5 Steps for WordPress Preparation
If you are self-hosting your WordPress blog (not using WordPress.com), it is a good idea to setup an instance on your local computer.
Setting up a local instance of WordPress and a development environment will help you tweaking theme source files, test upgraded WordPress installations and test plugins – without making changes on your live site. You won’t be using the local instance for posting, but you might want to post a few dummy posts.
Step One: Installing WordPress locally
WordPress has some tutorials on how you can setup a local version of WordPress using tools such as MAMP, XAMPP, etc. depending on your operating system.
- Windows XP with XAMPP
- Windows XP and Vista with WEMP
- WIndows XP and Vista with WLMP
- Gentoo Linux
- Debian Etch Linux
- Debian Linux
- Fedora Linux
- Ubuntu Linux with LAMP
- Mac OSX with MAMP
Step Two: Install a (source/version/revision) control system
It’s unlikely that you will like everything about a WordPress theme, so before you start editing the theme source files, establish a source control repository to keep track of your revision history.
You can use the SCM of your choosing – Smashing Magazine has a review of the 7 most popular revision control systems in use today:
Step 3: Test all your plugins locally
Before you activate any plugins on your live site, install and test any plugins locally. Some plugins may make modifications to your database and potentially corrupt your WordPress installation. Other plugins may not be compatible with your version of WordPress or behave well with your selected theme.
Step 4: Install an IDE (and a FTP client)
The Appearance Editor within the WordPress Admin site is not the most user-friendly for editing and formatting source code. It is better to use a Text Editor or an IDE that supports syntax highlighting. Some of the better IDE include a built-in FTP/SFTP so you don’t need to switch applications when deploying your files.
Editors with Built-In SFTP/FTP
Even if your IDE supports SFTP/FTP, I would still recommend installing a FTP client such as Filezilla.
Edit your files that are under version control and when you are ready to deploy, FTP them to your local WordPress directory.
Step 5: Install WordPress on your web-host
Most web-host will have some sort of one-click WordPress installation through cpanel or GoDaddy’s Hosting Control Center. These make it relatively easy to setup on your web-host without the need of transferring and configuring WordPress files.
Once, WordPress is installed on your web-host, add the FTP server information for your web-host to your FTP client and IDE.
Note: Once you have WordPress deployed on your webhost, I recommend that you backup your WordPress database regularly – this will preserve your posts. See this post from ProBlogger: How to Backup Your WordPress Blog In Three Easy Steps.
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I suggest to add free PHP IDE Codelobster PHP Edition with WordPress plugin into your review.