Data Liberation with WordPress Playground

Alex Kirk

Blog	https://alex.kirk.at/
Matrix	@alex:kirk.at
ActivityPub	@alex@kirk.at

Trying WordPress Plugins is risky for your site!

WordPress is server-side only software!

I don't need data liberation!

Why bother? Platforms have Data exports!

In my talk today

• Disprove these statements:
• Data Liberation?
• Big Detour: WordPress Playground
• "Try WordPress" browser extension

At the end of this talk
you'll know

• How to use Playground for experiments and demos
• How data liberation applies to you
• How you can be part of this

What is Data Liberation?

• Move Your Own Data: Platform → Any Other Platform
• 6.8 Social Media accounts per internet user (source: Kepios)

Liberated = Free Data

• Unlocked = Choice of Destination
• Widely supported (file) format
• Transformable into other formats

Exports from Typical Platforms

• Only available if forced by legislation
• No common file format
• Take hours or days
• Sometimes need to be requested from support
• Partial data (e.g. no friendship data)

WordPress as
Liberation Target

• Open Source
• Choice inside the WordPress ecosystem (plugins)
• Many platforms import from WordPress

WordPress Importers

Provided by the WordPress project:

• Blogger
• Movabletype
• OPML
• RSS
• Textpattern
• Tumblr
• WordPress
• Substack

A number of importer plugins exist, too

WordPress Importer
Status Quo

• One-time action for users
• Contribution dilemma
  • Fix your own import
  • No incentive to fix the problem in the importer
• → Not highly maintained

Data Representation

• Import of platform-specific export files
• vs.
• Export of a file specifically for WordPress

Import from Platform Exports

• Huge variety of file formats
• Not well-defined (no standards)
• Change over time
• → Needs maintenance

Export File for WordPress

• Platforms don't provide WordPress eXtended RSS files
• → Transform platform exports into WXR files?
• WXR format is text-only (no attachments)
• Content-types not supported by WordPress natively → ?

WordPress Playground
to the rescue!

WordPress Playground?

• WordPress running in the browser
• Technology: WebAssembly, JavaScript, SQLite
• No server-side code running → sandbox
• Many ways to tailor to your needs

Detour: Why is WordPress Playground a big deal?

For You!

WordPress Playground

• Try plugins without risking your live site
• Showcase a website before you have a host for it
• Run beta versions of WordPress or plugins to test them
• Translate a live plugin instead of guessing its UI

Playground as a Developer Tool

• Query API: Set it up via URL
• JavaScript API: Embed and control it
• Blueprints: For more complex setups

Playground

Query API

• playground.wordpress.net/?plugin=friends
• playground.wordpress.net/?theme=tove
• playground.wordpress.net/?language=nl_NL
• playground.wordpress.net/?wp=nightly or ?wp=6.7
• playground.wordpress.net/?mode=seamless
• ?multisite=yes ... ?url=/landingpage ... ?blueprint-url=
• Combine like this: ?plugin=chatrix&theme=neve

Playground

Javascript API

• Embed Playground and control it
• Translate Live was created with it

Playground as a Demo Tool

• Convince people: show a preconfigured plugin
  • Add a blueprint to your plugin assets
• Preview a full demo WordPress site to a client
  • Send a preconfigured link with:
    content, plugins, theme, ...
• Embed WordPress in a post/page with a block
  • WordPress Playground Block

Provide a Preview of Your Plugin

Playground

Blueprints

• Pre-Configure WordPress with plugins, theme, site data
  • a single playground.wordpress.net link
• blueprint.json = JSON file with "steps", for example:
  { "step": "installPlugin", "slug": "friends" }
• 27 different types of steps available: writeFile, runPHP, ...
• Visual Tool: Playground Step Library
  • Provides more easy to use & powerful steps

Showcase: Blueprints Gallery

• Feed Reader with the Friends Plugin
• A Woo store with custom theme, content, and products
• Use the Create Block Theme and start editing right away
• WPGraphQL to query WordPress
• Use a wp-cli command to add posts
• → Check out the 25 blueprints with more in the pipeline

Learn more about Playground

https://github.com/akirk/awesome-wordpress-playground

Why is WordPress Playground a solution for data liberation?

• Can be easily reset → just try again!
• Side-by-side view with a browser extension
• Liberate data into a live WordPress
• → Plugins can handle non-native types

Liberating from Wix

Liberating Data with Playground

• You navigate to the site → No entering of URLs
• You help locate the data → Universal
• Data gets directly sent to WordPress (Playground)

What about:

• Contact Forms
• Restaurant Menus
• Products
• → WordPress cannot handle those natively!

But Plugins can!

• Liberate Data = Free choice
• Select your favorite plugin for a content type
• Doesn't work? Other plugins are available

But why export in the browser?

• Logged in = access to your view of your data
• Logged in = access to the service's own APIs
• No IP blocking: User entitled to view their own site
• Live Preview of imported data
• Interactive while importing:
  • See progress, choose a plugin, edit posts

Traditional Export/Import

With Try-WordPress

Building the extension

• https://github.com/WordPress/try-wordpress
• Currently: Firefox or Chrome
• Loads playground.wordpress.net in the sidebar
• Assisted export from any website

After the liberation

• View it full-screen on playground.wordpress.net
• Export to a hosted WordPress (WIP)

Paths to contribute

• Share your assisted export (types + selectors)
• Help review those submitted assisted exports
• Make your plugin ready to receive liberated data
  • add_action( 'liberated_data_{$type}', ...
• Join the discussions on try-wordpress

Trying WordPress Plugins is risky for your site!

Trying WordPress Plugins is risky for your site!

Run any plugin risk-free with WordPress Playground

WordPress is server-side only software!

WordPress is server-side only software!

Not anymore: Run WordPress in your browser with WordPress Playground

I don't need data liberation!

I don't need data liberation!

Moving your data into WordPress opens paths to other platforms

Why bother? Platforms have Data exports!

Why bother? Platforms have Data exports!

But only some, they often omit the valuable meta data

Liberate your data or not, but try WordPress Playground!

Thank you! Questions?
https://alex.kirk.at/wcnl2024/