WordPress 3.9 Is Coming: Get Ahead Of Any Suprises

Josh Pollock - April 09, 2014

WordPress 3.9 is due to be release on April 16th and there is no reason why you should be surprised by any changes or plugin or theme compatibility issues. If you don’t have a local testing environment, ie a version of your site running on your personal computer, yet, now is the time. A local test site is easy to create and it allows you to test out changes to your site without risking anything that goes wrong being broadcast to the world or taking down your site.

Clone Your Site

duplicatorThe easiest way to make a copy of your live site is with the plugin WordPress Duplicator.  Simply install this free plugin via the plugin installer in WordPress and use it to create a new installer. Don’t worry about any of the database settings. Just go to the “Create New” tab, give the package a name, click the “Skip Scan” option and click the blue “Next” button. Download the package and then delete it from your server.

If you haven’t already installed DesktopServer by ServerPress do so now. DesktopServer is the easiest way to create a local development and testing site for WordPress, which is something everyone should be doing. From the DesktopServer UI, you simply select “Export, import or share a website” and then the “Import an existing WordPress website archive” options. You will then be given the ability to navigate to the file you downloaded from WordPress duplicator, and the address and location for your new local site.

It’s really that simple. If you need more detailed instructions, see this tutorial.

serverpress-install

Install The WordPress Beta Tester Plugin

There are a lot of ways to get the latest development version of WordPress. The easiest is by installing the WordPress Beta Tester Plugin. Install the plugin in your test site and from its settings set it to “bleeding edge nightlies.” Save the plugin settings, update WordPress and you are now beta testing the most popular content management system on the internet.

Now What?

Make sure that you have WordPress’ debugging mode activated by setting WP_CONFIG to true in your test site’s wp_config.php file, by adding this code:


define('WP_DEBUG', true );
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', true);
define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);

Now navigate to your test site in your browser and see if you can generate any errors on any of your site’s pages, front-end or in the admin. Be sure to check any forms, widgets, media players, JavaScript-powered do-dads or anything else that could break. If you see any errors, you should report them in the appropriate location, either the theme or plugin developer’s support forums or if you have found a bug in WordPress itself, report it in core trac. Always be sure to search for reports of similar issues before creating new tickets.

If everything works, you can safely upgrade your production site to WordPress 3.9 when it’s released. If not, you can use your new local environment to test any fixes to the problems that you have identified that you are provided before implementing them on your live site for the whole world to see.

Bonus: You Now How a Testing Environment For Your Site!

Not only have you saved yourself from any surprises when you upgrade to WordPress 3.9, you also have one of the most important tools that any WordPress site owner should have: a local testing environment for your site.