Add Local by Flywheel to list of popular local servers

[boemedia]

As discussed on the Design Team at Contributor Day WCUS 2017, we suggest adding Local by Flywheel to the list of popular local servers in the handbook: ​https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/tutorials/installing-a-local-server/

​https://local.getflywheel.com/

[netweb]

Hi @boemedia, welcome to Trac and thanks for creating this ticket :)

These kinds of changes to the handbooks are typically requested through the #docs channel on Slack (Which I see you've just joined just now) rather than creating a Trac ticket here, in the future if you can make these requests in the #docs channel and someone will either make the changes for you or they will add the necessary cape to your w.org profile allowing you to make future changes yourself.

I've updated the handbook with those changes ​https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/tutorials/installing-a-local-server/

Per the above I'm marking this ticket as worksforme and closing it, Trac is weird and we don't have an ideal workflow for these types of tickets, thanks again

[Clorith]

Although I use Local my self, and enjoy the solution, I'm not a fan of this, they send you a TON of emails if you download their software (at least one every few days from experience), and you are required to provide contact details to download it at all.

I'm not a fan of DesktopServer as well for the requirement of signing up with them to get the solution, as a minimum we should make it clear on the page before clicking through what is expected if they use these, especially since they are meant as upsell solutions for specific hosting providers.

[boemedia]

Hey Clorith, We just wanted to give less experienced users the opportunity to a clean and easy solution for a local install. I agree with you they may try to upsell. But so do some of the plugin developers after you've installed a free plugin with paid add-ons. It's up to the user to do this or not. Maybe the list could do with some explanation per server, a short bullet list on pro's/cons and type of user?

[Clorith]

I'm all for giving them a simpler solution, I'm just more worried that once they're in the official documents like a handbook it very easily becomes "WordPress recommends" in the minds of many. Upselling is perfectly fine, everyone's gotta make a living, but not when it's an email every other day for months on end.

If we are to make "official recommendations" (I put it in quotes since it's not truly what it is), we should at least make it clear what a user is walking into in these cases. So yeah, a ittle blurb on each solution to set expectations would definitely help ease my mind if nothing else :)

Again though, I love the Flywheel solution and I use it my self, but I also know how bothered I am by all the emails as I had no idea they would be trying to sell me stuff every other day.

[pento]

Thanks for hopping onto this quickly, @netweb!

Thank you for the ticket, @boemedia - you raise an excellent point that we do need easier methods for folks to get local servers up and running. The docs could certainly use improvements here, and it's possible we need to investigate providing our own "Making WordPress" local server.

Unfortunately, Local (and DesktopServer, for that matter) are not really things we want to be linking to from the Handbook - I have no problem with linking to software with a free/pro option, but putting a signup wall in the way of downloading the free option isn't something I'm comfortable with us being associated with.

With that in mind, I've removed them both from the local server page.

[netweb]

Thanks for the additional feedback everyone, and based on that feedback I completely agree with their removal 👍🏼

[boemedia]

Hi @pento,

Thanks for your comments. I don't know Desktopserver, that was here already. But I disagree why a signup service would be a reason to not add them.
As long as you make it clear this is how it works with these services, and that WP takes distance from 'recommending' or promotion, I think you should mention all options. It's up to users to decide whether they want to go for signup service or not I guess.

If people want to do a local install with f.i. Vagrant or MAMP, it's really discouraging if they are not that techy...