Still relatively new to Wordpress. I created a basic wordpress site for myself on a local XAMPP server. Using the Duplicator plugin I was able to move my local site to my live host with no problems. From everything I've read so far, the best practice for making changes to your website is to test on your local server and then make those same changes on your live site once you know it won't break anything.
My problem is that I'm planning on making lots of large changes and expanding my site a bit so I really don't want to do everything twice. What is the best way to download my live site back to my local, make my changes, and then upload them back to my live server?
Everything I've searched for in relation to this question is just how to use Duplicator to move your site to somewhere that doesn't already have a site installed, which in this case, I've got versions of the site on both my local and live servers already. Do I need to overwrite? Create a new folder and start over? I can do that on my local side, but not sure how that would work going back to live...
And as far as the database goes, is it better to overwrite or create a new one? I was able to just create everything new on the local side, new /test-site/ folder and new database, but I feel like that will get rather complicated if I try to move it back. Or should I just go ahead and make my changes live and hope everything works correctly and there won't be any issues like a newbie (even though I am a newb)?
I'm using Hostgator Cpanel on the live server side. And Windows 10, XAMPP on the local server.
Any help is greatly appreciated! The more simple directions the better. As well as any advice on workflow to set this type of thing up.
There is no big deal in editing your live site as long as you know what you're doing and you're keeping backups to date.
Anyway, if you want to go with what you have described above. Again, you don't need to download your live site again and again but make sure you don't do any changes on live site and so that your local site is always ahead of the live.
For me, an easy way is to use the All-in-One WP Migration plugin with which you can migrate from local to live within 5 minutes without the need to delete the current site, run the process like Duplicator does.
Related
I had a live site onto my local server and made some changes in a static page of a custom theme. And now I want to push the edited files onto the live site. I surfed a bit on how to push local site theme onto live site but all answers were to sent whole site files and database replacing the current live site.
Is there anyway to sent only the Theme files onto the live site, a bit beginner friendly ?
As I haven't made any changes that might affect it's database I don't wanna replace everything in the live server.
By made some changes I guess you mean you edited one or more php files (or maybe css files) directly on your local site, then saved your edits, then hit refresh on a browser to see your changes.
That time-honored workflow is sometimes called hot-site editing. Your local site isn't very hot, but it is a live site.
You know which files you edited. So now it's time for the hot-site-patch workflow. Take the files you changed and drop them into your public site, patching the previous copies.
That's how you do it. Does it feel risky and error-prone? Like you could mess up the live site and annoy your site visitors? That's because it IS risky and error prone.
You say you don't want to copy the whole site. But that's the way your kind of changes are usually handled. There are plugins which help you rig up parallel staging and live sites. They usually have a big button marked "push staging to live" for when you're ready to do it.
Or you could put your custom theme in github or some other SaaS revision control system, and pull it live on your web server when you have changes to roll out.
I have a WordPress site made several months ago for testing.
There I wanted to "have fun" a bit and recreate it. The goal being to learn new tools, I decided to recreate it via the "Local" software to take it in hand and test it. I have now created this entire site locally.
I would like to know how I can use this local site and transfer it to replace my current site (which is therefore the old version).
Do you have the steps to do this? Could you explain to me?
Thank you to everyone who took the time to help me.
Good evening.
I don't know if I understand quite well what you want to do, but I supposed that you want to upload your website from local to online? If this what you wanna do I explain you:
You have to have a server with database and a domain hired. The domain has to point to the server IP.
Once you have it, you have to export the local database. You can do it with some plugin like Migrate DB, etc. to convert de url's to the new ones.
You have to import this database to the database from the server.
Once you have done this, you have to upload the programming files through FTP, SFTP to the server.
Important: you have to change wp-config.php file with the parameters from the new database.
Once the website is installed, I recommend you to go to the new admin site and save the permanentlinks.
And that's all.
I am trying to set up a development site on the sub-domain development.warriorsliveon.org of warriorsliveon.org.
