WordPress On-Install Setup

This script aims at easing the after-install process in which we usually do the same actions every time. As WordPress has its own on-install customization tools, we'll use them.

Table of Contents

• WordPress On-Install Setup
  • Table of Contents
  • Intro
  • Technologies
  • How to use it
    • DON'Ts
    • Other customizations
  • Features
    • Ideas
  • Sources
  • Status
  • Contact

Intro

You might think that each project is unique and needs its own customization -and somehow you'd be right- but you just need a minute to think and get to a simple conclusion: every time you start a new WordPress project, you do the same actions:

1. Install&Setup your preferred theme
2. Install&Setup your preferred plugins
3. Setup the WordPress site's options

But you can avoid doing this actions by yourself just using the same processes used by WordPress itself: the wp_install_defaults() function and WP CLI.

In this project, I'm trying to cover both methods so I -and you, by the way- can take advantage of them to automate and speed the first site setup.

Technologies

WordPress-On-Install is created with:

• PHP
• Shellscript -WP CLI-

How to use it

1. Get the WordPress files and upload them to your hosting
   1. DO NOT INSTALL WORDPRESS!!!
2. Download the install.php file and upload it to the wp-content folder
3. Install WordPress -just do the 5-minutes install process
4. Done!

DON'Ts

1. Don't use a 1-click install -you cannot use this script with them-
2. Don't install WordPress BEFORE uploading the script

Other customizations

The script looks for default content in the wp-content/uploads folder for the default pages.

Thus when you'll upload the install.php file to the wp-content folder, you can also upload default content -e.g. cookies.txt- to the wp-content/uploads folder and the script will use that as default content for a page of the related type -e.g. page type cookies will look for content in wp-content/uploads/cookies.txt-.

Features

This customization currently sets up the following features:

1. Categories setup:
   1. Sets default category to be "General" instead of "Uncategorized"
2. Pages setup:
   1. Sets the default content for the default page
   2. Sets the default page as the home page
   3. Creates a new page and sets it up as the blog page
   4. Sets the Privacy page -and tries to get the content from a "privacy.txt" file-
   5. Sets the Cookies page -and tries to get the content from a "cookies.txt" file-
   6. Sets the About page -and tries to get the content from a "about.txt" file-
   7. Sets the Contact page
   8. Sets default content from a type.txt for every page with type type.
      1. This feature helps set subsites up in a multisite
3. Options setup:
   1. Enables de Welcome panel -this is specially useful when using this script as part of the multisite's new blog setup-
   2. Sets the permalink structure to post name -which imho is the most user-friendly permalink structure ever-
   3. Sets the language to Spanish
   4. Sets date&time formats to Spanish
   5. Sets the start of week to Monday
   6. Sets the timezone to "Europe/Madrid"
   7. Disables the year/month folder structure inside the uploads folder
   8. Disables smilies

@TODO

1. Categories setup:
   1. Sets other categories
2. Menus setup:
   1. Sets the main menu with:
      1. Homepage
      2. About page
      3. Blog page
      4. Contact page
   2. Sets the footer menu with:
      1. Legal Notice page
      2. Privacy page
      3. Cookies page
3. Options setup:
   1. Tie date&time formats to language selection

Ideas

1. Modify the 5-minutes install process form
   1. Add an Ubuntu-like timezone selector
2. Add capabilities to get the default setup from git
3. Connect to Gutenberg Hub to get default page templates

Sources

1. My own Custom WordPress Installation -at GitLab-
2. Some ideas from my WordPress VVV custom site template -at GitLab-
3. Docs at WordPress Developer
4. add_menu_item uses wp_update_nav_menu_item
5. Automatically download and activate plugins

Status

This project is currently being developed, and works fine with WordPress 5.7.

Contact

Created by @borjalofe - feel free to contact me!