[ad_1] Lots of companies go to great effort to make website development straightforward for the average user. This makes sense, because there are site owners who don’t have (or want) the time to learn every aspect of running a local site. However, with a bit of research, you can use Git to handle the process of pushing your site live. This gives you a little more security, and once you set everything up, an easier path for making site changes. Even so, getting to that point is admittedly tough. There are lots of prerequisites to consider, skills you need to have, and tools to hand. Also, you’ll need to think through the process the first few times, because there is a lot to remember. However, using Git to push a site live is possible for almost every user, and it doesn’t have to be as complicated as you think. For this tutorial, we’re going to show you step by step how to use Git to push a local site to a live server. First, let’s run over some of the tools and technologies we’ll feature in the post. An Introduction to Git For the unaware, Git is a Version Control System (VCS). It’s a way to save and record the changes you make on a project – often a app or a website. It’s something we touch on elsewhere, but you’ll need to know more about it for this tutorial. The typical way to use Git is through a Command Line Interface (CLI) – if you have experience with the WP-CLI, it’s a similar approach. You’ll use commands to mark and organize the files you work on in a number of ways: Before you issue commands, files will stay ‘unstaged’. This means they are not part of your Git ‘repository’ (the directory that stores your history). You’ll issue a command to stage all or some of your files, at which point you can still work on them. When you finish, you commit the files to the ‘repo’ from the staging area. This is akin to saving those changes. It can be more complicated than this, but for the most part you’ll use only a handful of commands to carry out day-to-day work with Git. Using Git for Team-Based Development Git is a key tool for development teams, because each developer will open a different ‘branch’ within the same repo. This means everyone can work on the project without affecting the files for others. At regular intervals – often as the last task of the day – the team will commit changes to the repo. A senior member of the team will then look to ‘merge’ all of the branches and changes together to the main or trunk of the repo. At this point, you’ll have the definitive set of project files within the repo. For a single developer – likely you – Git still has value as a kind of incremental saving tool. You’ll open a new branch, work on your site, then stage and commit those changes. It means you can do whatever you like on the branch without affecting any other file on your site. When you want to commit (or delete) you can do so. A Quick Primer on Local WordPress Development Before we move on, we should note that working on your site away from your live server is a recommended typical practice. If you don’t yet do this, check out our piece on how to install WordPress. Also, you might want to consider a dedicated app to work on your site. Local by Flywheel is a good option, but so is DevKinsta. Regardless, there are lots of ways to create a local site, and it’s something you’ll want to have in place. Why You’d Want to Use Git to Push a Local Site Live The main reason you’ll want to use Git to push your site live is one we mention above: Flexibility. The nature of Git means you’ll have a main branch that serves as the definitive set of project files. However, you can open up as many new branches as you need – indeed, it’s the exact way large teams use Git at scale. With this approach, you can create a new branch to work on your site’s homepage design, without the need to affect your core files. Consider a branch a kind of clone that you merge back into your main branch through staged commits. However, there are a few other reasons why Git is useful: You can host this Git repo in any location. GitHub and GitLab are two sites that focus on hosting Git repos. From there, you can bring in other team members or developers if you need extra support. You’re even able to migrate a site with ease. Of course, you won’t need to work on your live site, which is fantastic from a security- and performance-related viewpoint. However, you can choose to only push the files you work on. This offers immense benefits because you don’t need to touch your WordPress database. This is the key goal of website staging, and it’s possible to do using Git and a local install. However, to get to this point, you’ll want to have a number of tools, skills, and prerequisites on hand. Next, we’ll go through what they are. What You’ll Need Before You Use Git to Push Sites Live (Tools and Skills) It’s worth noting what you should already have in place before you even think about what extras you’ll need. For example, make sure you have the following to hand: A local version of your current website. Access to your hosting control panel and server as an administrator. From here, you can consider what else you need to use Git with your local site and live server: You’ll need to install Git on your computer. You often achieve this through the command line. Speaking of which, you’ll want to have knowledge of how to use the
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Colorado Becomes First State to Require State and Local Government Websites to Meet Accessibility Standards – WP Tavern
