WPCLI WordPress Generator

This repo aims at ease you build your own WP-CLI-based WordPress Generator Script. Hope it helps

How To Use It -in a nutshell-

Table of Contents

• WPCLI WordPress Generator
  • How To Use It -in a nutshell-
  • Table of Contents
  • Intro
  • How it works
    • Code Structure
    • Helper Functions
      • generate_db_prefix
        • generate_db_prefix usage
      • generate_pass
        • generate_pass usage
      • slugify
        • slugify usage
  • How to modify this project
    • Defaults
    • Features
      • Question: How can I add a new locale?
      • Question: How can I add a new menu?
      • Question: How can I add a new page?
      • Question: How can I add a new plugin?
      • Question: How can I add a new paid plugin?
      • Question: How can I add a new widget?
    • Themes
      • Question: How can I add a new theme?
      • Question: How can I add a new paid theme?
      • Question: How can I setup a new theme?
    • Wanna know anything more?
  • TODO
  • Technologies
  • Sources
  • Status

Intro

If you've build several websites using WordPress, you'd know by now most of those projects are -basically- the same project. You just need to change contents, colors and images.

So... you're doing the same actions everytime you build a website:

1. Install&Setup WordPress
2. Install&Setup a WordPress Theme
3. Install&Setup Features -which fall into one of the following three categories-:
   1. Common-to-all-projects Features:
      1. Plugins: Forms Plugin, Cookies Plugin -at least in Europe-, WPO Plugin -e.g. WP Rocket-, ...
      2. Pages: homepage, blog page, contact page, legal pages -legal notice, privacy policy, cookies policy, ...
      3. Menus: main menu -usually a the top of the page-, footer / legal menu, ...
   2. Common-to-a-project-category Features:
      1. eCommerce: e.g. WooCommerce -plugin-, utc page, profile page, account menu, ...
      2. membership site: e.g. MemberPress -plugin-, profile page, account menu, ...
      3. educational: e.g. LearnDash, courses page, subject page, profile page, account menu, ...
   3. Project-specific Features:
      1. any plugin you need for a specific feature, e.g. Flamingo -to save all Contact Form 7 submits in the WordPress database,...
      2. any page: e.g. team page, ...
4. Project-specific customizations -made in the functions.php file.

You can see you are repeating from point 1 to point 3.2.1 for each and every project you build. How much time -and money- does it cost to you? On average, that part of the setup takes 2 to 4 hours.

And what about point 3.2.2. -which you're doing every time you build a category-specific project?

Wouldn't it be great if you could automate all that work and focus on what truly adds value to a project?

I hope this repo helps you to write a script that automates anything common to your projects. I made it as generic as possible so you have a good base to begin with and I'm trying to add as much info as I can so you can modify it to build your own customized script.

Feel free to contact me to ask for help. I won't answer for theme or plugin specific setups -too many themes and plugins out there- but I'm open to help with anything else -e.g. how can you get info about plugins, pages, ... to make your own modifications-.

Just make sure you read the How to modify this project section before as any question I've been asked is answered there.

How it works

Code Structure

    flowchart TB
        subgraph base [Base Install]
            direction LR
            C --> D[Base Install]
            D --> E[User Setup]
            E --> F[Menu Setup]
            F --> G[Theme Setup]
            G --> H{Is it a paid theme?}
            H -->|yes| I[Install Paid Theme Plugin]
        end
        subgraph content [Content Setup]
            direction LR
            H ---->|No| J[Home Page Setup]
            I --> J
            J --> K[Blog Page Setup]
            K --> L[Contact Page Setup]
            L --> M{Is Contact Form 7 installed?}
            M -->|No| N[Contact Form 7 Install & Setup]
            M ---->|Yes| O[Create & Add Contact Form to Contact Page]
            N --> O
            O --> P{Has the web being flagged as eCommerce?}
            P -->|Yes| Q[WooCommerce Install & Setup]
        end
        subgraph content [Ending Tasks]
            direction LR
            P ---->|No| R[Update Website]
            Q --> R
            R --> S[Clean Installation Files]
        end
        A[Helper Functions] --> B[Set Defaults]
        B --> C[Get User Input]
        S --> T((Finish!))

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Helper Functions

generate_db_prefix

generate_db_prefix has all the code needed to generate a secure DB_PREFIX. Though it's only used once in every project, I thought it will be easier to improve and maintain the code by being in a function.

The function provides 2 ways to generate a DB_PREFIX:

1. A completetly random DB_PREFIX,
2. A seed-based DB_PREFIX

generate_db_prefix usage

Without seed:

DB_PREFIX=$(generate_db_prefix)

With seed:

DB_PREFIX=$(generate_db_prefix $SEED)

generate_pass

generate_pass has all the code needed to generate a secure password. Though it's only used once in every project, I thought it will be easier to improve and maintain the code by being in a function.

