How to Test Drive New Plugins And Themes Without Making Them Live On Your Site

Apart from being a user-friendly CMS, what makes WordPress really great is the support for plugins and themes. With a huge library of plugins and themes, you can instantly add new features and new skins to your blog without any coding on your part.

However, if you have been blogging long enough, you will know that sometime a badly coded plugin can break the site. Worst still, it can even cause the site to crash. This goes the same for a new theme. Without any tweaking and configuration, 9 out of 10 times the theme won't look great on your site. For such cases, it is wise to test them out before making them live.

To test out new plugins and themes, one good way is to set up a test site (either on localhost or on another server) and use it as a testbed for any changes that you are going to make. This method will require some server knowledge and might not work well for some users.

The next better method is to use the Plugin Test Drive and Themes Test Drive plugins to test drive your plugins and themes on your main site.

Note: While the two plugins are similar in names, they are developed by different developers.

Plugin Test Drive

Plugin Test Drive allows you to test drive any plugin and see if it works fine. You can then make the plugin live in your site if it suits your needs.

1. After installing Plugin Test Drive, go to its Settings page. You will be presented with all the plugins in your Plugins folder.

2. Check the plugin that you wish to test (only plugins that are not activated can be selected). In this example, I am test driving the WP-PageNavi plugin, so I place a tick beside the WP-PageNavi checkbox.



3. At the top, select the method to test drive the plugin. I have selected by Username, which means only I can view the difference in the front page. Save the changes.

4. If the plugin requires you to insert certain codes to your theme, do so with the code below:

[php]<?php if( function_exists( "some_plugin_function" ) ) { some_plugin_function(); } ?> [/php]

For WP-PageNavi, I added the following code to my index.php file.

[php]<?php if(function_exists('wp_pagenavi')) { wp_pagenavi(); } ?>[/php]

Now, when I view the front page of my site, I can see the WP-PageNavi plugin in action.

Theme Test Drive

Changing a theme is more noticeable than introducing a new plugin, so you definitely want to make sure your new theme runs well before you make the switch. Theme Test Drive is one useful plugin for such matter.

1. First, make sure you have installed and activated the Theme Test Drive plugin

2. Upload the new theme to your theme folder. Do not activate it. Alternatively, you can also install new theme (without activation) from the Theme Test Drive Settings page.



3. Select the theme that you want to test drive and also the user access level (this will determine who get to see the new theme. Input 10 for administrator). Once done, click "Enable Theme Drive".



4. Now, go to your blog frontend and you will see the new theme in action (make sure you are logged in as administrator). If you log out of your site, you will see the same old design, as seen by all your readers.

5. When you are done testing your new theme, return to the Theme Test Drive Settings page and click the "Disable Theme Drive" button.

Note: Unless you are changing themes every day, you might want to deactivate this plugin after you have finished test driving your new theme.

What other ways do you use to test drive new plugins and themes.

Download Plugin Test Drive | Theme Test Drive

Image credit: Toyota UK