Get Set Up for Testing

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Welcome! To help test, your first step will be to set up a test environment.

Set Up a Hosted WordPress Site

  1. If you already have hosting setup for a site you own, consider asking your web host how to add an additional site in a subdomain or subfolder for testing purposes. Each host may have different options, and they should be able to help advise you.
  2. If you have a small budget to work with, setting up additional hosting to use for testing is helpful because it also helps to diversify tests in varying different environments.
  3. You can go to https://wordpress.org/hosting/ to see a list of recommended hosts.

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Install in a Local Environment

Use this option if you would like to test pull requests or if you would like to check if something is working with the bleeding edge version.

  1. Make sure you have git, node, and npm installed.
  2. Install docker.
  3. Clone the gutenberg repository locally.
  4. Run npm install.
  5. Run npm run wp-env start.
  6. Open localhost:8888 in your browser (username: admin, password: password).

Need more detailed installation instructions? Please see Contributing in the documentation.

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Install Gutenberg as a Plugin

Use this option to do general testing with the latest betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. or release candidateRelease Candidate A beta version of software with the potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge. versions of the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ editor:

  1. Go to https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/releases. Note: you may need to scroll through several pages of dependencies.
  2. Download the latest gutenberg.zip file.
  3. Go to WP Admin > Plugins > Add New > Upload PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party.
  4. Select the file from step 2.
  5. Follow the prompts to install and activate the plugin.

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Useful Commands

All of these commands are intended to be run from Terminal, in your Gutenberg directory.

Running npm install occasionally is a useful habit, as well as any time you know that packages.json has been changed.

If you restart your computer, or upgrade Docker, start the Gutenberg containers again by running: docker-compose up -d

It’s a good practice to stop (with Ctrl+C) npm run dev and restart when you switch to a different branch.

If everything is broken, and you have no idea what’s happened, run bin/setup-local-env.sh again to reset everything to a fresh install.

Thank you for testing!

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