As a Web Designer/Developer, creating a development enviroment locally is essential for testing new features, changing the layout of your design or just adding new content without any impack on your live website.
We have included some fantastic resources that will teach you how to create a developer enviroment for WordPress, plugins that will allow you to back up core files, template folders, wordpress sql tables and lite weight applications that allow you to create a server on your local workstation or server.
Choosing a web server package
Before you can start creating a developer enviroment, you must first install apache, mysql and phpmyadmin. Here is a selection of our favourite packages.
XAMPP via apachefriends.org
Xampp can be run on the following operating systems: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris.
WampServer via wampserver.com
Wamp can be run on Windows.
Mamp & Mamp Pro via mamp.info
Mamp is designed to running on Mac OS X, with Snow Leopard 10.6 support now available.
Creating a Development Enviroment
How to Create a Theme Development Enviroment for a Live WordPress Site via inspectelement.com
Setup a Development Environment for Your WordPress Site via dountsis.com
Backing up your WordPress environment
Now you have created a development environment, now lets backup your live WordPress install.
WordPress Backup
DBC Backup – Creates daily database backups of your wordpress sql tables.
WP-DB-Backup – Backup your WordPress core files.