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In this lesson, you will learn how to install WordPress locally on your own computer.

Prerequisite Skills

Participants will get the most from this lesson if they have familiarity with:

• Experience downloading and installing programs on their computer.
• Administrative access to their local machine.
• Familiarity with the file system of their computer.

Objectives

After completing this lesson, participants will be able to:

• Download, install and configure MAMP.
• Start MAMP servers.
• Create a database.
• Download and install WordPress.

Materials Needed

Screening Questions

• Have you ever used WordPress?
• Have you created posts and pages in WordPress?
• Have you changed a theme in WordPress?
• Have you ever wanted to look under the hood of WordPress?

Notes for the Instructor

• Ahead of the lesson, make sure you take a look at your own computer setup. If you have MAMP or MAMP Pro already installed on your machine, you may want to run this demo on a virtual box to avoid conflicts with existing software and local sites that you may want to keep on your machine.
• Sometimes it can take a while to download large files like MAMP or WordPress core. You may want to have a copy of MAMP and the current version of WordPress downloaded and stored on a thumb drive that can be passed around the class before you start the lesson. In the context of the demo, you would still show where to download these files but would skip the actual live download.
• MAMP is updated quite often. Please be sure to walk through the lesson plan with a fresh install to be sure it is still up to date.

Lesson Overview

To run WordPress locally, you need to have a server. In this lesson, you will learn to set up a server, create a database and install WordPress on your computer.

Install MAMP

MAMP stands for My Apache, MySQL, and PHP. MAMP is an application you can install on your Mac or Windows PC that allows you to have access to a local server that is running PHP and MySQL. Essentially, MAMP gives you all of the tools you need to run WordPress on your machine, for development and testing purposes.

1. To install MAMP, go to https://www.mamp.info/en/downloads/.
2. Download the version of MAMP that corresponds with your machine (Mac OS X or Windows).
3. Double click on the downloaded file. This will open the installation dialog.
4. Next, we’ll follow the prompts in the dialog to complete the installation. This course uses the default settings recommended by the install dialog.

Open and configure MAMP

1. Now that MAMP is installed, let’s open it up! MAMP has a button to start servers when first started. By clicking on “Preferences” you can select an option to start the Apache HTTP Server and MySQL database server upon starting MAMP.

2. Click on the “preferences” icon. You’ll see that there are several tabbed menu items available.
3. Click the “Web Server” tab and find the “Document Root.” This path is where MAMP expects to find the files associated with your local website. In this case, this is where the WordPress files will need to be located to run them on the server. You may change this directory to whatever you want. The default is “/Applications/MAMP/htdocs” on a Mac and “C:/MAMP” on Windows.

Set up a Database

1. Next, we will create a database on your new MAMP server. This database will become the database for the locally installed WordPress site.

2. Go back to the MAMP dialog and click “Start.”

3. Using the menu bar at the top of the page, click “Tools -> phpMyAdmin.”

4. The phpMyAdmin dialog will appear.

5. Click the “New” link in the left menu sidebar.In the following dialog, use the name “mydatabase” to name the database:

6. Leave the “Collation” option as default.
7. You now have a database called “mydatabase.” Congratulations!

Install WordPress

1. Now we’re ready to install WordPress on our local machine! Go to https://wordpress.org/download/ to download the most recent version of WordPress. Once you download and copy the WordPress files to your computer, you will be able to install WordPress using the traditional 5 Minute Install.

2. Move the downloaded zip file to the default server directory, “/Applications/MAMP/htdocs.” You could expand the zip file in your downloads folder and move the expanded folder and its contents, but sometimes the “hidden” system files that are included in WordPress (like the .htaccess file) fail to copy over to new folders if the contents are unzipped. For that reason, we’ll leave our zip file zipped while we’re moving it.

3. In the new”/Applications/MAMP/htdocs” location, double click the WordPress zip file and it will expand. Remove the zip file and the index.php file.

Local Wpsd

4. Go back to your web browser, and in the black menu bar, click the link “My Website.”

5. The link will take you to a list of websites installed in the directory. Click the “WordPress” link. This link will take you to the 5 minute WordPress install.

6. Get ready to enter your database information:

• Your “Database Name” is: mydatabase
• Your “User Name” is: root
• Your “Password” is: root
• Your “Database Host” is: localhost
• You can leave the “Table Prefix” as the default: wp_

7. Now, let’s click the “Submit” button to run the install.

8. Click the “Run the install button” and then choose a username and password on the next screen. That’s it! You’re ready to log in!
9. The link for your new site: http://localhost:8888/wordpress/. You will log in at this URL: http://localhost:8888/wordpress/wp-login.php.

Exercises

The following exercises reinforce the skills needed to install WordPress locally:

Practice Using phpMyAdmin

• Navigate back to phpMyAdmin on your localhost.
• Click on the name of your database to view the contents of your database now that you have installed WordPress.
• When looking at the database tables, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “check all” box. Then in the dropdown that says “With Selected” choose “Export” and follow the prompts to practice backing up your database.
• Practice making a new database within phpMyAdmin.

Try Installing a Second WordPress Local Site

Go through the exercise demonstrated in this lesson again and try setting up a second instance of WordPress on your local machine in a new location.

• Make sure the document root matches wherever you’ll keep your files for the second instance of WordPress.
• Set up a new database using phpMyAdmin.
• Extract the WordPress files in a new location on your computer.
• Run the famous 5 minutes install for your new local site.

Assessment

What does “MAMP” stand for?

1. My Computer, Apple, MySQL, PHP
2. My Computer, Apache, MySQL, PHP
3. My Apache, MySQL, PHP
4. Macintosh, Apple, MySQL, PHP

Answer: 3. Macintosh, Apache, MySQL, PHP

What is the user name and password for any named local install?

