site testing

[shaunlevett]

Forgive the incredible noobish question.....but... When I'm designing my site and I upload the files, would it then make these changes live automatically? I just want to know how I could test the site before making the changes live? Would I have to get another domain and test it all on their first and then transfer the files over?

[Administrator]

You can test your website using the temporary URL for your server. Temporary URL for the cpanel hosting accounts is similar to http://I.P/~username/

You can contact our livechat support team and ask them to provide temporary URL for your account.

[jon123]

I use 2 different methods when building a site.
I create a folder on the domain called 'test' and put everything in there and use that. As for the index page I call that 'index_test.htm'

When i am happy and want it to go live, I just change the name to index.htm and the folder to whatever, usually I call it 'main'.

The other method i use, especially when i am wanting to test scripts (mainly php), I use something called uniserver. This is a great bit of software that you download. What it does is create a server environment on your pc. It has apache, php, mysql,etc all built into it.
http://www.uniformserver.com/

[shaunlevett]

Yeah, I've also got php and mysql installed on my computer which is handy, but the email function does not seem to work along with other things which would require a more techy tinkering knowledge!!!

So changing the folder name would not affect you FTP'ing the files? or would you also make an identical folder on your computer called test also?

[sysadmin]

From what I know, emails are consisted of user @ some-domain . com, where the domain should to be working/resolving properly without any issues from any server.
Emails will work once the domains start resolving from the server's IP your account is hosted on with WHUK.

[jon123]

Originally Posted by shaunlevett

Yeah, I've also got php and mysql installed on my computer which is handy, but the email function does not seem to work along with other things which would require a more techy tinkering knowledge!!!

So changing the folder name would not affect you FTP'ing the files? or would you also make an identical folder on your computer called test also?

I make an identical folder on the pc, then when ready i change them on the pc and server.
I do however, if i know it is going to take me a few days to get it right, create a robot.txt file to tell the bots not to index that folder, becasue if they happen to come along and index it, it means i have to create redirects which would be a pain.