Trigger Browsersync

Description

Integrates WordPress with Browsersync to trigger events like reload when you edit pages.

The plugin also only triggers a reload for now. If you have requests or ideas for other functionality, get in touch.

Since you (should) disable this plugin on production sites, the WordPress stats won’t be reliable – if you find the plugin useful I’d really appreciate it if you’d let me know with a quick email or message!

Triggers

By default the plugin will trigger a reload on these actions:

• save_post – Editing posts/pages/custom posts etc
• added_option – Changing settings
• attachment_updated – Editing media fields (caption etc)
• updated_postmeta – Covers many things, particularly regenerating media thumbnails. Some meta_fields are ignored (see trigger_browsersync_irrelevant_meta_keys)
• activated_plugin
• deactivated_plugin
• delete_widget

you can customise this as well as other Browsersync settings using filters:

add_filter('trigger_browsersync_reload_actions', function($filters) {
    // Remove a default. Bear in mind that one action you take (e.g. saving a page)
    // may trigger more than one hook.
    unset($filters['save_post']);
    // Add your own. The key name lets other filters remove it (like the line above)
    $filters['wp_logout'] = 'wp_logout';
    return $filters;
});

Ignoring Meta Keys

Not all meta_key updates (triggered by updated_postmeta) have any impact on the front-end functioning of your site. You can customise which meta_key values are ignored with the trigger_browsersync_irrelevant_meta_keys filter:

add_filter('trigger_browsersync_irrelevant_meta_keys', function($filters) {
    // Remove a default.
    unset($filters['_edit_lock']);
    // Add your own. The key name lets other filters remove it (like the line above)
    $filters['_edit_lock'] = '_edit_lock';
    return $filters;
});

Configuration with Filters

The default Browsersync settings will be used (https://localhost:3000) but you can use filters to change them. The filters are used every time the trigger is activated so you don’t need to set them before instanciating the class.

add_filter('trigger_browsersync_protocol', function(){ return 'https'; } );
add_filter('trigger_browsersync_host', function(){ return 'dev.server'; } );
add_filter('trigger_browsersync_port', function(){ return '4321'; } );

Or you can specify the whole URL which will cause the others to be ignored, but don’t include a trailing slash.

add_filter('trigger_browsersync_url', function(){ return 'https://localhost:3000'; } );

Environmental Configuration

Since you probably only want Browsersync on your development or staging site, the plugin will do nothing once you activate it it in WordPress.

To make it work, you’ll want to create a file to activate it. See Installation for instructions.

Logging Activity

Trigger Browsersync can log events to the WordPress log – this is especially useful for development on the plugin when you want to add or exclude a new event from triggering an action.

To enable logging add this filter to your enable-trigger-browsersync.php file (see Installation);

add_filter('trigger_browsersync_log_events', '__return_true');

Installation

This plugin sends signals to an existing and running BrowserSync setup. You need to install Browsersync and integrate it with your workflow first – how do to that is outside the scope of the plugin but you can get more information at BrowserSync.io.

Install the plugin by uploading or via the plugin option in WordPress – the same as any other plugin.

The plugin will do nothing unless you create an instance of TriggerBrowsersync somewhere.

You probably don’t want the integration on your production server, which means you don’t want the code to instanciate saved in your repo – I would recommend you create a file in mu-plugins with the code below, and then tell your version control to ignore the file.

<?php
add_action( 'plugins_loaded', function(){ // Trigger after the TriggerBrowsersync plugin has loaded
    if ( class_exists( 'TriggerBrowsersync' ) ) { // Check the TriggerBrowsersync plugin loaded correctly
        // Add any configuration filters you may need here.