1. username: root; password: localhost
2. username: localhost; password: localhost
3. username: root; password: root
4. username: localhost; password: root

Answer: 3. username: root; password: root

What systems can MAMP run on?

1. Macintosh
2. Windows
3. Macintosh and Windows
4. Linux
5. Macintosh, Windows and Linux

Answer: 3. Macintosh and Windows

Additional Resources

• WordPress Installation Techniques @ Codex

Despite being one of the more user-friendly Content Management Systems (CMS) available, WordPress has its own set of errors to contend with – most of which arise due to compatibility issues. The solution is to install a local WordPress testing site for Windows … or Mac (but that we’ll talk about another time).

Having a local version of your site to play with lets you tinker without fear of errors popping up on your live pages – or worse, crippling them altogether. Excel for mac 2011 vba. Fortunately, setting up a local WordPress testing site for Windows is not as complicated as it sounds.

In this post, we’ll look at why you should use a WordPress testing site, then show you how to do it in three easy steps. Let’s get started!

Why use a WordPress testing site?

There are plenty of reasons to use a local WordPress testing site for Windows, some of which are:

1. Using a local testing site helps you root out compatibility issues between your themes, plugins, and WordPress core before they reach your live site. You can easily create a copy of your site, host it locally, do a test run, and migrate it back once you’re done. The same principle applies for testing any other themes or plugins.
2. Local testing sites are perfect for web developers or designers who want to keep their work private until they reach specific milestones. You save on hosting costs, and eliminate the risk of clients running off with your work.
3. You like tinkering with WordPress-related stuff (as do we!).

With all this in mind, it’s time to dive into the process itself.

How to set up a local WordPress testing site for Windows

There are three steps to get up and running with your own local WordPress testing site for Windows. Let’s get cracking!

Step 1: Install WampServer

This nifty piece of software creates an entire web development environment on your computer. The first part of its name stands for Windows, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (WAMP) – a combination enabling you to run a local web server. Let’s check out how it works.

First of all, download the corresponding installer for your version of Windows – either 32- or 64-bit – from the WampServer homepage:

When your download concludes, go through the installation process. Continue clicking Next until the installer asks whether you want to switch its default browser from Internet Explorer (which of course you do). Find the executable for your replacement browser in the Program Files folder, then repeat the process (if you want to) when the installer asks you about your text editor.

Once the installation concludes, go into your Start Menu and click on Wampserver64 (or Wampserver32 depending on your version). WampServer’s icon will now appear in your system tray. That’s it for this step!

Local Wpsd

Step 2: Create a database for your WordPress site

Take a look at WampServer’s icon in your system tray. Red coloring indicates your server is not running, orange means you need to configure your Apache web server, and green means everything is going smoothly.

If your icon is green, you can jump right into creating a database in step three. Apps for mac apple. Assuming that your Apache web server is not functioning correctly, the most likely culprit is another application using the same port. To find out if this is the case, right-click your WampServer icon and navigate to Tools » Test Port 80. You should see the following error:

Close the error screen and go to Tools » Use a port other than 80. The application will then suggest an available port – click on OK:

Your icon should turn green immediately. If not, click it and select Restart All Services. Test it by going to your localhost address (e.g. http://localhost:8080 or http://127.0.0.1:8080) using your default WampServer browser. For this tutorial, we’ll be sticking to http://localhost:8080, but yours may vary depending on which port you’re using.

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The page you’ll see after connecting to your localhost address.

Next up is actually creating a database for our future WordPress install. Navigate to the Tools section of your localhost page and click on PHPMyAdmin:

On the following screen, enter root as your username and leave the password blank. Move to the Databases tab at the top of the screen, enter a name for your new database, and click Create:

You now have a brand new database ready for use! It’s time to get WordPress running on this puppy.

Step 3: Install WordPress on your new server

For this step, download the latest version of WordPress and extract the wordpress folder. You can either move it to your WampServer’s www directory, or just extract the folder there:

Your WordPress files should now be at wamp64 > www > wordpress, although you can name that last folder to whatever you want – we stuck to wordpress for simplicity’s sake.

To begin your WordPress setup, navigate to http://localhost:8080/wordpress/. You should see the language selection screen of WordPress’ famous installer:

Select your chosen language and click Continue. Read through the information on the next screen, then click on Let’s go! once you’re done:

Next, enter the name of the database you just created, as well as your username and password. Since we didn’t actually change ours, just type root under username and leave password blank. Modify your Table Prefix if you want to, but don’t replace the Database Host as it could cause issues down the line:

Normally, you should always (we can’t stress this enough) set a different username and a complex password, as well as change your database prefix for security purposes. We’re skipping that since we’re creating a local install meant for personal use. Finally, fill out the fields on the last screen and we’re done:

Next, you’ll be redirected to your WordPress login screen located at http://localhost:8080/wordpress/wp-login.php – enter your credentials and log in…

…and say “Hello” to your new local WordPress testing site for Windows! If this is your first time using WordPress, we recommend taking a look at the following guides to get you started:

• 10 Things You Need to Do Right After Launching a WordPress Site.
• How to Install a WordPress Plugin – Beginner’s Guide for 2020.

Of course, you could always just dive right in and start searching for suitable theme to play with!

Conclusion

Setting up a local WordPress testing site for Windows may sound complicated, but it can save you a lot of time and headaches over the long term. Fortunately, it only takes three steps to get up and running:

1. Install WampServer.
2. Create a database for your local site.
3. Install WordPress on your brand new local server.

Do you have any questions about setting up a local WordPress testing site in Windows? Let’s hear them in the comments section below!

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