[ad_1] Today marks the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a civil rights law passed in 1990 that prohibits discrimination against people with physical or mental impairments that substantially limit a major life activity. The legislation continues to help disabled people gain equal access to employment, schools, transportation, government services, and public accommodations. In a speech at the Rose Garden today, President Joe Biden announced guidance that would extend the ADA protections to COVID-19 long haulers who experience lingering symptoms that qualify as a disability. “We’re bringing agencies together to make sure Americans with long COVID who have a disability have access to the rights and resources that are due under the disability law,” he said. “Which includes accommodations and services in the workplace and school, and our health care system, so they can live their lives in dignity and get the support they need as they continue to navigate these challenges.” The Biden administration is continuing its commitment to accessibility which was first declared publicly on WhiteHouse.gov. When Biden took office, the site relaunched on WordPress with an accessibility statement, highlighting its ongoing accessibility efforts towards conforming to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1, level AA criteria. Last week, Colorado became the first US state to require state and local government websites to meet accessibility standards as established by the state’s Chief Information Officer. The bill states that the accessibility standards are to be identified using “the most recent web content accessibility guidelines promulgated and published by the world wide web consortium web accessibility initiative or the international accessibility guidelines working group.” Each state agency in Colorado is required to submit an accessibility plan to the office before July 1, 2022. The office will review the plan and work collaboratively to set an implementation methodology. State agencies are required to fully implement the plan before July 1, 2024. Any agency not in full compliance will be considered in violation of laws that prevent discrimination against individuals with a disability. The bill also makes it easier for an individual with a disability to bring a civil suit against noncompliant agencies and the agency’s $3,500 statutory fine would be payable to the plaintiff. “This bill will give our local governments the resources to make sure they’re complying with the ADA,” Julie Reiskin, Executive Director of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, told Colorado Public Radio. “Particularly after the year we just had. People who were blind couldn’t sign up for vaccines, get information online, sign language interpreters weren’t widely available. Failing to fund this says people with disabilities don’t matter.” WordPress web developers responsible for Colorado state or local websites should be ready to deliver accessible websites on the timeline laid out in the bill. It applies to any department, agency, special district, or other instrumentality. All of the state agency websites are currently running on Drupal 7, but the state has more than 4,268 active local governments. Many of them use WordPress and those responsible for these local sites will need to begin the process of creating a plan to ensure they are accessible before July 1, 2024. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingWP Engine Makes Local Pro Free for All Users – WP Tavern
[ad_1] WP Engine announced today that Local Pro, the commercial upgrade for its local WordPress development product, is now free for all users. Beginning with version 6.0, all features that formerly required a paid subscription are now available with a free Local account. These include Live Links Pro, Instant Reload, Link Checker, and MagicSync. “We believe Local Pro features benefit a broader WordPress developer community and we want to deliver the full value of Local to more developers than ever,” WP Engine Senior Vice President Seth Halpern said. “We want to empower the freedom to create on WordPress by making all Local features available for free.” WP Engine’s recently published research estimates the WordPress economy at $596.7B. The company may be in a better position to gain customers for its hosting products if they make Local completely free, as the tool was designed to seamlessly connect with WP Engine and Flywheel’s hosting. It is currently used by more than 300,000 developers. Over the years Local has gained popularity due to how easy it makes setting up WordPress development and testing environments. Version 6.0 also introduces Local’s new Cloud Backups add-on, which will allow users to backup to Google Drive or Dropbox. Cloud backups can be restored from the Tools tab. The 6.0 release post details a few features that have been moved to new locations in the interface: MagicSync is now a global preference, and the default push/pull experience can be toggled in the Preferences menu. Live Links Pro, now Live Links, will be accessible for all users by connecting your Local account. Link Checker and Instant Reload have been moved to the Local Add-ons Library. Xdebug Add-ons have moved from the Utilities tab into the Tools tab within Local. Existing Local Pro subscribers will have access to priority support until September 1, 2021. After that time, dedicated ticket support will be discontinued in favor of directing users to the community forums and help docs. WP Engine is offering customers full or prorated refunds, which will be sent out before July 31, 2021. Like this: Like Loading… [ad_2] Source link
Continue readingDevKinsta Review: Local Development Environments On Demand