As the code of this function it's been published as an example, you MUST change it to match your needs.

generate_pass usage

PASSWORD=$(generate_pass $SEED)

slugify

WordPress uses both regular names and slugs to identify several objects -such as users or pages-. Generally, the same creation process of this objects handle the needed slugificacion.

For those cases we need to handle ourselves, I've written this function.

slugify usage

SLUG=$(slugify ${THE_NAME_TO_BE_SLUGIFIED// /})

Please, note we substitute spaces before passing THE_NAME_TO_BE_SLUGIFIED so the function has no problem getting all the name as one parameter.

How to modify this project

Defaults

After the "Helper Functions" Section in the script, you'll see a "Defaults" Section where I've set all the defaults you're going to always use in your projects without modifications.

You'll see the following defaults:

1. REPO: as I want this script to be as maintainable as possible, I've let some setups in other files. You can copy all of them every time or you can upload them to your own server and setup de url here so you only need to copy the main file.
   1. Moreover, in case you're going to install any paid theme / plugin, you're gonna need to have it in an open url to easily use it from the script.
2. DBHOST: usually, all databases are in 'localhost' but if it's not your case, you can setup the basic host here.
3. Default Setup Data:
   1. LOCALE: as this is a generic script, I've used 'en_US' as locale but as I'm spanish and most of my projects are in Spanish I have this setup to 'es_ES'. Moreover, as I usually work in Valencia I also use the catalonian locale -'ca'-.
   2. DATE_FORMAT: as this is a generic script, I've used 'm/d/Y' as date format but as I'm spanish and most of my projects are in Spanish I have this setup to 'd/m/Y'.
   3. TIME_FORMAT: as this is a generic script, I've used 'g:i a' as date format but as I'm spanish and most of my projects are in Spanish I have this setup to 'H:i'.
   4. TIMEZONE_STRING: as this is a generic script, I've used 'America/New_York' as date format but as I'm spanish and most of my projects are in Spanish I have this setup to 'Europe/Madrid'.
4. Default Users: as this script it's aimed at easing development tasks I usually create an admin user for myself and the tasks I have to do. This is also useful whenever I need to do some maintenance for the client. If you don't want to setup your own user, you just need to set this vars as empty.
   1. OUR_ADMIN_EMAIL: My user's email. This is a required field.
   2. OUR_ADMIN_FIRST_NAME: My user's first name.
   3. OUR_ADMIN_LAST_NAME: My user's first name.
   4. OUR_ADMIN_DISPLAY_NAME: My user's display name.
   5. OUR_ADMIN_URL: My user's website.
   6. OUR_ADMIN_USER: My user's login. This is a required field. In this case, I generate it from the display name -which is also generated from first and last name-.
5. Base Menus: Here you can set base menu names and should you follow all the steps correctly the script is going to set the menus right.
6. Default Theme: Here you can set the default theme.
7. Default colors: As I think this is key in a development process I've created this set of vars.
   1. Brand colors: generally we use two sets of brand colors -each one with a background and a foreground / text color-:
      1. Primary colors:
         1. PRIMARY_BG_COLOR
         2. PRIMARY_FG_COLOR
      2. Secondary / accent colors:
         1. ACCENT_BG_COLOR
         2. ACCENT_FG_COLOR
   2. Message colors: Every web / app uses messages to notify the user how are the results of her actions. Here you can setup all of them:
      1. Info messages:
         1. INFO_BG_COLOR
         2. INFO_FG_COLOR
      2. Success messages:
         1. SUCCESS_BG_COLOR
         2. SUCCESS_FG_COLOR
      3. Warning messages:
         1. WARNING_BG_COLOR
         2. WARNING_FG_COLOR
      4. Danger messages:
         1. DANGER_BG_COLOR
         2. DANGER_FG_COLOR

Features

Question: How can I add a new locale?

Question: How can I add a new menu?

We set menus before anything else so:

1. we can assign them to their correct location in the theme -as every theme can have their own locations it's easier this way-
2. and it's also quite easy to assign any page to them

I've added two menus that make sense to me:

1. Main Menu: which usually goes in site's header and has the main site's pages -homepage, blog page, contact page, ...-
2. Legal Menu: which usually goes in site's footer and has the legal pages -legal notice, privacy policy, cookies policy, ...-

In order to add another menu -say a social menu with links to all our social network accounts- you just need to do the following steps:

1. Add the new menu after the Legal Menu with the same command:
   1. NEW_MENU=$(wp menu create ${MENU_NAME} --porcelain)
2. Check if there's any menu location that suits your need.
   1. You can do it accessing the server through SSH and using the following command:
      1. wp menu location list
   2. In case the theme doesn't have a suitable menu location, you can check for widget areas -which WP CLI knows as 'sidebars'- using the following command:
      1. wp sidebar list
3. Go to the theme's setup file -say themes/generatepress/install.sh
4. After the legal menu assign line, you can write
   1. the following command to assign the menu to a menu location:
      1. wp menu location assign ${NEW_MENU} ${MENU_LOCATION}
   2. or the following command to assign the menu to a widget location:
      1. wp widget add nav_menu ${WIDGET_LOCATION} --nav_menu="${NEW_MENU}"

Don't forget to change var names -NEW_MENU, MENU_NAME, MENU_LOCATION, WIDGET_LOCATION- so they are not mistaken with others.

