One of the greatest hassles for anyone building on WordPress is determining the right tools for an effective development environment. One advise WordPress programmers are quick to dish out is that you should never test out your ideas on a live site. That is why a development environment is necessary. With the right tools at your disposal, setting up your development environment can be a breeze.
Key tools to WordPress Development Setup
1. Setting up your servers. The first decision you have to make is whether you wish to set up a virtual or local server. Although local servers give you a hands-on approach to your project, virtual servers simplify the process of going live. 2. Choose a browser. You have to decide on the best browser that fits your needs. Chrome and Firefox both provide solutions for developers that will certainly come in handy when testing your website’s functionality.
3. IDE or Text Editor. One key decision you must make when building your website is the appropriate text editor or IDE for use. While text editors are solely for writing code, IDEs or Integrated Development Environments can handle debugging, version control, and running your code. 4. Enable debugging. After setting up your server, browser and desired IDE or text editor, the next thing to do is to enable and configure WordPress debugging. Debugging will help spot errors early on in your project. 5. Create a staging site. The fifth step comes after the creation of your website. You must create a copy of your site for you to work on, make changes and push to the live site once completed.
Optional WordPress development tools
An important aspect of any WordPress development setup is deciding, from a wide array of options, additional development tools you can use. Any decision is dependent on the nature of your project. Theme builders will need tools such as Theme Check to ensure that their themes comply with the latest WordPress standards. Theme Unit Test data kit can also help you have a clear view of what your site will look like once mock posts, pages and comments are inserted. Other useful development tools include Query Monitor and WordPress Command Line.