Disables specified WordPress plugins when doing local development

disable-plugins-when-doing-local-dev.php

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Disable plugins when doing local dev
Description: If the WP_LOCAL_DEV constant is true, disables plugins that you specify
Version: 0.1
License: GPL version 2 or any later version
Author: Mark Jaquith
Author URI: http://coveredwebservices.com/
*/

class CWS_Disable_Plugins_When_Local_Dev {
	static $instance;
	private $disabled = array();

	/**
	 * Sets up the options filter, and optionally handles an array of plugins to disable
	 * @param array $disables Optional array of plugin filenames to disable
	 */
	public function __construct( Array $disables = NULL) {
		// Handle what was passed in
		if ( is_array( $disables ) ) {
			foreach ( $disables as $disable )
				$this->disable( $disable );
		}

		// Add the filter
		add_filter( 'option_active_plugins', array( $this, 'do_disabling' ) );

		// Allow other plugins to access this instance
		self::$instance = $this;
	}

	/**
	 * Adds a filename to the list of plugins to disable
	 */
	public function disable( $file ) {
		$this->disabled[] = $file;
	}

	/**
	 * Hooks in to the option_active_plugins filter and does the disabling
	 * @param array $plugins WP-provided list of plugin filenames
	 * @return array The filtered array of plugin filenames
	 */
	public function do_disabling( $plugins ) {
		if ( count( $this->disabled ) ) {
			foreach ( (array) $this->disabled as $plugin ) {
				$key = array_search( $plugin, $plugins );
				if ( false !== $key )
					unset( $plugins[$key] );
			}
		}
		return $plugins;
	}
}

/* Begin customization */

if ( defined( 'WP_LOCAL_DEV' ) && WP_LOCAL_DEV ) {
	new CWS_Disable_Plugins_When_Local_Dev( array( 'vaultpress.php' ) );
	/*
		For programmatic disabling, you can initialize the object (e.g. as $_localdev) then do:
		$_localdev->disable( 'vaultpress.php' );
	*/
}

Reminds me of something I did, where you set an array of plugins that cannot be deactivated in Admin. Basically turns regular plugins into MU via a similar array manipulation to what you did.

Thanx for this!

The "Get it here" link in your blog post mentioning this plugin has an incorrect URL to this gist...probably because github changed the structure of gist URLs since you wrote that post. You should update that link.

See my fork of Rarst's fork of this, enable-disable-plugins-when-doing-local-dev.php that adds the capability to enable as well as disable plugins locally.

Hi Jacques, thanks for this. I also updated it for the opposite (to activate be media from production on a dev).

Perhaps you should change the link in your blog post "WordPress local dev tips: DB & plugins" to this gist too. The link in that post is now broken and probably should point to this gist.