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Best practice for developing TXP sites.
I’ve just started using TXP and am wondering how you guys go about developing TXP sites. Do you develop on a testing server then move to a live server? This is what I generally do with static sites but obviously with TXP, the site is in the database. Do you develop the site then copy the database? Is this even possible? Otherwise, wha do you guys do?
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Re: Best practice for developing TXP sites.
Without real dev (no PHP, anything like that) I “develop” my sites online, most of the time on my future hosting. That way I don’t get crap from using a different configuration (mostly with TXP it’s the SQL charset that can get pretty annoying), I’m sure I have the requisites, I can test speed and reliability if it’s a new hosting or more likely a new plan.
If i plan to need a big hosting plan, I usually use one I already have, or buy a cheap one, then move to a big one when in production.
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Re: Best practice for developing TXP sites.
I develop new sites directly on the target server inside a development folder while keeping a placeholder page on the live site and move them to the live folder upon completion. This requires almost no reconfiguration besides one entry in config.php and is usually a matter of minutes.
Subsequent changes are made on the live site if they are somehow limited with respect to the overall experience. Always have a backup at hand, though. It’s just to easy to omit a necessary bracket or the like.
I almost never edit style sheets and page template inside the backend forms but use a syntax coloring and code folding desktop editor instead (PSpad or Programmer’s Notepad in my case). It’s just more convenient and concise.
Style changes are tested beforehand with Chris Pederick’s Web Developer Extension, one of my favourite toys.
Plugins are tested on a development server running an up-to-date vanilla Textpattern install and some test postings, comments and the like.
Last edited by wet (2006-03-16 09:44:23)
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Re: Best practice for developing TXP sites.
IMHO the easiest way is: develop in sub-directory on the live server and later move it to the root of the site. That way you prevent any issues related to different mysql-versions etc. (We are working on making import/export of data easier across different installations for the next major release)
People familiar with Apache, PHP, Mysql will probably want to set-up a staging-server anyhow, that runs totally independent of the live site. Allowing you to run and test updates, changes, plugins etc. in a safe test-environment.
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Re: Best practice for developing TXP sites.
Sencer wrote:
(We are working on making import/export of data easier across different installations for the next major release)
If you solve all the charset issues, including moving MySQL 3/4.0 to/from MySQL =>4.1, I’ll think I’ll propose to one of you, if not all :-p
People familiar with Apache, PHP, Mysql will probably want to set-up a staging-server anyhow, that runs totally independent of the live site. Allowing you to run and test updates, changes, plugins etc. in a safe test-environment.
Very familiar with it. Maybe.
I must stress that on the french forum right here, something like half the big issues and problems relate to using a local EasyPackageThing, WAMPme, or other local package. Setting up a server configuration is a professionnal job.
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Re: Best practice for developing TXP sites.
Thnks for the suggestions. Can any of you guys have a look at this problem please – http://forum.textpattern.com/viewtopic.php?id=15292
No answers as yet – I noticed on a total clean install today that nothing comes up from browsing categories. Couls this be due to the install not being in the root directory or is it some other issue?
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Re: Best practice for developing TXP sites.
wet wrote:
I develop new sites directly on the target server inside a development folder while keeping a placeholder page on the live site and move them to the live folder upon completion. This requires almost no reconfiguration besides one entry in config.php and is usually a matter of minutes.
I’m assuming you would change this line of code in config.php to reflect the correct path to the root directory when ready?
$txpcfg[‘txpath’] = ‘/home2/propelle/public_html/testing/RDP/textpattern’;
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Re: Best practice for developing TXP sites.
Yes. And a change in the preferences panel for files and image path, eventually. Depends.
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