WP-CLI GUI: An Interface to Speed Up WordPress Installation

WP-CLI GUI is a new tool from WordPress developer Tim Brugman, created to speed up the creation of new WordPress sites when using WP-CLI. The tool captures the details required to configure the database, site info, admin user, and password. It outputs one long command that WP-CLI users can copy and paste.

At first it might seem counterintuitive – if you use the command line to manage WordPress, why would you want to add an extra interface to your workflow? Brugman explained the problem that led him to create WP-CLI GUI:

“I heard about WP-CLI and gave it a shot,” he said. “I thought it was very neat for managing your sites but a bit of a hassle for new installs. Because installing WP with the CLI is a sequence of commands, if you don’t concatenate them, you have wait for each to end. It’s especially annoying because the first, downloading WP, takes the longest.”

If you concatenate all of the commands into one giant command with all of the installation variables, the risk of typos increases to where you need to copy and paste.

“Once I started copy pasting, I figured I might as well automate that with JavaScript,” Brugman said. “That became the ridiculous GUI for the CLI.”

Brugman plans to expand with options for removing Akismet and Hello Dolly and is considering adding a list of optional plugins to install.

“Depending on the number of plugins you ‘always’ use, could save some more time,” he said. “Tasks beyond the installation I haven’t yet looked at. Requests are welcome.”

WP-CLI GUI is supported by Toscani, a web development company. Brugman and his colleagues there use the tool to speed up installation of new WordPress sites. He said the tool is ideally suited for developers who often create new WordPress sites and are comfortable with the command line but don’t use WP-CLI at every opportunity.