WordPress Development – Plugin Test Drive
Plugin Test Drive is a wordpress plugin that supports you in testing any WordPress plugin before activating it.
After you select a plugin for testing, WordPress Plugin – Plugin Test Drive will load it only for you while keeping it invisible to other viewers.
Purpose and Use of WordPress Plugin – Test Drive
While testing a WordPress plugin, you can experience its function before your site’s visitors do, without worrying about how it affects your website/ blog or looks like in the meantime.
You can also:
- Test the functionality of a plugin first in the front end site or admin dashboard.
- Set the options and style of plugins until they blend and accomodates perfectly in your site/blog.
- Comparison between different plugins can be done to find out which one best suits your needs.
- Once you have done testing and the plugin is ready to be set up and running, you can then activate it.
Installation
- Either copy the plugin folder to your wp-content/plugins/ folder or install it via “Plugins”->”Add New” menu.
- Activate Plugin Test Drive from the plugins screen.
- Go to Setting -> Plugin Test Drive to select plugins for testing.
How does it work?
- Once you complete the installation and activation of Plugin Test Drive, on the plugin’s options page, you can choose your tester key – ip address or user name. On the same page you select the plugins to be tested and click the save button. Now the plugins you have selected will load for you only.
- Testing plugins is safe. When you select a plugin for testing and activate it, this Plugin Test Drive PTD validates it the same way WordPress validates a plugin. If the plugin fails in this validation test, PTD will help you know about it and will not test that plugin.
Which plugins can be tested?
Essentially, almost any plugin can be tested. However, select only the inactive plugins.
For plugins that enable you to type a function call directly in your theme files, you must include “if_function_exists()”:
The following is WRONG :
some_plugin_function();
The below statement is RIGHT :
if (function_exists(‘some_plugin_function’)) { some_plugin_function(); }
Untestable plugins
There are only a very few plugins (about 1 in every 500 plugins) that cannot be tested even though they are mentioned as valid plugins.
Consider that these are plugins that trigger their own activation during the run time.
As said above, plugins cannot be activated and tested at the same time, so such a plugin will be flagged as “untestable” and you will not be able to select it.
New feature – test a plugin right after installing it
In the new version 1.1, there is an ability to mark a plugin for testing from the post installation page. It means that if you install a plugin via wordpress, Add New, you can click the Test Plugin link right after the installation is completed and before activating is done.
It is good to know that this plugin is bi-lingual.
Alex Smith is an Author and 10 years of experience in various topics such as like wordpress development, wordpress development India, wordpress themes, wordpress themes India, wordpress plugins, wordpress development India etc.
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