Fully functional plugin previews on wp.org

[adamziel]

There's no easy, free, go-to way to demo and test-driving WordPress plugins. As a plugin author, I need a complex technical setup to demo my work. As a user, I must either risk installing a plugin on my production site, or have a separate site just to try plugins.

Let's make Playground the easiest way to preview the majority of WordPress plugins.

Large, user-facing bits

• [ ] A documentation page specifically for plugin authors to teach them about the basic Blueprints-enabled customizations like installing dependencies, setting up starter content, enabling network access. Quote the live preview release post by @tellyworth.
• [x] Live plugin previews in WordPress.org plugin directory
  • Let’s use these explorations to mold the Playground API to what this project will need.

Technical bits

• [ ] https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-playground/issues/762
• [x] https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-playground/issues/663
• [x] https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-playground/issues/653

Nice to haves:

• [ ] https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-playground/issues/89
• [ ] https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-playground/issues/85 – challenging on WordPress.org, blocker for network-reliant plugins
• [x] https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-playground/issues/665
• [x] Explore collecting data about PHP errors, plugin memory usage, page speed impact, etc.
• [x] Explore a plugin preview for the plugin review team.

[adamziel]

Also @danielbachhuber mentioned this which I don't fully follow – would you please elaborate?

Blueprint working well enough that plugin authors can set up exactly the first experience they want their users to see

[danielbachhuber]

@adamziel I think that "under the impression they do work rather well" isn't sufficient. We need to prove that they actually work well, and provide a delightful experience.

[adamziel]

@danielbachhuber ah, so you weren't saying there are specific technical issues to solve. You were saying the API needs feedback, testing, and potentially additional iterations. 👍 I agree and just started this issue:

• https://github.com/WordPress/blueprints/issues/43