I recently gave a talk about WP-CLI at WordCamp Israel 2016. I thought it would be interesting to actually demo WP-CLI in real time, rather than use boring slides.

I used OS X split screen mode, with a terminal window on one side, and a browser on the other showing the site I’m creating and editing:

The tricky part was to not have to type the commands I wanted to demo (which would be boring, and slow). Luckily, I’ve found doitlive, which takes a bash script and types the commands in a simulated window.

By default doitlive echos the characters one by one: the presenter just has to type randomly on his keyboard (like a Madman!).

But I wanted to be able to move on stage, and control the presentation using a remote. So I set doitlive’s speed option to a large number, and each command appeared with a single key press. I still needed a return to execute the command, a key not present on my remote. I worked around this by using TextExpander to replace ‘b’ (from the ‘Black Screen’ button) with a newline.

The result: each command required just two button presses. (The truth: I forgot to turn on TextExpander,  so I had to go back to the lectern for every single command. Bah.)

Some tips that might help if you’re planning to do something similar:

• Use the `-g` param when opening a url in the browser to keep the focus on the terminal window
• Write a cleanup/prep script that sets up your environment the way you need it before the demo (empty the db, delete or rename files, etc)
• Rehearse. A lot. This is true for every presentation, but is a must with live demos.

Here’s the script I’ve used, split into commented sections. I’ll link to the video once it’s up on WordPress.tv.

#doitlive shell: /bin/bash
#doitlive prompt: l33t {r_angle.red}{r_angle.yellow}{r_angle.green}
#doitlive commentecho: true
#doitlive speed: 1000

cat name.txt
cat wp-cli.txt
open http://wp-cli.org -g
clear

open http://wpcli.dev -g

#Download
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wp-cli/builds/gh-pages/phar/wp-cli.phar

# Permission and move to path as 'wp'
chmod +x wp-cli.phar

sudo mv wp-cli.phar /usr/local/bin/wp

# Test
wp --info
wp

cd mdocs
mv index.html index.old
clear

wp core download

ls -l

open http://wpcli.dev -g

wp core config --dbname=wpcli --dbuser=root --dbpass=root --dbhost=localhost --dbprefix=wpcli_

cat wp-config.php

wp core install --url="http://wpcli.dev" --title="WP-CLI Demo" --admin_user=yoav --admin_password=mypassword --admin_email=yoav@farhi.org

open http://wpcli.dev -g

wp core language install he_IL --activate

open http://wpcli.dev -g

wp core update

wp core language activate en_US

clear

wp option update blogname "l33t wp-cli demo"

open http://wpcli.dev -g

clear

wp package install aaemnnosttv/wp-cli-http-command

wp package list

clear

wp http get https://wpcom-themes.svn.automattic.com/demo/theme-unit-test-data.xml --scheme=https > theme-unit-test-data.xml

wp import theme-unit-test-data.xml --authors=create

wp plugin install wordpress-importer --activate

wp import theme-unit-test-data.xml --authors=create --skip=attachment

open http://wpcli.dev -g

clear

wp option get sticky_posts

wp option update sticky_posts [] --format=json

open http://wpcli.dev -g

clear

wp post generate --count=2

open http://wpcli.dev -g

clear

wp http get http://loripsum.net/api/5 | wp post generate --post_content --count=1

open http://wpcli.dev -g

wp search-replace Lorem WordPress

open http://wpcli.dev -g

clear

wp scaffold child-theme wpcli-child --parent_theme=twentysixteen --author="Yoav Farhi" --author_uri=http://yoav.fr --activate

ls -l wp-content/themes/

ls -l wp-content/themes/wpcli-child

cat wp-content/themes/wpcli-child/style.css

open http://wpcli.dev -g

wp scaffold _s wpcli_s --theme_name=wpcli-s --author="Yoav Farhi" --sassify --activate

ls -l wp-content/themes/

ls -l wp-content/themes/wpcli_s

wp theme list

wp theme activate twentyfourteen

open http://wpcli.dev -g

clear

# wp plugin

wp plugin list

wp plugin install jetpack --activate

wp jetpack

wp jetpack module list

clear

wp export

wp db export l33t-backup.sql

clear

wp core multisite-convert

mv ms-rewrite-rules.txt .htaccess

wp site create --slug=msdemo

open http://wpcli.dev/msdemo -g

wp theme activate twentyfifteen --url=http://wpcli.dev/msdemo

open http://wpcli.dev/msdemo -g

clear

nano example-command.php

mkdir wp-content/mu-plugins
cp example-command.php wp-content/mu-plugins/

wp example hello "Wordcamp Israel 2016"

clear

cd ../

cat thankyou.txt

# Thanks for following! Questions?
# Typed using doitlive http://doitlive.readthedocs.org/

Download the full script.