WordPress Playground – How to Install Plugins and Themes

What is WordPress Playground?

Playground is a WordPress sandbox. In this playground you can try out all WP features and they will not be available online. As long as you are in an research stage this sandbox may be very practical.

Install WP Playground

First you must set up a WordPress playground. Do this via the button below:

WP Playground

Save to a local directory

Click on the PHP settings tab. Give the Playground access to a local directory on your computer under Storage Device. Here you can save your experimental work.

Playground settings.

Now this dialog will open.

Select Device for a better performance.

As soon as you have selected a local directory on your computer, you can save and load your work.

Blueprint Settings

Now you can edit the Blueprint settings. Click on the burger menu to the right next to the PHP settings, and select edit the blueprint.

Click “Edit the Blueprint”.

Edit the JSON

Now you can edit the JSON in order to enable the network features:

The Blueprint panel is opened, and “networking”: true added under features.

Now you can open the Blueprint panel. Now you can add this code to the JSON under features:

  "networking": true

Now you can add whatever plugins you want to.

Here we zoom in on the JSON. Note line 10 “networking” : true. This will enable networking features so that you can add plugins, themes and more.

With this “hack” you have a WordPress sandbox for experiments.

Click the open in new tab button. Then you have a full screen WordPress version.

Experiments

Now you can add themes or plugins directly from the Dashboard. Now we can experiment.

Select and install a theme
Select and install plugins

For instance you could install SEO plugins in order to see which one is the best.

Please note that some plugins will not run on Playground. For instance Elementor could not install on my system, så it’s pretty much a question of trial and error.

Save Your Work

Now you can experiment. Remember to save your work now and then to a local version, since the Playground only lives in your browser.

Since the playground is only a local version of WordPress you can export the theme and import your work if you have a version of WordPress on your server (e.g. Simply.com or One.com).

Playground is just a sandbox where you can test plugins, themes etc.