Setting up a Local WordCamp.org Sandbox

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most WordPress events are online. Please refer to our online events handbook.

For communities where COVID-19 has been more effectively contained or have easy access to COVID-19 vaccination and/or testing, returning to hosting an in-person meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. event is possible, with caution, using the resources provided. If you plan to move forward with an in-person meetup, you must use the provided checklist .

If you’d prefer to develop your custom CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. and other content locally before adding it to WordCamp.org, or want to contribute to make the platform better, then the easiest way to setup a local sandbox is with WordCamp.org’s Docker environment.

It will automatically provision a local virtual server with the same code that runs WordCamp.org, as well as some sample content so you can see how things are setup behind the scenes.

After you follow the instructions and can access the server, you can get started on your site by adding your content and CSS to the 2014.content.wordcamp.test demo site. You can also create a new site if you prefer, but that requires creating a new WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. post type on the Central site, modifying the VVV hosts file to add the domain name, etc, so it’s easier to just re-use the Content demo site.

Once you’re ready to launch the production siteProduction Site A production site is a live site online meant to be viewed by your visitors, as opposed to a site that is staged for development or testing., you can use WordPress’s import/export tools to transfer most of your content, although you’ll still need to configure some things manually. Right now there isn’t a good way to sync back and forth, so we recommend that you wait until you’re ready to launch before you transfer everything to production, and then make any post-launch changes directly on production.

If you find any problems with this process, or have any ideas for making it better, please report them as issues in the WordCamp.org repository.

If you’d like to check out an alternative to the Docker environment, there’s also the Meta Environment, and a Chassis extension to setup a WordCamp.org environment. The MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. Environment contains an older version of the WordCamp environment, but is based on Vagrant/VVV, which may work better than Docker on Windows machines.

More Resources & Alternative Approaches

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