I am looking into writing extra connect add-ons - starting with DirectAdmin, but I can’t find any information how to hook into the Connect logic - please tell me this isn’t proprietary and non-extendable?
Hi @ThaDaVos
Local Connect only functions directly with WP Engine and Flywheel. While there are no plans to make the feature available with other hosts, it’s still possible to move sites in and out of Local without the Connect feature. For moving sites out of Local to other hosts many of our users rely on plugin options such as All in One or WP Migrate. Sites can easily be exported right from the app into a zip file ready to share or upload elsewhere as well.
I get that - but why not open up the API so people can build these integrations with connect to and make LocalWP the go-to platform for all local Wordpress development?
Technically we do have an open add-on concept, so any host could build a connect add-on if they desired. We don’t have any documentation specific to building a Connect add-on, so development could be tricky and require a lot of back and forth and troubleshooting. To date, no other hosts have ever contacted us about building something like this out. Many popular WordPress hosts out there instead have tried to come up with or improve their own alternatives for local development.
While we do believe and plan on keeping Local free to use for the entire WordPress community, we are a product owned by the WP Engine/Flywheel family. So ultimately assisting with the development of Local Connect add-ons to other hosts will never be a priority. That being said, as mentioned previously there are still many other ways to get sites in and out of Local, including migration plugin options like WP Migrate. We partnered with them to help come up with simpler solutions for moving sites in and out of Local to help accommodate the users hosting elsewhere that aren’t able to rely on Local Connect.
1 Like
It’s not about a specific host - it’s about a add-on for everyone using DirectAdmin as their hosting panel - this also includes hobbyists and such.
I also took a look at the current Add-on development flow and tried to pry as much information out of Local as possible - it seems that the Local Connect is build into the core and not using any of the Add-on layers, so building an add-on which integrates feels like it’s almost impossible - as none of the Add-on api’s are being used there…
It would help a lot if one could somehow load React devtools into Local so they could check out the internals better