The Playground team listened to your feedback and rolled out three UI improvements this month: one-click saving for playground instances, quick access to frequently visited pages, and a dedicated view for managing WordPress instances.
1. A Dedicated panel for better management
Saved playgrounds moved from the settings panel to a dedicated dashboard with its own landing page at playground.wordpress.net.
When you visit playground.wordpress.net, clicking on the icon with four squares on the top-right, you’ll find a clean, organized dashboard that allows you to:
- Start Fresh: Launch a vanilla WordPress site or test specific Pull Requests (PRs) from WordPress or Gutenberg.
- Import Easily: Use the “Import .zip” button to upload projects via
.zipfiles, GitHub URLs, or Blueprint URLs. - Explore Blueprints: Browse a library of blueprints with pre-configured setups like “Art Gallery” or “Coffee Shop.”
- Manage Your Work: View your saved playgrounds listed at the bottom with creation dates and storage status.
2. Remembering to save your progress
WordPress Playground runs client-side in your browser, so refreshing or closing a tab before saving can erase your work. Playground now displays an “Unsaved Playground” warning in the top navigation bar to prevent this.
Click the ‘Save’ button next to the warning to store your work in browser storage and resume exactly where you left off.
3. Faster navigation via Quick Access Links
Navigating the WordPress admin area usually requires multiple clicks or manual typing of URLs. The latest update introduces a Quick Access dropdown integrated directly into the Playground’s internal address bar.
By clicking the address bar, you now get instant shortcuts to the most common areas of your site:
- Homepage
- Dashboard
- Site Editor
- New Post
- Plugins
- Themes
This small change significantly speeds up the testing workflow, allowing you to jump from the front end to the backend editor in a split second.
Give it a try!
These updates are designed to make WordPress Playground more user-friendly and efficient. Head over to playground.wordpress.net to test them out for yourself.
Have feedback? The team wants to hear from you! You can leave a comment below or join the conversation via the #playground Slack channel.