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Introducing the WordPress Console

Posted: June 23rd, 2009 | Author: Jerod | Filed under: Projects, WordPress | Tags: | View Comments

One killer feature of Ruby on Rails (for me) is script/console. Being able to interact with your code and data inside the full Rails environment is a powerful tool for development. Some days I practically live there, and if I get carried away, I do a lot of my testing there too (bad, I know).

I love Ruby and Rails, but being a contract developer means I go where the money is and recently that has been in WordPress plugin development. I enjoy developing for WordPress, but I’ve been spoiled by Rails and I often long for an interactive console for WordPress.

As a result, I’ve been developing (and using) a WordPress plugin built for WordPress developers. It provides an in-browser console where you can “play” with the code you’re working on.

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, this screencast will be worth at least a bazillion of ‘em:

So there you have it. It is currently version 0.1.0 (very young) and I would love some help to make it even more awesome. The source code is hosted on GitHub, so please fork away and I’d be happy to merge in your changes.

Or, simply go download the plugin and try it.

*NOTE*
In developing this plugin, I leaned on a few other open-source projects for inspiration (and in some cases, code). They are:

I thank the authors for opening their source.

View Comments on “Introducing the WordPress Console”

  1. 1 Zac said at 8:47 am on June 24th, 2009:

    That is a pretty hot plugin, thanks!

  2. 2 zakmorris said at 9:33 am on June 24th, 2009:

    Awesome! This is a great concept and initial steps towards a great tool. /bookmarked for good measure.

    (lots of Zak/zac/zack/zach..s…running around these days…apparently )

  3. 3 Introducing the WordPress Console | blogt0sk1 | Squico said at 10:20 am on June 24th, 2009:

    [...] In: WordPress plugins 24 Jun 2009 Go to Source [...]

  4. 4 Introducing the WordPress Console | blogt0sk1 | Neorack Script said at 11:17 am on June 24th, 2009:

    [...] the original post:  Introducing the WordPress Console | blogt0sk1 Share and [...]

  5. 5 Sustainable Websites said at 2:23 pm on June 24th, 2009:

    Jerod, this #wordpress console is great for peeps learning php and the wp API thanks!

  6. 6 sant0sk1 said at 2:37 pm on June 24th, 2009:

    Yah, good point I didn't think of that. It could be a great learning tool as well!

  7. 7 WordPress Plugin Releases on 06/24 | Weblog Tools Collection said at 1:47 pm on June 24th, 2009:

    [...] WordPress Console [...]

  8. 8 scribu said at 3:30 pm on June 24th, 2009:

    Very neat ideea. I'll give it a go, since I also liked the Ruby console.

  9. 9 WordPress Plugin Releases on 06/24 | BlogBroker24-7 said at 2:44 pm on June 24th, 2009:

    [...] WordPress Console [...]

  10. 10 Zbrass said at 3:49 pm on June 24th, 2009:

    Great!
    Realy usefull
    Thanks a lot

  11. 11 WordPress Plugin Releases on 06/24 | bloground.ro - Blogging resources, WordPress themes and plugins for your development said at 2:52 pm on June 24th, 2009:

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  12. 12 Apokalyptik said at 4:38 pm on June 24th, 2009:

    Added your first issue at github, link to patch included. As is the plugin is negligently insecure (but outstandingly cool and useful and I want this plugin to be installable, thus the patch) http://github.com/sant0sk1/wordpress-console/is...

  13. 13 Introducing the WordPress Console | blogt0sk1 | bllogger said at 3:45 pm on June 24th, 2009:

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  15. 15 sant0sk1 said at 4:47 pm on June 24th, 2009:

    Hah, yah if you see the description I state plainly that it should never be run in production environments. Regardless, I'll definitely check out your patch and get it merged in ASAP. Thanks!

  16. 16 WordPress Plugin Releases on 06/24 | Fresh News - Blog Design, Wordpress, Blogger, and Web Development said at 3:59 pm on June 24th, 2009:

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  17. 17 Introducing the WordPress Console | blogt0sk1 said at 5:06 pm on June 24th, 2009:

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  18. 18 Introducing the WordPress Console | blogt0sk1 | New WP Themes - WordPress News said at 5:44 pm on June 24th, 2009:

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  19. 19 MyClickSense.com » Introducing the WordPress Console | blogt0sk1 said at 7:44 pm on June 24th, 2009:

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  21. 21 josephbales said at 7:49 pm on June 25th, 2009:

    I also get the syntax error running on localhost. Must be a permissions problem, but I'm going to work right now, so no time to fool with it.

