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Sharon
VP-CART Super User

357 Posts

Posted - November 24 2009 :  09:14:48  Show Profile  Visit Sharon's Homepage  Reply with Quote
Hi, I wonder whether this is possible or if I am way off track.

Our site contains a lot of categories, products, customisation and BYZ add-ins. It has evolved over the years and desperately needs the code tidying up and the look and functionality re-designing. But I would like our existing site to stay exactly as-is whilst I tinker with ideas.

Is it possible for me to put another folder on my site and copy all my files into it, make changes to Shop$config.asp to reference the new folder and link to the database from the new folder?
(When our site was moved the developer put all my image files in a sub-folder with the VP-ASP files so I presume I'll have to copy these too so that relative addresses still work.)

Once this is done I would like to be able to make as many changes as I like without affecting the existing site and allow certain staff to view it by giving them the address of default.asp in the new folder.

Then........ If I got it all working and approved I could use a similar method to upgrade to V7 without swapping over until I was happy with it.

Sorry of this doesn't make sense, I kind of muddle along with this but would appreciate the advice of anyone out there who can give it, thanks.

Steve2507
VP-CART Expert

590 Posts

Posted - November 25 2009 :  14:04:22  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
We have just gone thorugh the process of having our main site completely redesigned using css and so have had to do a similar thing.

However I wouldn't recommend putting everything into a subfolder.

Instead I would create a sub domain and put everything in there. Then do your changes in the sub domain. When you are happy with everything copy over the files from the sub domain to the main domain.

As an example our main site is www.temptationsdirect.co.uk, but the changes are being made on test.temptationsdirect.co.uk, hopefully tomorrow we will be moving the test site over onto our main site and all that needs doing beforehand is to change all reference in the test site files that are "test.temptationsdirect" to "temptationsdirect".

Hope this helps.


Steve
Sex toys from a UK sex shop including vibrators and dildos.
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devshb
Senior Member

United Kingdom
1904 Posts

Posted - November 25 2009 :  14:21:24  Show Profile  Visit devshb's Homepage  Reply with Quote
and if you get any license key failures on a test domain/subdomain for our addons, just email me a zipped copy of your byz_mykeys.asp file and let me know the subdomain you're using and I'll add a temporary key to the file; we don't need to do that via the bigyellowkey.com system/site, we can add those keys manually for temp things like that; keeps things simple/quick.

also, don't forget to change the xshopid value in the test area's shop$config.asp file, just to make sure that the test sessions don't intermingle with live sessions.

complexity depends on what kind of database you're using too; if you're using access then you can just use a copy of the mdb file and play with that in the test area, but if you're using sqlserver or mysql then you need to be a lot more careful.

Simon Barnaby
Developer
[email protected]
www.BigYellowZone.com
Web Design, Online Marketing and VPASP addons
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Sharon
VP-CART Super User

357 Posts

Posted - November 26 2009 :  02:27:18  Show Profile  Visit Sharon's Homepage  Reply with Quote
Thanks guys. I think we'll go for a subdomain as Steve suggests.

We are using sqlserver so Simon I'd be grateful for your advice as to what I need to bear in mind. I don't have sqlserver so my host has to do all back-ups etc for me. Would it be best to ask my host to copy my existing database to new one?
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devshb
Senior Member

United Kingdom
1904 Posts

Posted - November 26 2009 :  09:26:11  Show Profile  Visit devshb's Homepage  Reply with Quote
The thing to be careful about is if you're using the same database for the live site as the pending/test one, because any database-held config options you change in site-setup in the test site will also get applied to the live site.
And during testing you'll also be referencing live customers/orders too from the test site (and vice-versa)
Also, even if you use a copy of the live database for testing, you can still potentially send out order-confirmation emails when testing to live customers, so when testing always try to login as a customer who has one of your own email addresses.

If it was me, I think I'd just point my test area to the live database to begin with, but if any database-changes will be made for config options etc then I'd consider getting the host to create a new database as a copy of the live one.

Most hosts would do that for you if you ask them to, but they'd probably charge a monthly fee for the extra database and an initial setup fee to copy the live database into the new/blank database.

If you do use a separate copy of the database for testing, then you need to record any database changes that you make (ie config option changes in site-setup in admin etc) so that you can then re-apply those changes to the live database when it's ready for release. It's usually easier to record the changes and manually apply them than to export/import the configuration tables etc but it depends on how complex the data changes are.

If it's a major upgrade (eg vpasp 6.0 to 7) then I'd definitely want to have a separate test database setup to go through the upgrade process and test the code before doing it to the live one.

Simon Barnaby
Developer
[email protected]
www.BigYellowZone.com
Web Design, Online Marketing and VPASP addons

Edited by - devshb on November 26 2009 09:27:54
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Sharon
VP-CART Super User

357 Posts

Posted - November 26 2009 :  10:37:36  Show Profile  Visit Sharon's Homepage  Reply with Quote
Thanks Simon, as ever your advice is appreciated.

I've decided to get a new copy of the database to work with because I intend to upgrade from v6 to v7 next year and I think there's less chance of a major boo-boo that way.

I'll be in touch if our BYZ stuff hits problems, thanks.
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