Question: How can I add a new page?

If you just want a page with some content, you can:

1. Copy the "Cookies Policy Page" folder
2. Change var names in the install.sh file
3. Change page title in the install.sh file
4. Change menu in the install.sh file if needed

Please, think carefully about the order you're using when adding pages as some pages have dependencies.

E.g. Contact Page has a form that needs a link to Privacy Policy so you must add Privacy Policy before Contact Page.

Question: How can I add a new plugin?

Question: How can I add a new paid plugin?

Question: How can I add a new widget?

Themes

Question: How can I add a new theme?

At first, I set the theme Twenty Twenty Two as the default theme 'cause it's the default theme this year and has the basics of theme setup.

However, I had several errors with the new customizer so I changed to GeneratePress.

If you want to use another theme you just need to:

1. copy the generatepress folder
2. change its name to the theme name you want to setup
3. modify the PARENT_THEME var to match the theme name you want to setup
4. child theme
   1. generally, you can create a child theme with the wp scaffold command:
      1. wp scaffold child-theme ${CHILD_THEME} --parent_theme="${PARENT_THEME}" --theme_name="${DOMAIN} Child" --activate
   2. but some themes have their own child theme, if that's the case then:
      1. get the child theme
      2. remove the version string from the zip file name
      3. upload it to your private open repo -which you have set up with the REPO var explained in the "Defaults Section"- into the themes/${PARENT_THEME}/ folder
      4. add the following line instead of the wp scaffold child-theme line in the install.sh file inside the themes/parent_theme/ folder -don't forget to change "ZIP-WITH-THE-CHILD-THEME" with the actual zip file name:
         1. wp theme install "${REPO}/themes/${PARENT_THEME}/ZIP-WITH-THE-CHILD-THEME" --activate
5. update the theme's setup to your needs as explained here.

Question: How can I add a new paid theme?

I've set theme GeneratePress. However setting it up as paid theme is not as straightforward as with a free theme. Most paid themes are a mix of:

1. a free theme
2. a paid extension theme plugin

In this case GeneratePress has:

1. a free theme called GeneratePress -which is set as default-
2. a paid extension theme plugin called GP Premium

You'll need to make some modifications for the paid extension plugin:

1. I assume you've set the free theme up with the instructions from How can I add a new theme?.
2. now you have to setup the paid extension theme plugin:
   1. get the paid extension theme plugin
   2. remove the version string from the zip file name
   3. upload it to your private open repo -which you have set up with the REPO var explained in the "Defaults Section"- into the themes/${PARENT_THEME}/ folder
   4. add the following line to after the wp theme install "${REPO}/themes/${PARENT_THEME}/ZIP-WITH-THE-CHILD-THEME" --activate line the install.sh file inside the themes/parent_theme/ folder -don't forget to change "ZIP-WITH-THE-PLUGIN" with the actual zip file name:
      1. wp plugin install "${REPO}/themes/${PARENT_THEME}/ZIP-WITH-THE-PLUGIN" --activate
3. update the theme's setup to your needs as explained here.

Question: How can I setup a new theme?

Theme config is saved in the options table so if you want to know want config can you do you'll need to:

1. install the theme you want
2. setup the theme to match your requirements
3. access with SSH to the server
4. look at the theme's config options with the following commands:
   1. wp option list --search="*${PARENT_THEME}*" --field=option_name
   2. wp option list --search="*${CHILD_THEME}*" --field=option_name

You'll need some tinkering to get the correct setup and then update the theme install file with it.

I've set an example at the Twenty Twenty Two folder.

Wanna know anything more?

I'm no to going to answer questions about specific setups -such as "how can I setup plugin X?"- as this repo it's not aimed at giving customized solutions but to encourage you to create your own.

On the other hand, I'll try to answer any question it's not already answered in this section.

TODO

1. Add code to setup basic colors from user input
2. Add code to set basic content for pages -Gutenberg content-

Technologies

WPCLI WordPress Generator has been developed with:

• Shellscript
• WP CLI

Sources

Status

This project has been tested up to WordPress 6 and PHP 8.

Created by @borjalofe.