Import a demo - Reign docs

What the 32 Reign demos give you, what importing one does to an existing site, and how to run an import from the admin or WP-CLI.

A demo import gives you a working Reign site in one step: pages, menus, widgets, sample content, and the settings that make it look like the demo you picked. It is the fastest way to see how a Reign site is put together, and the fastest way to start from something rather than nothing.

Imports run through the Wbcom Theme Demo Installer, a separate free plugin.

Import onto a fresh site

This is the one rule that matters.

A demo import writes into your database. It brings in its own pages, menus and options, and it runs a URL search and replace across the imported content when it finishes. On a site that already has content, you end up with the demo’s material sitting alongside yours, and the tidy-up is worse than starting over.

Use a demo import on a new install, or on a staging copy you are happy to throw away. If you must run one on a site with content, take a full database and files backup first, and be clear that you are choosing to merge two sites.

What you need

Requirement	Minimum
WordPress	5.0
PHP	7.2
PHP memory limit	256M
PHP extensions	cURL, ZIP

Reign must be the active theme. Imports also pull in whichever plugins the demo depends on, so the site needs to be able to reach wbcomdesigns.com and wordpress.org.

What is on offer

There are 32 Reign demos. They fall into a few families, and the name tells you the stack:

Community. BuddyPress Community, BuddyPress Social, BuddyPress Dating, BuddyBoss Community, BuddyBoss Pro, PeepSo Community, Reign Church Community, Business Directory.

Courses. Five LearnDash builds, including plain LearnDash School and LearnDash Teaching, plus WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads and BuddyPress pairings. Two LifterLMS builds, one Sensei and one Tutor LMS, each with a BuddyPress or BuddyBoss variant.

Marketplaces. Five Dokan builds covering Marketplace, Pro, Shop, Multi-Vendor and Interior, plus WCFM Marketplace, WC Vendors and a WooCommerce Fashion store.

Jobs. Job Portal and Career Hub.

BuddyBoss Platform pairings. Separate demos combining BuddyBoss Platform with LearnDash, Tutor LMS, Sensei, Dokan or WCFM.

Each demo lists the plugins it needs before you start, so you can see what the stack costs you in dependencies. Some require commercial plugins, such as LearnDash or Dokan Pro. The installer reports those rather than installing them, and you supply them yourself.

Import from the admin

Install and activate the Wbcom Theme Demo Installer.
Make sure Reign is the active theme.
Open the demo installer from the WordPress admin.
Pick a demo. Check its required plugin list before continuing.
Start the import and leave the tab open.

The import runs in stages: it installs and activates the required plugins, pulls the demo package, imports the database tables, brings in the uploads, then finishes with a URL search and replace so the imported links point at your domain rather than the demo’s.

On a community demo it also activates the imported members, so the site has people in it rather than empty directories.

Large demos take a while. A timeout partway through is the most common problem, which is why the memory and time limits above matter.

Import from WP-CLI

Version 3.2.0 of the installer adds a command, which is the better route on a server where a browser import keeps timing out:

wp wbcom-demo list                      # every demo, with its required plugin count
wp wbcom-demo plugins <demo-key>        # what the demo needs, without installing
wp wbcom-demo plugins <demo-key> --install --activate
wp wbcom-demo install <demo-key>        # the full import
wp wbcom-demo status                    # active theme, import state, plugin stack

wp wbcom-demo plugins without a flag is a dry run, so you can see the stack before committing to it. install accepts --skip-plugins and --skip-media when you only want part of the import, and --yes to skip the confirmation.

The command runs as the first administrator unless you pass --user, which matters because the import checks capabilities as it goes.

After the import

Work down the Brand your site checklist to replace the demo’s logo, colours and typography with yours. The demo is a starting point, not a finished site, and the fastest way to look like everyone else is to leave it exactly as imported.

If the import fails or finishes half-done, see demo import failed.