UC Santa Cruz WordPress Playground

This repository is a WordPress Playground Blueprint Bundle. It opens a generic UC Santa Cruz campus site in the browser. You do not install anything, and each visitor gets a new copy of the site.

Open in Playground

This is a proof of concept. Some features do not work. See Known limitations.

What is in it

Item	Source
UCSC 2022 theme	Latest GitHub release zip
UCSC Custom Functionality	Latest GitHub release zip
UCSC Blocks	Latest GitHub release zip
UCSC Gutenberg Blocks (installed, not activated)	Latest GitHub release zip
Advanced Custom Fields (free)	wordpress.org
The Icon Block	wordpress.org
Sample pages and posts	content/sample-content.wxr in this repository

The site runs as a generic campus site. The blueprint does not define UCSC_NEWS_SITE, so the News-only features stay off.

The blueprint imports the sample content first. Then content/setup.php deletes the default "Hello world!" post and the default "Sample Page". It makes Home the front page and Campus News the posts page.

Layout

blueprint.json               Playground steps
content/sample-content.wxr   Sample content, imported by the importWxr step
content/setup.php            Cleanup, front page and posts page, run after import

blueprint.json loads both files in content/ as bundled resources. A bundled resource is a file that sits next to the blueprint. Playground fetches bundled files from the folder that holds the blueprint. Thus this repository is the bundle. If you point Playground at the raw blueprint.json, it also gets the files in content/.

Opening it

From a link

Use the raw GitHub URL of blueprint.json. The raw.githubusercontent.com server sends the CORS header that Playground needs.

https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ucsc/wordpress-blueprints/main/blueprint.json

To pin a version, replace main with a tag or a commit SHA.

As a zip

Zip the bundle with blueprint.json at the root of the zip:

zip -r ucsc-blueprint.zip blueprint.json content

Load the zip from New > Blueprint URL in Playground, or give it to the CLI (see Testing changes locally). If you load the zip from a URL, the server must send a CORS header. GitHub does not send this header for release assets.

Linking from another repository

Add this line to the README of any UCSC repository:

[Preview in WordPress Playground](https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ucsc/wordpress-blueprints/main/blueprint.json)

How the theme and plugins are installed

The theme, UCSC Custom Functionality, UCSC Blocks, and UCSC Gutenberg Blocks install from the newest release of each repository. The blueprint uses the GitHub address releases/latest/download/<repo>.zip. When a repository publishes a new release, Playground uses it. You do not change this repository.

GitHub sends release files without CORS headers, so the browser blocks the first, direct download from Playground. Playground then fetches the file through its own CORS proxy, and the install succeeds. A live boot with ucsc-2022 v26.10.19 and ucsc-custom-functionality v26.10.7 showed this behavior.

Adding a plugin

If the release of a UCSC plugin includes a <repo>.zip file, you can add the plugin. The shared ucsc/actions release workflow attaches this file. Add one more step before installTheme, and replace PLUGIN-REPO with the name of the plugin repository:

{
	"step": "installPlugin",
	"pluginData": {
		"resource": "url",
		"url": "https://github.com/ucsc/PLUGIN-REPO/releases/latest/download/PLUGIN-REPO.zip"
	},
	"options": {
		"activate": true,
		"targetFolderName": "PLUGIN-REPO"
	}
}

Put each plugin step before the theme step. The theme needs ACF to be active at load time.

If you want the plugin installed but not active, set "activate" to false.

Updating the sample content

The WXR file holds placeholder text only. To replace the content, do these steps:

1. Build the content on a WordPress site. A Playground site is sufficient.
2. Export the content from Tools > Export.
3. Save the export file over content/sample-content.wxr.

Follow these rules for the new content:

• If you want setup.php to set the front page and the posts page, keep the page slugs home and campus-news. Without a home page, the script sets neither page.
• Write internal links as root-relative paths, for example href="/about/". Playground serves each site under its own /scope:… path and sends those links to that path.
• Do not write a Playground address into the content. The address changes for each visitor.

Known limitations

• ACF PRO is not included. It is licensed, so a public blueprint cannot download it. ACF blocks do not render. This affects the main navigation and the breadcrumbs of the theme, and the blocks of the custom functionality plugin. The ACF options page of the theme is not available.
• The GitHub release zips download through the CORS proxy of Playground. See How the theme and plugins are installed.
• Changes do not persist. If you do not save the site from the Playground menu, your changes disappear when you close the tab.

Testing changes locally

The Playground CLI needs Node.js 24.18 or later. Run this command from the repository root:

npx @wp-playground/cli@latest server --blueprint=. --blueprint-may-read-adjacent-files

The CLI does not read bundled files unless you add --blueprint-may-read-adjacent-files.

Open the address that the command prints, usually http://127.0.0.1:9400. You are logged in as admin.