dev on subdomain while using live database - recommended?

[floko]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working on a website redesign in a development environment (XAMPP on a local machine), using a local copy of the live website's database.
Unfortunately, there are lots of changes to the live database, so I am considering the following approach:
Set up a subdomain, copy all files from the live Process Wire website and use content from the live database, so I can play around with the content of "templates" using the latest changes. 
Is that feasible and something you would recommend?

Thank you!
floko

[virtualgadjo]

hi,
actually you're describing something i like to do, a website with a domain like
www.mydomain.com
and when i need some rededign supposed to have the same structure and content, i set a suddomain like
preprod.mydomain.com using the same db, the only thing is to keep in mind that if your client has an access to the preprod admin if they change something to the content it will be done on th prod site too
if it is just a way to show/validate the design, no problem at all with a great advantage, if there is any update on the prod website it visible on the preprod too
up to now i've never had any problem with this way of working 🙂

have a nice day

 

[Jonathan Lahijani]

I recommend setting up a sync script that will allow you to easily pull the latest database from the live website to your local machine.  I do this all the time.