Local X-Cart install for design development
 

We have an X-Cart Gold 4.3 installation that has been running for years now and it needs a large overhaul in terms of visual design.

http://www.chemist-4-u.com

It would be perfect if we could clone our current site so that it runs locally, then obviosuly we can make any changes we want without affecting the live site.

Does anybody use this method of development with X-Cart? I'm very new to the system and have learned the hard way to be honest and I'm not sure on how to proceed. The previous person in my role had a lot of custom mods made by the Qualiteam and I need to preserve their functionality.

Any ideas or even just a point in the right direction would be immensely appreciated.

Re: Local X-Cart install for design development
 

That is how you do it. Either clone on a local machine or in a subdirectory of the live site. Make sure you clone the entire site including database and make sure you close the dev store and hide it from everybody but the dev team. You don't want SE or customers to find it

Re: Local X-Cart install for design development
 

Download everything in your x-cart install via FTP
Download a database export

Put X-cart into the www root of your local computer (need a WAMP/LAMP install)
Drag your X-cart files into the root
Run the export on your local install
Fix any path/name/login issues.

Re: Local X-Cart install for design development
 

I would actually suggest using a sub-directory on the server instead. That way the store is in the same environment and you don't have to worry about any incompatibility issues.

Re: Local X-Cart install for design development
 

With the subdirectory method, how to update the live site? Do you download the files from the subdirectory and upload them to the main directory?

Re: Local X-Cart install for design development
 

Yea, you'd replace whatever files you edited on the live site with the ones from the subdirectory, same as you would from the local copy.

Re: Local X-Cart install for design development
 

Any problems with having 2 x-cart installs on the same domain? Is it as simple as installing the second "test" copy in a sub-directory w/ it's own db?

Re: Local X-Cart install for design development
 

Correct. The only issues you might find is running X-cart 4.1 on PHP 5.3
Otherwise 4.2+ work on 5.3 without a hitch.

Just keep them in seperate directories with different databases.

Re: Local X-Cart install for design development
 

Cheers thanks - too easy. Am changing to x-cart gold -> pro and need to get the template all working in there before migrating.

Pro is actually a little different with it's common_files skin folder... anyway, here goes :)

Re: Local X-Cart install for design development
 

I'm going to try my first clone tomorrow and I plan to just duplicate all the current store files into another directory on the server.

I would prefer not to clone the database if possible - anyone have any experence (good or bad) with using one database for both prod and dev stores?

I can't see why there would be a problem.