[ad_1] It’s common advice when developing a WordPress website – set up a local development environment. Because of this, there are some great products that help you spin WordPress sites up in a snap. This DevKinsta review looks at the latest, and potential greatest. Underneath that familiar purple hue is a set of essential tools and services to create a local website. From there, you can push your site live to your Kinsta server, direct from the dashboard. In this DevKinsta review, we’ll look at how to set up a local development environment using the tool. Though, the main bulk of this post will be looking at how DevKinsta works and helps you to create sites. A Introduction to Kinsta For the unaware, Kinsta is one of the major players when it comes to WordPress hosting. It’s a top-tier solution that offers rock-solid stability and a dependable infrastructure. It runs off of the Google Cloud platform, and packs in an immense number of features to help you create and maintain your WordPress website. Speed is a fundamental focus with Kinsta. Servers run on Nginx, using LXD containers. If this doesn’t mean much to you, know that they’re both fast and reliable. There is also a dedicated focus on security and stability. There are hardware firewalls in place, and near-constant monitoring of your site in various ways to make sure uptime remains high. To tie everything together, there’s a custom dashboard in place called MyKinsta. It’s great to look at, easy to navigate, and gives you almost everything you need to manage your sites. In comparison to dashboards such as cPanel, it offers top-notch usability. It’s the perfect complement to Kinsta’s server infrastructure. An unmentioned aspect is how Kinsta cares for its customer base. The support provision is fantastic, and this extends to new additional features. This post isn’t about Kinsta’s hosting though – this is a DevKinsta review. We’ve talked about the platform in depth in a previous article. It also takes a spot in our managed hosting roundup. You can gauge our opinion through those articles, but the TL;DR is that Kinsta is one of the very best hosts available. The Basics of DevKinsta Given that Kinsta tries to provide the functionality users will need to manage their sites, it’s no surprise that development is part of the thought process. Kinsta itself is developer-friendly in a few ways. We’ll get onto the competition later in this DevKinsta review, but for now, it looks to fill a gap others have missed. It’s a tool in a line of similar solutions that helps you create new WordPress sites fast. The idea is to make it super-simple to build and experiment with your site within a local environment. It’s more accurate to say that the Docker-based DevKinsta is a suite of tools to help you create local sites. In the box, you’ll get the following: A full stack, including WordPress, Nginx, MySQL, and a choice of PHP version. Support for HTTPS protocols, so you can test this aspect out before hitting a live server. A database manager in Adminer. Compared to phpMyAdmin (the competing solution) it’s lightweight and encapsulated in a single file. Built-in error logging functionality. Email testing that’s a snap to use. DevKinsta is also multilingual, and offers cross-platform support for Windows, macOS, and Linux. We’ll get onto using DevKinsta in a few sections time. For now, let’s clear up why you’d want to use DevKinsta in the first place. Why You’d Want to Use DevKinsta to Create Local WordPress Sites Before we get into using DevKinsta, it’s worth taking some time to discuss why you’d want to develop in a local environment. There are a few basic reasons for doing so: You can keep your live site and development site as far apart as possible. There’s no rush to develop your site, as the local environment means you can take as much time as you need. Expanding on the previous point, you can better reserve your server’s resources. You can better define your development workflow, from local to staging, and finally to your live server. If you’ve not used a local development tool such as DevKinsta before, you might have reservations about adding yet another step to your workflow. This is understandable, because an extra layer of software could give you a potential efficiency hit. The good news is that DevKinsta slots straight in, and in lots of cases will improve your development and turnaround time. If you’re a user of another local development tool, DevKinsta offers lots of functionality, with state of the art tools. Of course, if you’re developing for a Kinsta-based site, there’s no reason not to use DevKinsta. Next, this DevKinsta review is going to look at the day-to-day use of the tool. Using DevKinsta One of the first taglines you’ll read about DevKinsta is how it offers one-click site creation. This isn’t 100 percent true, but it’s so close that the reality isn’t worth quibbling over. Once DevKinsta is up and running, it takes a minimum of three clicks to build and deploy a new WordPress site within your local environment: As an aside, if you’re using a dark mode on your computer, DevKinsta looks odd given that the site itself is full of lots of white and purple! Of course, this doesn’t affect the tool at all. When you first power up DevKinsta, you come to the Sites screen. This is an overview of all of the sites you’ve created, and there are three options to open your site. You can open the front end, the site’s folder on your system, and the site’s wp-admin page. There’s also a traffic light menu that lets you delete the site, and open the database manager: Clicking on a site from the list opens a Site Info panel, which has everything you’ll need to manage your site on a few levels: The great benefit of this this section (apart from the super layout) is that
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