[wp-hackers] absolute URLs in plug-ins and custom types

[Bryan Petty]

On 07/06/2012 02:57 PM, Otto wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 3:51 PM, Bryan Petty <bpetty at bluehost.com> wrote:
>> What we're talking about here is *having the option* of running a
>> development server with a snapshot of the live site for real-world
>> testing/design/development for those of us smart enough to not be
>> storing sensitive information in our WordPress sites.
> 
> You have that option now. It's easily done. URLs don't have to be tied
> to one server or one IP address. There's loads of ways to do DNS
> trickery to make a local server think it's example.com or whatever you
> want it to be.

Yes that is possible, but then I get to keep switching my computer's
host file back and forth when I need to do work on the other one, and
also get to forget whether I'm making test content changes on the dev
site, or the live site because the domain is exactly the same...

I used to do that with websites I was working on a decade ago, trust me,
it is a horrible "solution" to something that should just work without
modifications regardless of the domain it's running on, especially
because it's perfectly possible to do so. In my opinion, this is a bug,
not a feature request.

> Alternatively, you can write a simple 4-5 line script that will
> convert all mentions of example.com to test-example.com on the fly,
> shove that in as a plugin, and Bob's your uncle. Output buffering is
> handy for development.

How many other web applications do you know of that absolutely require
you to install additional extensions just to do something like this?

I'm not asking you to code up this functionality inside of WordPress
yourself, but please stop disrespecting everyone in here by ignoring
perfectly valid arguments, discouraging anyone else from working on
improvements and solutions towards those goals, derailing the
discussion, and assuming that just because you don't have a need for
this, no-one else does either.

-- 
Bryan Petty
WordPress Developer
bpetty at bluehost.com