        // Activate the integration by creating an instance.
        new TriggerBrowsersync();
    }
} );

Step by Step Example Installation

• Create wp-content/mu-plugins/enable-trigger-browsersync.php (you may need to create the mu-plugins directory)
• Paste the code above in
• Edit .gitignore and add wp-content/mu-plugins/enable-trigger-browsersync.php

All Hooks and Filters

Use filters to customise settings:

• trigger_browsersync_protocol – set the protocol for Gulp Watch (probably http or https). Defaults to http.
• trigger_browsersync_host – set the host port for Gulp Watch. Defaults to localhost
• trigger_browsersync_port – set the port for Gulp Watch. Defaults to 3000
• trigger_browsersync_url – Set the whole URL instead of the parts above (e.g. https://localhost:3000)
• trigger_browsersync_reload_actions – add/change the actions on which to trigger a reload. See source for defaults.
• trigger_browsersync_log_events – Return true to enable log output (to the standard log)
• trigger_browsersync_irrelevant_meta_keys – Lets you ignore particular meta_keys or options
• trigger_browsersync_irrelevant_meta_key_regex – Lets you ignore particular meta_keys or options if they match preg_match

You can also hook on to some actions if you wish:

• trigger_browsersync_before – Called just before we trigger anything
• trigger_browsersync_after – Called just before we trigger anything
• trigger_browsersync_before_reload – Called just before we trigger a reload
• trigger_browsersync_after_reload – Called just after we trigger a reload – the reload won’t yet be done

FAQ

I’ve installed the plugin, but it’s not doing anything.

• Have you followed the installation instructions? The plugin will do nothing without them.
  • If you’re not using the default Browser Sync settings, you’ll need to add filters to override them.

Reviews

What a time saver!

mark l chaves December 28, 2019 2 replies

Thank goodness we have the Trigger Browsersync WordPress plugin by Sami Greenbury. And, I love the way it piggy backs onto Browsersync (loose coupling). You will need to follow the install instructions carefully. And, the big prerequisite is knowing how to set up Browsersync of course. Knowing Gulp would be even better. If you aren’t comfortable wading through PHP and JavaScript, this plugin might be too intimidating. But, I highly recommend giving it a try because it will save you tons of dev time. Assuming you have a local WordPress dev env and are working on a lot of WordPress sites. I did find a teeny bug (typo) that can be easily fixed. If you run into it too, then change “emssage” to “message” on line 275 in the trigger-browsersync.php file. I posted about this in the support forum. If you have any issues at all with the set up, I suggest turning on your PHP debugging and telling the Trigger Browsersync plugin to log events via a filter. See the plugin details page. A couple FYIs 1) This plugin does not seem to watch PHP and CSS updates. I have Gulp file that instantiates Browsersync reloads my browser on any PHP and CSS file changes. This setup runs perfectly with this plugin. I didn’t have to change a thing in my Gulp file. 2) There has not been any plugin updates for 9 months at the time of this post.

Very useful

certainlyakey August 15, 2019 1 reply

Strangely it doesn’t work if you add the new TriggerBrowsersync(); call to a theme’s functions.php (i added it to an include that is git ignored), but it does work if you do as the author said, put it into mu-plugins. Excellent plugin, thanks!

Fantastic!

octoninjacat March 3, 2018

This is fantastic! I’m using this with the JointsWP theme and it works flawlessly. Definitely a must use plugin!

Contributors & Developers

Changelog

0.8.6

• Tested with WordPress 6

0.8.5

• Tested with WordPress 5.3
• Fixed typo bug.

0.8.4

• Tested with WordPress 5.1

0.8.3

• Don’t trigger reload on cron updates.
• Handle logging non-string value types better.

0.8

• Fixed bug where non-string option values would throw a fatal error

0.7

• Added trigger_browsersync_irrelevant_meta_key_regex filter to let us ignore meta keys or options based on a regex match. Initial value excludes any meta_key or option mame containing ‘cache’
• Fixed bug whereby options being changed were not logged properly
• Added the trigger_browsersync_irrelevant_meta_keys to options names
• Added updated_option to compliment existing added_option

0.6

• Added delete_widget hook

0.5

• Initial release with reload functionality, custom settings and customisable hook/trigger list.