I’m on a metered internet connection. From reading the forums, I got the idea that I could publish my site locally, and then once I’m happy with it publish it to the real server. Then I read that I need something like MAMP to view the local site. Then I read that I have to change the links (make them relative) for it to work. Then I read about problems with the directory structure. Then I figured I don’t know how to do this.
Is this correct: if I use RW 7 and publish to local folder, do I then just ftp that folder structure up to proper top level directory on the server?
If I publish locally, what changes do I need to make to either the entire project or the local folders in order for the site to work once uploaded? (file names, folder names, etc.)
If I put my images in a resource subfolder in the locally published site, and upload them to a resource folder of the same name on the server, will image links still work? Or is this handled via the normal publish locally option?
Sorry for all the questions. The more I tried to figure it out myself, the more confused I got. I’m working through Joe’s RW book, and lots of tutorials, and it would be great if I didn’t use up all my data allotment practicing.
Thanks for the reply. I use Yummy FTP, have had it for years. But I don’t want to update the server with every local change, only when I’m satisfied with all the changes and want to publish what I’ve been working on.
If your using MAMP (the free version will work), you’re running everything just like the web server you’re going to export too. So if the local publish works via MAMP(Mac Apache MySql PHP), you should not need to change anything.
Again if you use MAMP the default relative to page works fine. That can be found in settings>general>advanced:
Yes, you have Yummy FTP that should work. I don’t know if yummy has a sync feature or not, I use Transmit, and it has an option to “sync” folders on your remote server with a local folder.
Again with MAMP what you see locally will be what you get when you export.
Yes, Yummy has a sync built in. In this case you would sync local folder to server.
(It can also sync server to a local folder which is what I use for server backups. That way your backup also contains robots.txt, htaccess, key files, etc etc) - Things that won’t be in the RW project.
This is working great. For any other beginners out there … I installed MAMP, and set RW to publish to Local folder, using path /Applications/MAMP/htdocs with the “relative” link setting (see image above) and it’s great! The site publishes lightning fast, and I can check it in the browser instantly. I’ve been working all day, completely offline from the actual site, and not using up my bandwidth! Thank you thank you thank you.
If you are trying to save upload bandwidth be sure to play with things to learn what RW does in generating files for your site. Do some single page publishing (right click the page in the left page pane in RW) and note the page files that are generated.
In short, some “global” changes require entire site to be published, (header, footer, navigation, etc) while some single page edits only require you to publish the one single page. Normally for a single page you’ll update rw-common folder and whatever page you changed. And depending on the edits you may need to upload only the main html/php file only. But again, you must watch and learn.
Also know that RW does not delete any files on the server. If you delete a page in your project and publish, the file remains on your server. Thus, if you delete a page, change file name or path of a page, etc you ust use FTP to delete the server file, else before you know it you’ll have all kinds of old files hanging around on the server. But don’t delete anything unless you KNOW what it is and that it is safe to do so.