  22. 22 sant0sk1 said at 7:53 pm on June 25th, 2009:

    Hmm, that is very strange.

    If you are running on localhost, that means you probably have access to the logs files, yes? If so, can you please look at your web server's error log and see if it states any PHP errors? That may shed some light on the problem.

  23. 23 sant0sk1 said at 7:55 pm on June 25th, 2009:

    Hi Joseph-

    I'd be interested in hearing if you can figure out what the problem is. It very well could be a permissions error. As I suggested to scribu above, check the apache (or whatever server) error log to see if PHP is puking anything out there.

    Let me know what you find and hopefully we can get you all fixed up!

  24. 24 Justin @Freedom debt relief  said at 10:45 pm on June 25th, 2009:

    interesting post …And really cool that is new information to me..Console :-)
    As a ruby developer I dint know that.

  25. 25 scribu said at 11:49 pm on June 25th, 2009:

    I got this error:

    File does not exist: /var/www/wp-content, referer:
    http://localhost/wp/wp-admin/tools.php?page=wor...

    Instead of /var/www/wp-content
    it should be /var/www/wp/wp-content

    –
    http://scribu.net

  26. 26 Introducing the WordPress Console | blogt0sk1 « Wordpress Hosting said at 4:17 am on June 26th, 2009:

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  27. 27 sant0sk1 said at 6:23 am on June 26th, 2009:

    Ok, I see the problem. The plugin is assuming your WordPress install is in the server root directory and not hanging off of a subdirectory. I'll work up a fix and release a new version ASAP.

  28. 28 josephbales said at 6:49 am on June 26th, 2009:

    I'm getting the same error. My local install is in my home directory so the path should be..

    /Users/joey/Sites/wordpress/wp-content

    ..but the error_log is spitting..

    /Library/WebServer/Documents/wp-content

    I tried hard coding it into console.js, but that doesn't seem to help so I'm not sure where it's going wrong. Look forward to seeing the solution.

  29. 29 sant0sk1 said at 7:50 am on June 26th, 2009:

    ok, a fix has been released. Please try version 0.1.2 and let me know if it fixes the problem. Thanks!

  30. 30 scribu said at 7:56 am on June 26th, 2009:

    It's working now, thanks.

  31. 31 Daily Digest for June 27th – MyVerbalOutlet said at 6:09 pm on June 27th, 2009:

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  33. 33 Introducing the WordPress Console | blogt0sk1 said at 5:28 pm on June 28th, 2009:

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  34. 34 WordPress Plugin Releases on 06/24 | oke entertainment said at 4:39 am on June 29th, 2009:

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  35. 35 TJ Singleton said at 8:26 pm on June 29th, 2009:

    Glad I'm not the only Rails-lovin' wordpress junkie!

  36. 36 Linkfest Thursday: July 9, 2009 | jappler.com said at 8:35 am on July 9th, 2009:

    [...] WordPress Console Check your WordPress code, play with WordPress functions, etc all within a “console”. Perfect for the theme or plugin developer! [...]

  37. 37 wholesale korean clothing said at 12:35 am on July 14th, 2009:

    Really useful, thanks

  38. 38 Introducing the WordPress Console | blogt0sk1 said at 7:47 am on July 19th, 2009:

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  39. 39 Squintz said at 4:44 pm on December 18th, 2009:

    I'm having this problem with 0.2.1. Any ideas?

  40. 40 Jerod Santo said at 5:00 pm on December 20th, 2009:

    Hi Squintz.

    First, I just released a new version (0.2.2) which is compatible with WordPress 2.9. Please upgrade to that and try again. If the problem still persists, please check your web server's error logs for any help and let me know what they say. I'd be happy to help figure out a fix.

  41. 41 Jerod Santo said at 1:00 am on December 21st, 2009:

    Hi Squintz.

    First, I just released a new version (0.2.2) which is compatible with WordPress 2.9. Please upgrade to that and try again. If the problem still persists, please check your web server's error logs for any help and let me know what they say. I'd be happy to help figure out a fix.

  42. 42 plus size clothing said at 6:33 am on July 5th, 2010:

    Thanks a lot, helpful to me.

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