I have a client that has a website built in the Expression Engine (this also applies for a WordPress site I have the same requests for).
Basically the client wants an offline version that is distributable say on a cd or usb drive. This also needs to be dummy proof that it's basically a double click and voila site is open and offline and functional.
Please let me know of any applications or thoughts you may have on ways to achieve this.
The only thing I have come across is using XAMPP but this then has to be installed on every computer before hand and files to be transferred to the htdocs folder before use - as this is not dummy proof and a bit risky I can't see this as the solution.
I'd do it like:
export everything as pure HTML, CSS, JavaScript and media assets.
create the AutoPlay just like any CD-ROM to open the index.html file.
the AutoPlay should have Windows/OSX versions.
create some JS functions to check for network connection and pull updated content from the live site.
Related:
How to create an "hybrid" usb stick?
Resources for building public information displays using HTML/CSS?
Related
I am new to Git and want to use Github for version control on a website that I have already created but will still need to modify now and in the future. My institution uses Gitlab and I would like to make this repository available to them internally, but I also want to host the repository for our team's website privately on my Github. This is mainly to use Github copilot, have an easy integration with VSCode, and grow my proof of work on Github.
I would like to make an automated pipeline as follows:
VSCode/IDE ( only direct development environment) → auto push to Github (viewable: private) → sync to Gitlab (viewable: internal organization) → modify Plesk file manager (my host control panel, integrated if needed) → Wordpress (live changes auto-deployed due to the Plesk modification)
The idea is I would just push commits locally from my IDE/ VSCode and have auto-deployment on the website with Github and Gitlab functioning as intermediaries for version control and internal organizational access.
(For reference: Right now, I am using Plesk to modify the code on the site, but I have to copy and paste back and forth with VSCode because I perfer its feature rich environment and very low level "versioning" by just saving the file. It's an extremely inefficient system currently which does not tolerate errors well and it doesn't allow for organizational access. The site isn't yet live, it is still "Coming Soon" but I will need to retain all of the files currently on the site and be able to modify them before and after the site goes live from now on.)
Does anyone have experience setting up integrations/automations like the one outlined above? Do you have any tips or know of any guides/tutorials to creating such a workflow? I'm new too all of these technologies other than the IDE, so I don't want to mess anything up while setting it all up.
Thanks wonderful humans! :D
I've made accounts for all technologies listed above but haven't started the integration process on any of them because I can't find a consistent best place to start given that I already have a fully developed website. I don't know if I should copy Plesk into Git, which I should start with, etc. I really need a step by step. Thank you again!
I have a simple Wordpress website that is created using twelve twenty. I need to transfer it from server to my PC to be able to edit it and transfer it back to server. Now that I copied wordpress directory from server to my PC it asks me to reinstall it. How can I do it? Am I missing something? Is it possible to work on website locally and once it is done transger it to the server?
Reason for doing this are:
-don't want to loss data for wrong doing things.
-have a copy of website on local machine.
-easier to work on the local machine offline rather than bing online and accssing the server.
From my point of view , i would suggest u to back-up full website and database from server [every hosting control panels has option to backup same]
Connect via ftp and edit ur files.. there to make lots of changes when u want to move from local to server or server to local.
cheers!!!
Editing the files on a live site directly is a terrible, terrible idea. It invites any number of points of failure. If you're actively developing a site things will break at some point - it's part of the developing process - and you definitely want to break things locally, not on a live site.
There's actually several steps involved, all of which are too long to go into great detail, but here's an overview of what is required along with a few links to get you started. The first time you do it seems laborious, but once you figure it all out it actually only takes 10 minutes.
Firstly you will need a local environment MySQL and PHP environment to install it. As you're on PC look at WAMP; here's a fairly good tutorial on installing it.
If you have a lot of content on the live site you might want to import it into your local environment; you'll need to export the database (probably using PHPMyAdmin) and then import it into your local database. You will need to update a couple of database options so that it points towards your localhost. It's basically the reverse of the process detailed here: you'll be changing your-site.com to localhost:8888. If your site is relatively simple you could skip this stage*
Now you should be able to update your local copy of wp-config.php with the database connect details for your local database (usually it's just localhost for the host name and root for the user and password`). With that in place you should now be able to install WP.
Now that it's installed you can edit away to your heart's content on your local copy, safe in the knowledge that anything you do on your local copy doesn't affect your live copy. When you're ready to push your changes live you can use FTP to copy your local files to your live environment.
* For a lot of projects I don't actually go to the trouble of synching databases - if there's a live site that the client can change the content on it often becomes a futile exercise attempting to synch a database with a moving target. In those instances I'll just use a comprehensive set of test content that contains every conceivable type of content that could possible inserted in to the live site.
your going to love working on your project from your locally. Here's an article I found on wpmudev http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/how-to-install-wordpress-locally-for-pcwindows-with-xampp/ which gives you a step by step guide for PC / Windows.
Hello I am a Appfog beginner and I want to ask if I upload picture/plugins/themes via the wordpress admin. Because appfog does not currently support a persistent file system, all the plugins/pictes/themes not in the source code will be lost. Is there anyway to backup the current live system and include these files in the source code that I upload? The download source code button or the "af pull" command will only download the last source code I uploaded not changes that where made for example when I install a plugin.
You can add a helper php script to your app like this:
https://gist.github.com/4134750
You can manually download single files using af files <appname> /app/<filename> but this would be painfull for your purposes.
You would be much better served by setting up your Wordpress installation to run locally using Mamp or Xampp. Pull your app as it is from AppFog, host it locally using Mamp, making your file system changes, then pushing those changes to AppFog.