This is a WordPress site and I copied the plug-ins, themes, and upload folders to the new WordPress installation on the sub-domain. I also copied the database from warriorsliveon.org, did a find and replace of warriorsliveon.org to development.warriorsliveon.org.
When I go to the site , http://development.warriorsliveon.org. it either switches automatically to the follow address, or other times, lets me log into WordPress, but then goes to this address.
http://development.development.www.development.development.warriorsliveon.org/
Anyone have any ideas where I should look to resolve this issue?
I'm happy to post any code, just not sure at this point what would be useful. Any help is appreciated!
Changing the Domain Name that your Wordpress installation runs under is more complicated than just editing one or two files. The best approach is to use a tool like https://interconnectit.com/products/search-and-replace-for-wordpress-databases/
If you download this free tool and upload to your server then it does a batch find-and-replace across every single table in your Wordpress database.
So, for example, replace http://www.warriorsliveon.org with http://development.warriorsliveon.org
You can do a dry run and it will show you all the replaces that it will make. Once you're happy then click the "live run" button and all the changes are made.
I use this tool all the time when I am moving a site from my local machine to the live server. I also use the exact same approach when migrating a site from http to https
I have never used wordpress before, My boss has given me access to a site which was created using wordpress. then He asked me how I am going to make sure I don't break the site accidentally, I told him I would create a backup on my local computer so that all my changes can be restored if I mess up.
I have the wordpress dashboard up. How do I back up EVERYTHING, I hear there are two separate things I need to back up? someone please help me.
PS: I don't think he would like me to do this with out the use of additional plugins.
There are two separate things:
Your website database. Simply export all the MySQL tables from the database, which is dedicated to your site.
The site files, everything you've got under WordPress folder, /wp-includes, /wp-content, /wp-admin directories and all files.
This should do it all. You can test on your localhost to make sure it's everything that's necessary.
You can backup your WordPress either from your hosting account (preferable) or from your WP dashboard.
You need to backup two things - all the files (the root of your Wordpress installation) and the database for your WP installation.
Since you only have access to the dashboard, you have to use plugin for this.
Two of my favorite free backup plugins are:
BackupWordpress - https://wordpress.org/plugins/backupwordpress/
BackWPup - https://wordpress.org/plugins/backwpup/
They are intuitive and easy to work with, so you shouldn't have issues.
If you go to the dashboard go to "tools" in the left toolbar. Select "export". On the export page you can report that you want to export "all content". This will get you the items that you need from the server.
Then you need to install wordpress to your machine. You can download that from: https://wordpress.org/download/
Once you have that on your machine you also need a local server to run it and test it. I like WAMP, but it partially depends on your operating system. I suggest the following video to get you up to speed on how to get the localhost set up and running: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snFzbPm_RUE
Hope this helps!
I have a live site built in Wordpress at www.site.com/name1.
The client wants a new theme. I've heavily modified the current theme with custom code and will need to do so with the new theme, all without interrupting the live site, so this wont be as simple as moving the site from one theme to another. Therefore I think I need to create a duplicate of the site at www.site.com/name2 because the content will all be the same. Doing this will give me a place to work on the redesign.
What is the best way to go about doing this? Should I have both use the same DB or not? When I get ready to go live should i simple redirect the domain to /name2 or move everything at /name2 to /name1?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Chris
If you want the same Data you can use the same DB but there is somes Options Tables dans Meta tables in the Wordpress DB, then if you change parameters on one site it will affect the other.
If you just recode the Theme without touching anything in the configuration you can use the same DB to test your theme with valid datas, but if you think you'll have to change paramaters i would prefer duplicate the Production DB to a Test DB to secure the production Website.
When you go live you'll just have to move your theme to the production website and copy your Option and Meta Tables.
If you're at a point where you're having clients, you should definitely develop locally. This will free you from the trouble of mistakingly messing up the production site.
Install Apache, MySQL and PHP on your own machine.
Copy database and files from production.
Change anything you'd like without exposing it to the Internet.
Upload your new, tailor-suited theme to production when it's ready to go live.