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Display Environment Type

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Display Environment Type

by Stoil Dobreff

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Description

WordPress 5.5 introduces a way to differentiate between environment types (development, staging, production). This plugin displays your site’s environment type on the admin bar.

More info about the new feature

To gain more control, and setting environment and other values directly from the WP admin (if wp-config.php is writable), install our plugin WP Control

Recommended Plugins

  • WP Control – is a powerful plugin designed for WordPress sites with extensive error logs. It allows administrators to check what is going on on their WP sites. It also has built-in: Cron manager, Transient manager (DB based) and Plugins Version Switcher directly from the plugins page.
  1. Install and activate using the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
  1. Admin bar display (production).

    Admin bar display (production).

  2. Admin bar display (staging).

    Admin bar display (staging).

  3. Admin bar display (development).

    Admin bar display (development).

  4. Admin bar display (custom).

    Admin bar display (custom).

  5. The 'at a glance' widget.

    The 'at a glance' widget.

Can I set custom color for my environment types?

The colors are currently fixed. This was done to avoid possible confusion. If the colors were user-configurable, they would need to be set up exactly the same on all related servers.

What will happen when I define custom environment types?

Custom types were originally added in WordPress 5.5, but they were removed in 5.5.1. This plugin no longer supports them.

Why is there no display on the front-end of the site, for logged-in users with the admin bar enabled?

There’s no display for non-admin users. The reasoning behind this is that in most cases, you’d probably not want to bother logged-in subscribers with a bright-colored box on their admin bar. For the same reason, the environment type is also hidden for subscribers in wp-admin.

For additional control, you can use the ‘det_display_environment_type’ filter hook:

function rt_det_display_filter( $display ){
    // Disable the environment type display for user ID 2.
    return ( get_current_user_id() !== 2 );
}
add_filter( 'det_display_environment_type', 'rt_det_display_filter' );

Helpful Reminder

By ericsackett on April 9, 2025

Easy to see reminder of which version of the site I'm on.

This is what a developer needs

By drinkmaker on January 24, 2024

Five stars for Display Environment Type!

Huge thanks to the author for creating this gem. The plugin might be small, but it's incredibly useful, doing exactly what you'd expect without any unnecessary clutter. No settings hassle – just install and get to work seamlessly.

Yes, you are working on the live site - PAY ATTENTION!

By Bjarne Oldrup (oldrup) on April 26, 2022

I switch a LOT between production sites and a clone made for testing, when creating a real staging environment is not possible. More than once, I have unintentionally made changes to the wrong instance of the site. That's no fun. Display Environment Type makes it very clear what I'm working on, when I should pay extra attention. Recommended.

Nice little helper

By Bego Mario Garde (pixolin) on August 21, 2020

Have you ever accidentally added test content to a productive website? You can now define a constant in your wp-config.php to distinguish between development, staging and productuion sites. To make this visible, this lean but helpful plugin adds an indicator to the admin bar and dashboard widget which helps to avoid mistakes as adding "Lorem ipsum" to your productive site. 🙂 Plugin works like a charm. No settings needed. Install, activate and feel happy.

1.5.0 (2024-07-01)

  • Code improvements, shows the constants value regardless of the WP_DEBUG constant value. WP Control plugin introduced

1.4.0 (2024-04-07)

  • Code improvements and UI fixes – showing icon on mobile, and set colors on At a Glance. Added WP version in drop-down menu.

1.3.5 (2025-04-04)

  • Added a drop-down submenu with WP constants and their values (enabled / disabled).

1.3.4 (2024-12-20)

  • Added a filter hook to modify the envronment’s display name (thanks @erniecom).

1.3.3 (2024-07-05)

  • Internationalization improvements by @tekapo.

1.3.2 (2023-11-10)

  • Assessibility improvements by @mrwweb.

1.3.1 (2022-03-30)

  • Skip loading of the CSS file on the front end if toolbar is hidden (thanks @tflight).

1.3 (2020-08-25)

  • Code refactor (thank you, @markjaquith).
  • Environment type now hidden by default for subscribers.

1.2.1 (2020-08-23)

  • Removes the distracting hover effect (thank you, @markjaquith).
  • Hardening against XSS (props @markjaquith).

1.2 (2020-08-21)

  • Adds a filter hook to allow you to determine whether the environmment is displayed.

1.1 (2020-08-21)

  • Added a conditional front-end display (admins only).
  • Improved plugin initialization.

1.0.2 (2020-08-21)

  • Removed the (unstyled) display on the front-end admin bar.
  • Added a FAQ section to the readme file.

1.0.1 (2020-08-21)

  • Fixed the plugin description and plugin URI.

1.0 (2020-08-20)

  • Initial release.
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