A WordPress sandbox is a place for WordPress developers and agencies to experiment with and test themes, plugins, codes, and tools before deploying them to a live site.
If you want to learn how to create and use WordPress sandbox sites to test WordPress themes, this article will explain everything you need to know, with examples.
Table of Contents
Why Test WordPress Themes in a Sandbox?
WordPress themes are structural layouts that determine the visual appearance of any WordPress site. They define the look and feel of a WordPress site and contain various elements or blocks such as color schemes, headers, footers, typography, page layouts, etc.
WordPress themes help streamline the WordPress development process by bypassing the coding from scratch and providing a readymade, pre-designed, and coded ready-to-go package.
There are several reasons for testing and experimenting with WordPress themes in a sandbox, including:
Safety from Risks
You can only guarantee that a WordPress theme is risk-free by testing it first, and you can’t ensure that your changes will not affect user experience. Some themes may have malware that can corrupt your site, while others might cause conflict or errors. Testing themes in a sandbox site allows you to identify vulnerabilities before it’s too late.
Performance Testing
A WordPress sandbox allows you to evaluate themes’ performance under various conditions, such as load speed and responsiveness. After installing and setting up the theme, you can analyse and optimize its performance with tools like Page Speed Insights and GTMetrix.
Compatibility Checks
It’s not uncommon for some themes to be incompatible with specific plugins or other installed themes. Testing in a sandbox can help identify how the theme interacts with your existing setup and avert any potential crisis.
Theme Customization
Although the best WordPress themes are plug-and-play, you must adjust to fit your customers’ branding style. Some themes are designed for specific purposes, while others are multipurpose. Either way, some customization will be required to complement your customers’ brand. Many themes have customization options that let you tweak the visual settings to suit your customers’ branding. You can use a WordPress sandbox to safely tweak and preview various theme options, layouts, and styles before implementing them on a live site.
Error Debugging
Sometimes, themes are not free of errors. At other times, you may encounter issues while configuring a theme. This is a common issue when creating a WordPress child theme yourself. It might affect your site when you upload a child theme with a syntax error or a bug. A sandbox is, therefore, a great environment to enable wp_debug mode to troubleshoot and catch bugs and fix them without affecting users’ experience.
Learning and Experimenting Opportunity
A sandbox site is a great place to learn about WordPress theme development and experiment with new features or customizations without risk. This allows you to understand the theme’s capabilities and limitations fully.
Theme Development
As a WordPress developer, you can use a WordPress sandbox to mimic live sites and test your new theme or theme update on various levels for bugs, incompatibility issues, performance issues, etc., before pushing your theme out to your customers to avoid causing problems on their live site.
Creating a WordPress Sandbox for Theme Testing
Now that you know the importance of a WordPress sandbox for testing themes, let’s explore how to set one up.
What You Need to Set Up a WordPress Sandbox
WordPress Environment
You need a private, safe environment to set up a WordPress sandbox. You can either use a local environment or a staging environment. You can simulate a WordPress climate locally using tools like XAMPP, MAPP, DevKinsta, and Local by Flywheel. You can set up a staging site online with your hosting provider or third-party platforms.
Themes and Plugins
With your WordPress testing environment ready, you can install the theme and the related themes and plugins.
Dummy Content
You need content on the site to truly understand the visual effects of the theme you are testing. Dummy content can easily be created for sample pages and blog posts, showing how the theme layout and styling affect content rendition.
Testing Tools
You will need testing tools to track your WordPress site’s actions and hooks. Tools like Query Monitor or Debug Bar are helpful when troubleshooting and monitoring errors and performance issues. You can also consider using Git for version control where applicable.
InstaWP: Setting Up a Theme Testing Environment in Minutes
From your InstaWP dashboard, go to Staging > Add New.
In the first step, you can select the WordPress version you will be using and the type of WordPress site installation (default, multisite, WooCommerce, or Devstack). Every other option requires premium access. When you are done, click the Next Step button.
In the next step, you can preselect some of the WordPress plugins you want to test against your theme and click the Create Site button.
InstaWP will create a WordPress sandbox site for you within minutes. You can log into the site with the Magic Login button or the WP Login credentials.
If you want to test a theme before using it on a live site, you should create a replica Sandbox site using the InstaWP Connect plugin.
Once activated on the live site, go to Tools > InstaWP and connect the site to InstaWP. Then, return to the live site and click the Create Staging Site button to create a WordPress sandbox site.
Theme Testing Process in the Sandbox
Step 1: Install Theme
To test a particular theme in the sandbox, install it in the test environment first. To do so, navigate to Appearance > Themes > Add New Theme.
You can upload the theme you want to test or find it in the WordPress theme repository using the search form. After uploading or installing the theme, proceed to activate it.
In this tutorial, I will use a child theme we created for Astra Child. After uploading the theme, I will click on Activate to make it the active theme on the WordPress sandbox site.
