What do YOU do before you deploy your site?

[neildaemond]

Thanks to Processwire, I've gotten the confidence to start charging people for my web development and have recently started a web dev business.

Although I'm not too artistic, the flexibility of PW allows me to accomodate the design of any artist I am working with and the API gives me to power to do the fun backend stuff.

Anyways, before I deploy some sites for production, I wanted to ask the more experienced developers out there what kind of steps they take at the end of a project to make their sites 'production ready'.

For example, do you guys combine all your js and css files? do you change any Processwire configurations?

Hearing any tips from you all would be of great help to me.

Thanks in advance

[DaveP]

I tend to leave the PW config as-is, unless there are good reasons to change anything or add variables. ( I have a textformatter module that takes its config from config.php, for example.)

SEO is always important , so I always install Pete's XML Sitemap module (http://modules.proce...up-sitemap-xml/) and, if it's a port of an existing site to PW then Antti's Redirect Module (http://modules.proce...cess-redirects/) saves loads of time.

Then it's a matter of checking that all your <title> and meta description are all populated with appropriate info, and I also make sure that the html validates. A few small things add up to a significant advantage.

Don't forget the Google Analytics code and to register your sitemap in Webmaster Tools.

And, if you're in any doubt, a bit of user testing. A handful of users is enough to make a significant difference - http://www.useit.com...x/20000319.html.

[Michael Murphy]

First of all, don't worry too much, you will normally find all the problems after launching

Here are some of the things I try to do before launch :

- Check the page titles and meta descriptions. Install the Google webmaster tools to get more useful advice on how to optimise the site for search engines

https://www.google.c...ebmasters/tools

- Create an xml site map and submit to Google (via Webmaster tools) and Bing (http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster)

- If this is the an update of an existing site, setup redirects for old pages to new pages - you can check what old links are currently indexed by Google and start with the top ones. The redirect plugin is great for managing this (http://modules.proce...cess-redirects/).

- Check and update the 404 error page

- Check that all your forms are working and being delivered to email recipients (not stuck in spam).

- Change the admin url from /processwire/ to something more secure

- Turn off any debug modes

- Disable any test accounts and put an extra secure password on the master account.

- Check what print layout looks like (or make print style sheet)

- Browser testing - this is tough one to summarise - there are some sites that let you take screenshots, but the best way I have found is to have multiple virtual machines with IE7, IE8 and IE9 which can be used for more detailed testing and debugging. Then there is mobile device testing!

- Check for broken links and correct redirects. http://validator.w3.org/checklink

- Performance testing - you might want to check for any big performance issues. ySlow is a nice tool for checking and provides some good tips that might be useful for speeding up the site. Don't be too disheartened by the results, not even the big sites get top marks.

http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/

- Setup analytics to track usage - Google analytics

- Setup monitoring so you know the site is up and running - I really like pingdom.com - https://www.pingdom.com/

- Backup the site files and database!

Then I like to say a little website launch prayer… "dear internet gods, I know things will go wrong but please let the issues be small and easy to fix. amen."

[neildaemond]

  On 11/6/2012 at 10:47 AM, Michael Murphy said:

First of all, don't worry too much, you will normally find all the problems after launching

haha, yes.. I probably will.. sigh~

But, thanks a million, you guys covered all of my check list and added the following good points to it~ The redirects, user testing, validator, yslow, and pingdom are especially good ones. That xml sitemap module has to be one of my favourites.

  On 11/6/2012 at 9:36 AM, DaveP said:

and, if it's a port of an existing site to PW then Antti's Redirect Module (http://modules.proce...cess-redirects/) saves loads of time.

Then it's a matter of checking that all your <title> and meta description are all populated with appropriate info, and I also make sure that the html validates. A few small things add up to a significant advantage.

And, if you're in any doubt, a bit of user testing. A handful of users is enough to make a significant difference - http://www.useit.com...x/20000319.html.

  On 11/6/2012 at 10:47 AM, Michael Murphy said:

Here are some of the things I try to do before launch :

- Check the page titles and meta descriptions. Install the Google webmaster tools to get more useful advice on how to optimise the site for search engines

https://www.google.c...ebmasters/tools

- If this is the an update of an existing site, setup redirects for old pages to new pages - you can check what old links are currently indexed by Google and start with the top ones. The redirect plugin is great for managing this (http://modules.proce...cess-redirects/).

- Check and update the 404 error page

- Check that all your forms are working and being delivered to email recipients (not stuck in spam).

- Check what print layout looks like (or make print style sheet)

- Check for broken links and correct redirects. http://validator.w3.org/checklink

- Performance testing - you might want to check for any big performance issues. ySlow is a nice tool for checking and provides some good tips that might be useful for speeding up the site. Don't be too disheartened by the results, not even the big sites get top marks.

http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/

- Setup monitoring so you know the site is up and running - I really like pingdom.com - https://www.pingdom.com/

Then I like to say a little website launch prayer… "dear internet gods, I know things will go wrong but please let the issues be small and easy to fix. amen."

