Now I can blow it as many times as I need and not have to worry about destroying the server!
Yup!…Exactly what I needed!…
Awesome thanks! P.S. Found you through scripty goddess.
Simply put, thank you so much!
Brilliant idea! I can’t wait play with this…
Very good idea. Sometimes visitors thought I’m running a live-redesign-show on the server. I’ll test it next time. Thank you.
I’m new to Wordpress. If you only knew how helpful this is. Thanks so much. I also found your site through Scripty Goddess, just in case you were wondering. Thanks again.:)
this rocks! i’ve been waiting/looking for something like this - Thank You!
(i got here through scripty too)
Oh, how I wish I had found this yesterday! I’m sure my server was ready to divorce me! LOL! Thank you soooo very much! (Ps…Scripty sent me!)
They really ought to include this in the install package! I think people are right when they say the best way to learn is to break things, and this makes it a lot less painful.
Well done!
Amazing. Your generosity in sharing your secrets is simply beyond compare.
Great info, thanks.
Great idea of creating one page with all frequently used tags included. Nice job!
SO glad Scriptygoddess referenced this on her site. Thank you, this will save me so much time!
Thank you very much for this. It really helped me figuring out the different sections without blowing up my site.
Regards
Bill R.
Is this based on 1.2.x series? Can this also be used for developing the newest release (1.5 aka 1.3)?
I hope this can help me… I want to change my template, but I new to WordPress and also to everything relate to codes and stuff…
I have a new template in mind… but I am not allow to change in my wordpress (it have to be writable???).
Thanks for this tip!!!
excellent - thank you! came here via scriptygoddess, btw.
is this the main_template ?
how would we do it just copy the static html and place inside the server wp template ?
not sure i understand
just what i needed!!
i was just going to have a /development directory on the my server… but this is much easier having it on your local machine.
cool.. but perhaps i am not seeing its full potential but it seems to be limited to widget testing.. not bad, but seems like lots of extra work since the problem still arrises of updating on final server integration…….
if you want to locally test YOUR site, check out
http://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/xampp/
does this work for newer WP versions such as 1.5.2?
I don’t see how this helps? You still need to create the theme templates for wordpress at some point and your script doesn’t provide ANY support for that. Am I missing something ?
Xampp is perfect for local development. I don’t know anyone who edits their wordpress template files on the live server!
is this the main_template ?
how does it perform under wp 2.0 ?
rgds
jakob
http://boyer-draeby.dk
Finally I am able to create pages without uploading changed files to my webspace to see the changes.
Perfect.
Thanks… very helpful tool!
thanks you thanks you thanks you. this is perfect for my needs!
THANK YOU!!!!! Exactly what I was looking for.
Greetings, the wp-design-sandbox.zip file is giving me a “corrupt” error after downloading… Can you please check?
I look forward to giving this a try!
Thanks
Cool, It’s a great tool.
I am looking for it a long time.
Thank you
it is a very useful tool,i think
i often need to find my theme yesterday to find sth
thank you for the great job~
Okay, I’m going to give this a go for a new site. Love the idea of not messing with the original. Does it work with the newest version of Wordpress?
Thanks!
What is the sandbox
Thank you so much this will def come in handy!