WordPress has come a long way from its humble beginnings of being a blogging tool to becoming something that can do so many things with just one click of a button. That does not mean that people who are using it don’t find certain problems or get confused with the sheer complexity of the situation that they have gotten themselves into.
People who develop plugins on WordPress frequently find themselves hitting a brick wall when there is a certain problem that is too hard to fix, or they just simply screwed the plugin altogether and want to start anew.
Well, if you are here reading this then you have probably messed up something while working on your WordPress site, too, and you simply want to just start from scratch. Developers of plugins and other such things on WordPress have been plagued with this problem for, well, always.
You could just go and make a new site but what’s the point in that when you can just reset the one you are currently working on. I will go over some of the reasons one would want to reset their WordPress site. I will also provide you with an awesome tool that will speed the whole process up, so stay tuned till the end!
Why would you want to reset anything on WordPress?
There are a number of really good reasons why one would want to reset something on WordPress and some of them are the following:
1. You are a developer
Developing a plugin on WordPress could prove to be a very profitable endeavor, especially if you have the know-how on how to do it. The issue arises when you have to test all of the features of your plugin on WordPress.
You probably want to test it out on multiple versions of WordPress to ensure that it will work on the new versions or on the older versions. And, lucky you, there is a plugin that allows you to simply switch between versions of WordPress (more on that later).
2. Bugs
There is always that one simple, stupid or hidden bug somewhere in the whole system, something that makes that section look weird, out of sync, not working correctly and so on. Or it is just pure chaos where you can’t quite pinpoint where the problem could be stationed.
You could fix this problem by trying to find where that bug is and in turn try to fix it. Well, this whole process of trying to pinpoint where the problem is and then actually fixing it is very time consuming and stressful. The quickest solution, if you have this kind of problem, is to just simply reset that segment or whatever it is that is giving you trouble and start from scratch.
3. You are learning
If you have started off on WordPress not so long ago, then you need to play around and mess with its vast options and features. When you go around adding and removing all kinds of features and plugins over each other then you gain experience on how certain things work.
At the end of it all, you will have a couple of hiccups and issues with the test site. Things that don’t work correctly or are not placed in the right places and so on need to be addressed and fixed. Or you could just reset it and start playing around with the site once again, but this time you will be more cautious with what you put where.
4. Your site is a mess and has become slow
When you are offered the ability to download and install all kinds of themes and plugins for a site, then you will do just that. Sometimes you overdo the redirects and consequently, the site becomes slower. You could go and disable them or you can just simply reset the site and then pick and choose which plugins you want to keep and which you want to discard.
What to use when resetting a site?
First you have to go and find a tool that will do this for you so that you do not have to go through the troubles of doing it manually. It is much simpler to just download a plugin that can do this with one click (you have to confirm the reset three times, but you get the idea).
It just so happens that I know of a plugin that does just that and even more. The plugin is called WP Reset. It does exactly what it says it does – it resets WordPress. Of course, you do not have to reset the entire site, but rather you have the ability to reset only a single part of the site that is giving you problems.
It is a powerful tool that even allows you to change between WordPress versions like it is nothing. This is handy, especially if you want to see how the plugin behaves on older and newer version of WordPress.
It is an amazing time saving tool as well. If you were to reset the site manually (not using this tool) then after you are done resetting it, you have to manually install everything from scratch just so you can test the plugin on a fresh site. With this tool, however, you simply choose what you want to reset, and BOOM, it is done without the need to reinstall certain segments of the site!
Your themes, plugins and so on are not deleted, they are just simply disabled. This is great because when the reset is finished (it literally takes a couple of seconds) you can simply go and re-enable them. And even that can be simplified if you go and tell WP Reset to simply enable the themes and plugins after the reset is finished.
So, if you are going to be changing and resetting the site multiple times over a plugins development, then all of these small things add up to make the whole experience and process more engaging and time efficient.
Don’t worry that you will reset your entire site by accident because the tool has a failsafe. You first have to type in the word “reset” in a check box in order to begin the process of resetting.
How to reset WordPress?
Well, it is as simple as saying one, two, three. You simply download and install the tool and just follow the steps. You have multiple options on what you want to reset and how you want it to look like after the reset (whether you want to have the plugins and themes enabled after the restart).
The same goes if you want to reset your blog or something of the sorts. Just simply go and choose what you want to reset in regard to the blog and presto, you are done!
If you really want to reset everything, and I mean everything, then you should pick the “Nuclear Reset” option. To quote the developers: Need to be sure everything is gone? All options, all files, all custom database entries and tables? Then hit the nuclear reset button.
The whole point of it all is that it’s fast, simple and reliable in what it does. It provides all the things that a developer wants in a tool that wields such power.
Conclusion
Never have I thought that I will be in the need of such a tool. At first, I was afraid that I would mess things up, but then when I saw that it is foolproof then I have changed my mind.
It really means a lot when you can do such powerful commands with a simple push of a button. It helped me a great deal when I was new to WordPress and still learning the ropes, especially when I didn’t know how to fix a problem in regard to a certain plugin.
If you are a developer wanting to test your plugin as fast as humanly possible then this really is a must have!