REQUEST: Tutorial on Test or Development Boards

[eJM]

I have decided it would be important for me to set up a dev board. My vB is still at 3.5.4 (patched) and I need to upgrade to 3.6.x. But, I have a number of hacks, plug-ins, scripts and my own template edits that I would like to preserve, along with the custom skin I use and the CMS that makes up the rest of my site and is integrated with vBulletin. After doing a fairly extensive search on test platforms with what should be considered relevant keywords, I come up wanting.

There are several posts around the various vB related forums, including here, concerning setting up a development board, but nothing definitive and certainly nothing you would call a tutorial -- at least not that I could find. I think it would be great if someone who had some writing talent along with the skill and knowledge of setting up and implementing a test board or development environment would write a step-by-step tutorial on the subject. Begin with a title that will make it easy for us to find and include information about password protection through .htaccess and .htpasswd (and don't forget links to the password encryption tools), other options with non-Linux/UNIX based servers, the pros and cons of same domain compared to different domain, compared to different server.

As far as I know, no one has done an article like this, with this kind of detail. It would no doubt draw some traffic, because there are a lot more requests for help setting up a dev board than there are answers. What I have found so far has me very worried that my attempt will lead to some very frustrating experiences and a lot of conflicting advice. So, if you have a little writing talent and understand the details one must be mindful of, your tutorial could be very popular. I know I would read it.

If you aren't a writer, but you know what needs to be done and how to do it under a number of server and domain configurations, I'd be happy to help you write it or edit your copy. You could even practice the step-by-step on me -- I would like to set one up on 2 different servers (so I can practice moving a board from one to the other).

This is an idea that I think is timely. It's been a few weeks since 3.6.0 went Gold and I would venture to guess that a lot of people are hesitating just like me. Now there are other things I would like to do on the forum and site I have, but I want to upgrade first. I brought this subject up at another forum I frequent, but one of the administrators seemed less than enthused about it and doesn't seem to see much value in it. What do you think?

Thanks,

Jim