The following tutorial / notes are for setting up a new localhost development environment in Windows.
1. Setup your Localhost Environment
- Download the Bitnami WordPress installer
- Follow onscreen instructions and Install!
That’s it~
I put my development environment in the D:/ drive
D:/Bitnami/WordPress
2. Prepare for git with VS Code
Gitbash (git for Windows) wants a default text editor – and while you could choose Nano or VIM or Notepad++, why not go with the (NEW!) option and get yourself a really great code editor while you’re at it~
- Download the Visual Studio Code installer
- Follow onscreen instructions and Install!
Learn about customizing Visual Studio Code for WordPress development.
3. Setup git with Gitbash
- Download the Gitbash installer
- Follow onscreen instructions and Install!
- Note: In the “Adjusting your PATH environment” screen, click “Use Git from the Windows Command Prompt”
- Note: In the “Adjusting your PATH environment” screen, click “Use Git from the Windows Command Prompt”
4. Setup WP-CLI in Windows
Take a look at this walkthrough. I followed the steps outlined within it and made a few notes about the process for my particular setup.
- Download the
wp-cli.pharfile (right-click and “Save As…”) - Create a new folder within your Windows user’s folder to hold all our executable files
- Create
C:\Users\user\bin(where “user” is your Windows username) - This is the
~\binfolder where~\indicates the user’s home directory
- Create
- In Visual Studio Code, create a
wp.batfile with the following content:
@ECHO OFF
SET BIN_TARGET=%~dp0/./wp-cli.phar
php "%BIN_TARGET%" %*
This will execute the wp-cli.phar command from your command line (after doing a little more setup work).
- But, if you’re using Gitbash, Windows won’t recognize
.batfiles and their commands, so we need to create a separate file calledwp(no file extension). - In Visual Studio Code, you may get an error if you try to create and save a file with no extension, so just call it
wp.shfor now. - Later, in Windows Explorer you can remove the
.sh. - Paste in the following lines:
#!/usr/bin/env sh
dir=$(d=${0%[/\\]*}; cd "$d"; pwd)
# See if we are running in Cygwin by checking for cygpath program
if command -v 'cygpath' >/dev/null 2>&1; then
# Cygwin paths start with /cygdrive/ which will break windows PHP,
# so we need to translate the dir path to windows format. However
# we could be using cygwin PHP which does not require this, so we
# test if the path to PHP starts with /cygdrive/ rather than /usr/bin
if [[ $(which php) == /cygdrive/* ]]; then
dir=$(cygpath -m $dir);
fi
fi
dir=$(echo $dir | sed 's/ /\ /g')
"${dir}/wp-cli.phar" "$@"
So the previous step (wp.bat) makes wp-cli available from the Windows Command Line, and this step (wp.sh) makes wp-cli available from Gitbash.
5. Add php and wp-cli to the PATH
Now, we have to make sure Windows adds both php and wp-cli to the PATH so we can use them.
- Open up the Windows Control Panel → System (or right-click “My Computer” on the Desktop and click “Properties”)
- Click “Advanced system settings” in the left sidebar
- Click “Environment Variables…” in the popup
- Click “PATH” from the list and then “Edit…”
- Now add the full path to your executable files. In my case:
- PHP:
D:\Bitnami\WordPress\php - WP-CLI:
C:\Users\user\bin
- PHP:
- Now, “Sign Out” of your Windows account and Log back in to be sure Windows loads the new
PATHvariables - You can confirm both
phpandwp-cliare working by trying out a few different commands in Gitbash or the Command Prompt:php -iwhich phpphp -Vwpwp plugin install hello-dolly(from inside yourBitnami/WordPress/htdocs/wp-content/pluginsfolder)
Great! Now you can use git and wp from the command line in Windows! Happy coding!~
