This post is part of the series on Local by Flywheel.
Local by Flywheel can be downloaded from the homepage by clicking the Free Download button:
Local by Flywheel: Download
Category: ClassicPress
Local by Flywheel: What is Local by Flywheel?
This post is part of the series on Local by Flywheel.
Local by Flywheel is a development tool for WordPress which provides a very easy way of creating a definable environment hosting a WordPress instance. As well as deploying an OS, it also deploys a web server, PHP and everything else required to develop or test a WordPress site, including WordPress itself.
Key features listed on the Local by Flywheel site are:
- Speed and simplicity – Flywheel is fast and functional and those features make this the slickest local WordPress development application in the world.
- One-click WordPress installation – Simple creation of a local WordPress site, so you don’t have to bother with setting it up yourself.
- Simple demo URLs – Create shareable URLs to demo your local WordPress sites to clients, collaborators or friends.
- Hassle-free local SSL support – Any site created via Local by Flywheel will automatically have a self-signed certificate created.
- SSH + WP-CLI Access – Simple root SSH access to individual sites, so you can tinker around if your heart desires.
- Flexible environment options – Hot-swap between NGINX or Apache 2.4, or switch between PHP versions. Everything will stay up and running.
The extensive set of features can be read here.
The Community edition of Local by Flywheel is free, but there are additional versions coming soon which provide more functionality; details are here.
In the next few posts, I’m going to cover the download, installation and use of Local by Flywheel.
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Local by Flywheel: Who Are Flywheel?
This post is part of the series on Local by Flywheel.
Before I start delving into Local by Flywheel itself, I thought it would be appropriate to do a post on who Flywheel themselves are. Flywheel are a managed WordPress hosting provider aimed at developers and agencies who create sites for others. The aim is to remove the hassle of hosting and allow you to focus on streamlining your processes and work for clients.
Full details on the services available from Flywheel are available from here.
The Flywheel site also has additional resources available in the form of ebooks aiming to help you create fast, secure sites on WordPress.
Local by Flywheel is one of the tools they’ve created to help develop new sites or features for sites. In the next post, I’ll take a more detailed look at what Local by Flywheel is and how it works.
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Local by Flywheel: Series Index
I’ve recently started taking a look at ClassicPress, a fork of WordPress 4.9.8 (the one without the Gutenberg block editor). In order to test the migration from WordPress to ClassicPress, I needed a website which had PHP 7 (and due to my web host being crap; arvixe to those interested) I needed another way.
I was looking for a free webhost when I stumbled across Local by Flywheel which described itself as:
The #1 local WordPress development tool
This sounded like it would be very useful for the testing requirement that I had. In this series of posts, I’m going to be taking a look at the installation and use of Local by Flywheel. This post is the series index and will automatically update as each post goes live.
GitHub Announces New Unlimited Repos & Unitifed Enterprise Offering
I’ve recently been taking a look at ClassicPress and one of the subjects that came up was that it might, for the plugin directory, use GutHub instead of SVN like WordPress.
I create an account and started looking into creating repositories for my plugins. Hot all of my plugins are on that site however, as not all have been released to the public. Some of them are only going to be usable to me (for example plugins drive both the GP Table Reference and my distilleries website) and you were limited on GitHub to a certain number of private repositories.
However, GitHub yesterday announced the following:
- GitHub Free now includes unlimited private repositories. For the first time, developers can use GitHub for their private projects with up to three collaborators per repository for free. Many developers want to use private repos to apply for a job, work on a side project, or try something out in private before releasing it publicly. Starting today, those scenarios, and many more, are possible on GitHub at no cost. Public repositories are still free (of course–no changes there) and include unlimited collaborators.
- GitHub Enterprise is the new unified product for Enterprise Cloud (formerly GitHub Business Cloud) and Enterprise Server (formerly GitHub Enterprise). Organizations that want the flexibility to use GitHub in a cloud or self-hosted configuration can now access both at one per-seat price. And with GitHub Connect, these products can be securely linked, providing a hybrid option so developers can work seamlessly across both environments.
The second point isn’t relevant to me, but the first might be useful as it will allow me to store both my public and private plugins in the same place.
More details are available from the GitHub blog.
Migrating to ClassicPress: What About The Plugins and Themes I Use?
This post is part of a series on migrating to ClassicPress from WordPress.
As ClassicPress is based off WordPress 4.9.8, all current, non-Gutenberg, WordPress plugins and themes will be compatible with ClassicPress.
A growing number of plugins are stating that they are and will continue to be compatible with ClassicPress. There is a < forum post listing plugins confirmed as working with ClassicPress v1 on the ClassicPress forums; this is not to say that other plugins won’t work, but they haven’t been confirmed yet. This thread will be maintained for v2 of ClassicPress as well, which is when potentially breaking changes could be introduced.
If you think you might migrate to ClassicPress and want to confirm if the plugins you use will be supported with it, reach out to the authors of your favourite plugins and ask them to support ClassicPress. There is even a sample email message you can adapt and use.
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ClassicPress Roadmap Released
ClassicPress, the community-led project which forks WordPress 4.9.9 has just released a development roadmap covering the first and second versions. As ClassicPress is community-led, the roadmap might change based on the community needs and desires.
It’s extremely important to note that version 1.x of ClassicPress will be fully backwards compatible with WordPress 4.9.x. We won’t introduce any changes or features that would cause plugins or themes to break.
WordPress 4.9 itself will be maintained for the next few years and plugin/theme authors will need to remain compatible with this version. As such ClassicPress confidently state that the vast majority of plugins and themes will continue to work with ClassicPress for many years to come.
The roadmap 
can be read in full here.
ClassicPress 1.0.0 Beta 2 Now Available
Early today, ClassicPress 1.0.0-beta2 was released; this is a security release with changes pulled from WordPress 4.9.9, which has the same security fixes as WordPress 5.0.1. ClassicPress has also fixed all known cases of an issue where certain security scanners were incorrectly detecting ClassicPress sites as WordPress 1.0.0.
I’ve upgraded two of my sites to Beta 2 without issue:
You can find more information or download the full release on GitHub.
If you’re on Beta one, you can click the Upload link on your ClassicPress admin section.
Migrating to ClassicPress: Backup Before Running the Migrate Plugin
This post is part of a series on migrating to ClassicPress from WordPress.
Before running the migration plugin, it’s recommend to make a complete backup of your site; both files and database should have a good backup made. This isn’t particular to migrating to ClassicPress; I make the same recommendation for any process which is going to impact on files and/or database.
By a good backup, I mean verifying that the backup has worked (e.g. all the expected files are downloaded and the database backup file contains the relevant tables. Without this you won’t be able to restore in case of need.
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Migrating to ClassicPress: ClassicPress Migration Plugin Now Supports WordPress 5
This post is part of a series on migrating to ClassicPress from WordPress.
I mentioned yesterday that the ClassicPress migration plugin was not ready yet for WordPress v5, but was coming soon.
Apparently I should have waited a day and posted today, as the migration plugin is now supported with WordPress 5.