Web Testing Strategy

[Pheasantww]

Hello all new to the forum,

I have an existing web that I want to make changes to like adding a
better shopping cart etc. What is a good strategy for overhauling a
web site?, developing a "Testing Ground", if you will?

1) Having a testing ground that is Disk Based? Making the changes in
FP then testing it, then coping the files to the server based web? or

2) Have the testing ground as a server based web? if this,

- Does this require a second domain to do the testing? Then
transferring the files over?

- or Can the test web be a sub web of the existing web? If this, How
is that done?

Thanks,

[Kevey]

When I did some overhaulin I just ftp'd my whole site to my local computer and then tweaked it there. Before I re-launched I put it back on the server in a test directory so I could check download times and make sure there were no quirks.

When that all checked out I just moved the renovated site back to my root directory on the server.

[felgall]

If your site has server side scripts then the best solution is to set up a web server on your own computer so you can test all of your changes there before uploading to the web.

[Pheasantww]

Kevey & felgall, Thanks for your comments so far....

felgall, How can I tell if my "site has server side scripts"?

And If I do, is setting up a Web Server on my computer just a matter of copying my public_html to my hard drive, working on the files then "publishing" them back to my host server?

As you can tell, I am a rookie at web building.

Thanks for your patience...

[matt1776]

If i want to test a site i will usually just create a folder in the root dir and throw everything in there. That way i can see how the pages will look/feel/react live. when im ready to publish id move them back to the root level.

Server side scripts are things like php, perl, or anything else you might have used to do CGI - i.e. taking information via forms, database interface, etc.