Let me tell you this whole WordPress development thing can get pretty intense.
It’s a fast-paced world and keeping up with the latest trends is key especially when it comes to working on projects with multiple people.
I recently discovered a must that made my life a whole lot easier: Local WordPress Development!
The Local Advantage: Why It’s a Game Changer
I’ve been in the WordPress development scene for years and I’ve seen my fair share of workflows.
There’s the “cowboy code” approach – perfect for small solo projects but a nightmare when things get complex.
Then there are cloud-based dev environments a step up for solo projects but not ideal for larger teams.
But nothing compares to local development environments.
They are completely sandboxed allowing you to make code changes and see them instantly facilitating a super-fast iteration cycle.
It’s amazing! Each developer can work independently customizing their environment with the software they love and using advanced tools like NPM Gulp or Packer.
It’s a true game-changer especially when you’re working with a team.
The Challenges of Local WordPress Development
While local environments are great they’re not without their challenges.
The biggest issue? Consistency.
Every developer has their own computer with different operating systems and software versions leading to inconsistencies in setup and tooling.
Then there are bugs and challenges inherent in the environment.
With everyone using their own computer and advanced tooling it becomes difficult to balance developer preferences and team norms.
The Local Solution: A Turnkey WordPress Development Experience
This is where Local comes in.
It’s a turnkey solution specifically built for WordPress development.
It’s fast to set up a completely sandboxed environment and ideal for the whole team.
It’s like having a magical tool that just works no matter your skill level.
Local: Empowering WordPress Developers of All Levels
Local caters to both intermediate and advanced developers.
For those just starting out there are features like creating blank sites for brand new projects importing existing sites or creating reusable site templates (called blueprints). And for the more experienced developers Local shines with custom environment tweaking.
You can quickly change the PHP version upgrade to the latest MySQL or even hot-swap between Nginx and Apache web servers.
Local’s Powerful Features: Beyond Basic Functionality
But it goes beyond the basics.
Local boasts features like one-click database management with Adminer a handy tool for debugging and managing your WordPress database.
Plus it comes with MailHog an email catcher and debugger essential for testing WooCommerce receipts or other plugins that involve conversions and transactions.
And let’s not forget Local’s powerful zero-config WP-CLI.
It handles all those environment variables making WP-CLI super easy to use.
Simply right-click on your site in Local and you can instantly open a shell to perform actions like regenerating thumbnails or exporting your database.
Local: A Game-Changer for Launching WordPress Sites
Local is a truly comprehensive solution going beyond just local development.
It’s built with the launch process in mind aiming to make the whole experience smooth and efficient.
Launching with Confidence: Avoiding Site Errors
Local helps you launch websites with confidence by avoiding common site errors.
It includes a broken link checker that scans your entire site for broken images links and fatal PHP errors.
It even excludes archive pages focusing on the actual broken link on the post itself.
Boosting Your Site Performance: Local’s Image Optimizer
Local’s image optimizer is another valuable tool.
It helps you boost site performance by optimizing and compressing images making them smaller and faster to load especially for mobile users.
This offline optimization process is private secure and hardware-accelerated for super-fast results.
Magic Sync: Seamless Integration with WP Engine
Local’s Magic Sync feature makes the launch process even faster.
It enables you to push your site to WP Engine or Flywheel with a single click providing detailed information about what’s being pushed and pulled.
You can selectively transfer files or just the database making it a flexible solution.
Magic Sync even augments Git allowing you to use Git for version control and then seamlessly switch to Magic Sync for the final push.
Live Links Pro: Collaborative Development with Clients
One of the biggest challenges in client work is allowing them to preview the site while you continue to develop it.
Local addresses this with its Live Links Pro feature which launches on June 22nd 2020. It’s a custom tunneling solution that provides clients with a persistent secure URL for previewing your site without compromising your local development environment.
It’s a must for collaborative development.
The Future of Local: A Continuous Evolution
Local is a constantly evolving product.
The team is constantly listening to user feedback and implementing new features.
The Local Community: A Source of Support and Innovation
The Local community is a vibrant hub for developers to connect share ideas and get support.
The forums roadmap and add-ons API provide a platform for collaboration and innovation.
Local: A Must-Have Tool for Modern WordPress Developers
If you’re looking for a simple powerful and reliable tool to simplify your WordPress development workflow Local is the answer.
It’s a truly remarkable product that has transformed the way I work and I’m confident it will do the same for you.
Give it a try and you’ll see why Local is becoming the go-to tool for modern WordPress developers.