WordPress 4 – Install Plugins on Localhost

The WordPress development team has released Version 4.0 Beta 2! Since this version will result in the release of the next edition of Winning With WordPress Basics, I've been spending time learning all about the new features. When I setup a new version of WordPress, especially a beta version, I create a new site in my MacBook Pro's development environment.

The beta installation went well. It's identical to the current version of WordPress with one distinction. You are given a choice of which language to use. When this screen appears, select your language of choice and the installation continues.

When the install completed, I logged in and the admin area displayed as expected. I saw that there was already a plugin requiring an update. Turns out it was Akismet. I went through the process to update the plugin and encountered this screen:

I've never seen this screen before so it took me by surprise. When you're running on localhost, there is no server name to enter. Luckily, there is a workaround. Adding the following code to your wp-config.php file sets the ‘FS_METHOD’ to ‘direct’ to allow you to update WordPress Core and install themes directly from the theme repository to your localhost.

WordPress codex explains FS_METHOD this way:

FS_METHOD forces the filesystem method. It should only be “direct", “ssh2", “ftpext", or “ftpsockets". Generally, you should only change this if you are experiencing update problems. If you change it and it doesn't help, change it back/remove it. Under most circumstances, setting it to ‘ftpsockets’ will work if the automatically chosen method does not.
I'm thankful the direct method worked for me. If you have problems with this in your installation, keep trying different methods until one works. Hopefully you'll find one and won't be condemned to installing plugin updates manually.
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