WPCloudDeploy custom hacks and fixes

Helpful customizations and hacks when using WPCD to build your own cloud-hosting panel.

Our list of hacks in here are short for now but will grow over time as we share little things we did to build our own custom cloud-hosting solution. Obviously…we share the simple easy stuff for the community. Keeping our most special features/hacks to ourselves. 😉

1. Re-design admin areas

Probably the most overwhelming thing about WPCD is its massive set of features. It’s great for admins but will totally scare off non-techy end clients. So I definitely suggest simplifying admin areas.

Some helpful UI-customization ideas below:

• Add Admin CSS plugin – allows you to customize CSS styling in WP admin area.
• WPFrontendAdmin – beautiful plugin and will change your life! Probably useful for many other special projects as well. Instead of letting users into the backend…you expose only certain parts of the backend into their frontend account areas. This can be a much easier (non-techy) way to customize your user experience and also not let it feel so WordPress-ey.
• UiPress – different way of customizing your admin layout. You’re letting users into the backend but completely changing how it looks.
• Hardcode page templates and CPT’s – this is the top strength of WPCD, also best way to customize and fastest performance. But you already knew this!

2. Text string translations

There are tons of text all over the place that could be re-written better. I suggest using Poedit to rewrite them. But there are many other code ways you can go about it to get rid of unnecessary text blocks. Good luck.

3. Generate SSL’s for www-domains.

WPCD’s current way of enabling/generating SSL for “www” domains is really hacky and clumsy. So we hacked the WPCD core plugin code to generate SSL’s for both the non-www and with-www versions of the domain simultaneously. Which IMO should have been standard behavior.

Go to includes/core/apps/wordpress-app/scripts/v1/raw/04-manage_https.txt (line 168 of WPCD version 10.8) and…

REPLACE:

    if [ ${WWW} = 'TRUE' ]; then
        certbot certonly --non-interactive --agree-tos -m ${email} --webroot -w ${DOCHM} -d ${domain} -d ${MY_DOMAIN2}
    else
        certbot certonly --non-interactive --agree-tos -m ${email} --webroot -w ${DOCHM} -d ${domain}
    fi

WITH:

    # if [ ${WWW} = 'TRUE' ]; then
    #     certbot certonly --non-interactive --agree-tos -m ${email} --webroot -w ${DOCHM} -d ${domain} -d ${MY_DOMAIN2}
    # else
    certbot certonly --non-interactive --agree-tos -m ${email} --webroot -w ${DOCHM} -d ${domain} -d www.${domain}||certbot certonly --non-interactive --agree-tos -m ${email} --webroot -w ${DOCHM} -d ${domain} 
    # fi

4. New management features as plugins.

If you’re planning to add new server or site management features, I recommend building them in as add-on plugins. Rather than hacking the WPCD core (duh). Of course…we still had no choice but to hack the core for many things.

5. Customizing the servers & sites LIST pages.

• Start with the built-in WPCD fields settings.
• Then you’ll probably want customize your columns and detailed information in them. Use hooks!

6. WPCD crons not running

This causes issues with new site creations and other plugin triggers.

• We fixed by deleting all expired transients.
• Then deactivating and reactivating the WPCD core plugin.