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.