[MatthewSchenker]

Greetings,

Just wanted to say thanks for this discussion. I'm still new to ProcessWire, and I had a similar question.

The fact that such a discussion can take place here so naturally is one of the many reasons I find ProcessWire so good. What you are all discussing here is what one could call "good general practices" for deploying any site. However, in other CMSs, when you ask such a question, you get the general information then you have to go further and say, "OK, now how do I do this in [name] CMS?" With ProcessWire, what I really like is that the answer is simply the answer, and not "Here's how you need to do it in ProcessWire."

This principle seems to extend all the way through ProcessWire -- from templates to JQuery, and more. It's one of the principles that I find very appealing about the system

Thanks,

Matthew

[apeisa]

Well said Matthew, the end result of PW website is really up to you, not what the system comes up with.

That being said, I have been thinking a lot about building our own "starting profile" (we kind of have one already, but that is not well build). Something more "out of the box" for our clients. That thinking also has some merits - especially if there are lots of sites and multiple people working (also on different areas, like customer support, developing, sales etc). More feature packed default site is easier to demo and sell, easier to maintain if there is lots of similar sites, easier to provide support (technical and helpdesk), easier to write instructions etc... What I am doing (hopefully this year) is to build site profile where would be the most common needs baked in already. What that would mean in our case (we build websites for Finnish associations) are:

• News section
  
• Events section
  
• Contact section
  
• Few different "basic-page" layouts
  
• Blog (maybe)
  
• FAQ-section (maybe)
  
• Tiny "intranet" section (maybe)
  
• Frontpage highlights
  
• Few editor roles
  
• Some useful modules already installed (redirects, adminbar, link helpers, admin helpers)
  
• Using more robust template approach
  
• Responsive by default
  

I hope that it won't take too long that we start to see more and more community driven "starting profiles" like Ryan's Blog profile. There could be things like General CMS profile (kind of what I am doing - although not sure if it will be general enough to share it) and E-commerce site (kind of what here is coming) etc..

[diogo]

I can add to your list portfolio site (something like http://www.secretarycms.com/)

[neildaemond]

  On 11/6/2012 at 4:48 PM, MatthewSchenker said:

The fact that such a discussion can take place here so naturally is one of the many reasons I find ProcessWire so good. What you are all discussing here is what one could call "good general practices" for deploying any site. However, in other CMSs, when you ask such a question, you get the general information then you have to go further and say, "OK, now how do I do this in [name] CMS?" With ProcessWire, what I really like is that the answer is simply the answer, and not "Here's how you need to do it in ProcessWire."

This principle seems to extend all the way through ProcessWire -- from templates to JQuery, and more. It's one of the principles that I find very appealing about the system

The Processwire community is indeed very awesome. I wouldn't be as inclined to ask this kind of question any other place, but I know that here I would get reasonable and helpful suggestions.

Processwire seems to attract these kind of respectful and helpful developers. I guess it's easy to help out when the system isn't driving you mad. I love the fact that the more I learn about web development in general, then better at Processwire I get, and vice versa. They go hand in hand, and that IMO is what makes a great CMS/CMF.

  On 11/6/2012 at 6:19 PM, apeisa said:

I have been thinking a lot about building our own "starting profile" (we kind of have one already, but that is not well build). Something more "out of the box" for our clients. That thinking also has some merits - especially if there are lots of sites and multiple people working (also on different areas, like customer support, developing, sales etc). More feature packed default site is easier to demo and sell, easier to maintain if there is lots of similar sites, easier to provide support (technical and helpdesk), easier to write instructions etc... What I am doing (hopefully this year) is to build site profile where would be the most common needs baked in already. What that would mean in our case (we build websites for Finnish associations) are:

• News section
  
• Events section
  
• Contact section
  
• Few different "basic-page" layouts
  
• Blog (maybe)
  
• FAQ-section (maybe)
  
• Tiny "intranet" section (maybe)
  
• Frontpage highlights
  
• Few editor roles
  
• Some useful modules already installed (redirects, adminbar, link helpers, admin helpers)
  
• Using more robust template approach
  
• Responsive by default
  

I hope that it won't take too long that we start to see more and more community driven "starting profiles" like Ryan's Blog profile. There could be things like General CMS profile (kind of what I am doing - although not sure if it will be general enough to share it) and E-commerce site (kind of what here is coming) etc..

Even your first starting profile is already helpful to me, saves me the time of ripping all the fields and templates out before I start a fresh project. Profiles with what you listed will be nothing short of amazing.

I've been away from PW a bit, and am pretty excited to give 2.2 a whirl~ especially the user system.

I hope that I can help out more in the future as I am now using it quite heavily in my business. I'm going to do a more in depth study of the php behind it before I start making modules or profiles. As I work through it, I think I may see stuff which could use further documentation. If I do, how could I help out with that?

[DaveP]

http://wiki.processwire.com