Here are a few reasons why making changes locally then updating AppFog apps is better:
If your running multiple instances of your wordpress app, only one of them will get the installed plugin. Installing the plugin locally and pushing insures all instances get the plugin.
Its much faster to develop and test locally and you can see the results of your changes before impacting your live site.
Your live production site will not go down if your plugin install fails or somehow makes an unintended change. This is also true for Wordpress updates, do them local then push to production.
If your have the changes on your local box you can use version control to track and tag releases before updating production.
blue-green deployments become trivial. Have two production apps, a primary and a slave app. Update your code locally then update the slave and test it then promote it to primary by mapping the domain to it. Then you demote the previous primary to slave by unmapping the domain. The slave is always one update older and you can switch back two it if you discover issue with your primary.
Curating your Wordpress apps this way will allow you to take advantage of power the AppFog platform provides.
I found this script "zipit" even better than the "ls" script Sea Comet provided. This will zip up the entire live app directory and then you download it. This way, you can make changes via the wordpress admin, get it all working the way you want it, then use zipit, unzip the file and push it to your app on appfog and the state is totally saved across restarts.
https://github.com/zeroecco/zipit/blob/master/zipit.php
You can find more info in this blog post over on the old PhpFog blog:
http://blog.phpfog.com/2012/11/16/how-to-download-your-entire-application-not-just-code-from-php-fog/
Before I attempt to program the following function myself, I wonder if something already exists.
What I would like to do is click an edit link on my website for a given document, and have that document launch in the native editor on my local machine (via a temporary file mechanism).
When I save the document in the native editor, the document is HTTP PUT back to the website. This can be accomplished by watching the file for writes, or watching the editor process for exit.
This way I can more easily edit documents on the web (instead of going through the download / edit / upload cycle).
My design would work as follows:
Register .webedit files on the local machine.
When a .webedit file is downloaded, launch webedit.exe with the file.
The file contains a URL (http://server/document) which is checked against a security database to ensure we're only opening allowed URLs.
The URL is downloaded to a temporary location.
The temporary file is launched in the native editor.
The file is watched for changes, and uploaded (HTTP PUT) on change detection (or when the editor is closed, if it's not a single-instance multiple-document editor).
Lots of FTP / SCP GUIs have this type of functionality, but I have not been able to find it for the web in general, or a shared library that allows you to plug in to this function.
Has anyone seen a program that does this?
SharePoint works like this.
It's great for managing shared documents in corporate environments.
Users can even checkout/checkin documents & the features are very extensible..you can customize pretty much anything if you know how.
Edit:
Since you're on Linux..i've heard that Alfreco is a great alternative.
I've never used it, but I know a couple organizations using it instead of SharePoint.
It integrates with Microsoft Office as well.
Also, it will definitely be cheaper.
As part of my overall development practices review I'm looking at how best to streamline and automate our ASP.net web development practices.
At the moment, our process goes something like this:
Designer builds frontend as static HTML/CSS on a network share. This gets tweaked until signed off. (e.g. http://myserver/acmesite_design)
Once signed off, developer takes over and copies over frontend HTML/CSS to a new directory on the same server (e.g. http://myserver/acmesite_development)
Multiple developers work on local copy until project is complete.
Developer publishes code to an external publicly accessible server for a client to review/signoff.
Edits made locally based on feedback.
Republish to external server.
Signoff
Developer publishes to live public server
What goes wrong? Lots of things!
Version Control — this is obviously a must and is being introduced
Configuration errors — many many times, there are environment specific paths and variables (such as DB names, image upload directories, web server paths etc. etc.) which incorrectly get copied from local to staging to live etc. etc. with very embarrassing results.
I'm pretty confident I've got no.1 under control. What about configuration management? Does anyone have any advice as to how best to manage an applications structure within asp.net apps to minimize these kinds of problems?
I found that using SVN, NAnt and NUnit with Cruise Control.net solves a lot of the issues you describe. I think it works well for small groups and it's all free. Just need to learn how to use them.
CruiseControl.net helps you put together builds and continuous integration.
Use NAnt or MSBuild to do different environment builds (DEV, TEST, PROD, etc).
http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/Welcome+to+CruiseControl.NET
You got the most important part right. Use version control. Subversion is a good choice.
I usually store configuration along with the site; i.e. when coding a PHP-based site I have a file named config.php-dist. If you want the site to work at all you'll have to copy + edit in all the required parameters (this avoids storing passwords in version control). The -dist file should have reasonable defaults.
Upload directories should be relative if possible; actually all directories should be relative. I'm not experienced in ASP.net, but if it's anything like PHP the current directory is always the directory of the file being requested. If you channel all requests through a single file (i.e. index.asp), then this can even be found programmatically. Or you could find it programmatically by using the equivalent of dirname(____FILE____) in your configuration file.
I also recommend installing IIS (or whatever webserver you are using) on all development workstations (including the designers). Makes life easier as noone can step on each others toes. What one has to do is simply add test hosts to the hosts file (\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts iirc) in addition to adding a site to the local IIS. This plays well with version control (checkout, add site to IIS and hosts-file, edit edit edit commit).
One thing that really helps is making sure you keep your paths relative where you can and centralise them where you can't, so when I've been working with ASP.Net I have tended to use web.config to store any configuration and path related data that can't be found programmatically. It is quite possible to find information like your current application path programmatically through the Request object - it's worth looking in some detail over what the environment makes available to you.
One way to make sure you don't end up on something that is dependent on the path name is having a continuous integration server executing your test suite against your application. Each time this happens you create a random filepath. As soon as someone introduces a dependency on the filepath it will fail.