Step 2: Install Other Plugins and Themes
After uploading and activating your test theme, you can install and configure other plugins and themes you would like to test with the theme. For example, I will need to install the original Astra theme for the Astra child theme I developed to work.
In addition, the Astra theme recommends using the Spectra page builder. When you navigate to Astra > Spectra, you will be prompted to install and activate the Spectra plugin.
In addition to Spectra, Astra requires you to install Starter Templates to access some of its predesigned templates.
Astra recommends that you consider and install other plugins on your site if you find them useful for testing your WordPress theme.
In addition, you can install other plugins and themes to test the theme with, such as LifterLMS for building eLearning sites, WooCommerce plugins for online stores, FluentCRM for email automation, and some must-have tools for WordPress developers, etc.
Step 3: Upload Sample Content
After installing and configuring the themes and plugins, you must upload some sample content to the sandbox site. You can import demo content from the Starter Templates or any third-party demo importer to speed up this process.
Step 4: Customize the Theme
Once the theme and plugins for testing have been uploaded and activated, you can customize the theme for testing. You can start customizing the theme by clicking the Start Customizing button or using the Quick Settings option.
In Astra, there are so many customization options that you can tweak. Every change you make on the customizer is automatically applied for visual checks. You can also use the device options at the bottom of the customizer’s panel to switch between screen sizes to check for responsiveness.
Here’s an example of using the Header Builder to build a header with InstaWP’s logo and navigation.
Click on Publish to save any changes you make on your customizer.
Alternatively, you can use the Starter Template to create and customize your Astra theme. Starter Template provides you with various types and niches of premade templates from which you can choose. You can use the search form or filter sites based on page builder, website type, etc, to choose a template. You can also use the AI website builder to build a template that is best suited for you.
When you choose a template, you can customize some aspects, including the site logo, font, and color palette.
After providing the required details, the Starter Template will automatically build the website, install the necessary plugins, set up menus, etc.
Step 5: Preview your Theme
After customizing your theme, you can preview it on various devices and screens and push your customization settings to live if you are satisfied with the outcome.
Debugging Themes in a Sandbox Environment
To debug themes in a sandbox environment, you can use tools like wp_debug, Query Monitor, and Debug Bar. These WordPress debugging plugins should be included in your list. They can help you monitor and identify bugs in real time as you work on the sandbox site.
InstaWP: Your Go-To WordPress Sandbox
InstaWP is an excellent choice for creating WordPress sandboxes for theme testing and development.
InstaWP’s Features for Testing and Development
InstaWP offers several features that can come in handy for your website testing and development needs, including:
- Instant WordPress setup: You can quickly set up a WordPress sandbox site for testing within seconds.
- Preconfiguration: InstaWP allows you to select the WordPress version and plugins and enable WooCommerce or multisite during setup.
- 1-click Login: There’s no need to memorize any login details. You can effortlessly access the WordPress admin dashboard with a simple button click.
- Code Editor: Using the in-built code editor, you can easily edit theme codes.
- Adminer DB Editor: You can easily edit database tables and seamlessly import or export databases in SQL or CSV formats.
- Log Viewer: View error logs, access logs, command logs, and debug logs to gain insights into your changes on the sandbox site.
- Templating: Convert your sandbox site into a template that can be shared via URL and be reused by others.
- 1-click Deletion: Once testing is completed, you can keep your InstaWP free of clutter by deleting the site with just one click.
- Git Commands: You can execute hundreds of git commands, including commits, pushes, and pulls, to manage your sandbox site’s version control.
- Premium Features: Paid users get more features, including domain mapping, SFTP access, PHP configuration, WP-CLI commands, server location selection, site cloning, unlimited version control, reserve sites, and team collaboration.
Pushing Tested Themes from InstaWP to Production
After testing WordPress themes in the InstaWP sandbox environment, you can save yourself the stress of starting from scratch to implement your customization on the live site. You can achieve this through any of the following methods:
Import/Export Customizer Settings Plugins: The import/Export Customizer Settings plugin allows you to save your settings done to your theme customizer into a file, which can be uploaded on another site with the theme activated to override the settings with that saved in the file.
2-way sync: This method is for live sites connected to InstaWP. If you create a sandbox site using the InstaWP Connect plugin, you can enable the 2-way sync feature before you start testing your theme. The 2-way sync feature records and itemizes every change you made on the sandbox site, allowing you to select and sync your changes to the live site easily.
Site Migration Tool: You can push the entire sandbox site to a live hosting environment through site migration. InstaWP migration tool allows you to migrate your WordPress sandbox site from InstaWP to InstaWP Live, supported hosting providers (Pressable, RunCloud, and ServerAvatar), or other hosting providers.
Templating: InstaWP allows you to convert a sandbox site to a shareable template. Your customers can use the template shared URL to create replica Sandbox sites to test your products.
Conclusion
Using WordPress sandbox sites to test themes can save you a lot of headaches. With InstaWP, you can easily create instant WordPress sites to test themes and seamlessly push your tested themes to live production without losing pre-configurations.
