How do I Test Mods & Hacks without Messing up my Live Site?

[Lynne]

Originally Posted by NashChristian

Thanks again for all the help Lynne! I'm working on the .htpasswd file now!

One question does come to mind, with the .htaccess protected directory (my entire test site), how do I request help from others on public forums such as this one and vbadvanced? I have a lot of situations where I post a link to demonstrate the problem I am encountering, for whoever reads and responds to my post.

Is there a work-around for this with .htaccess, or do I need to temporarily disable it in times like this, or what do most admins to to facilitate this?

Thanks!
Jeff

Hmmm, I've never had to do that. I'd be interested in a response from a vB Staff member on this. I would think it would be OK to temporarily disable the htaccess just for someone to see what is going on. You just want to make sure that the test forums are suddenly being 'used' as a forum. Either temporarily disable the htaccess, or PM the person who wants to look at the site with the username/password to get into your test site.

Originally Posted by NashChristian

Hello Lynne! I think that I understand what you are saying here, but I'm unsure of the syntax. I use vBadvanced, so I have many links (for style graphics, etc...) that I hardcode to my root folder (or have to provide the full URL to). Are you saying that instead of using http://mysite.com I can use "$vboptions[bburl]/" and that will direct it toward my root folder for that website?

Thanks again for all your help!
Jeff

If the links don't matter for testing purposes, then I'd just leave them alone. But, if "$vboptions[bburl]" is the same as "http://mysite.com", then I would replace them just because it does allow you to move to a test site and have the links still work. I like to make my stuff as generic as possible so I don't have to change anything when I move it to the real site.



I see a few people have said they don't even use a test site. I'd love to hear about how they upgrade their sites without first doing things on a test site. My site would have been down for a month if I didn't use a test site to rewrite all my mods when I upgraded from 3.0.12 to 3.6.8! Sure, I found some plug-n-play mods here to replace others I had installed, but I had to totally rewrite the mods I have made on my own for my site. That took quite some effort and a LOT of testing (and added a few gray hairs)!

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Jeff, are you sure all the files are uploaded (the ones your error messages say it can't find)? Also, make sure the permissions are OK - the ones you reference above "following check boxes for each category: Read/Write/Execute." See what they were marked as on your live site and make sure they are the same on your test site.