Help with Creating a Testing Server

Report · Aug 29, 2009

I have a current website www.scsportssource.com. I have no databases currently set up on it. I can't seem to figure out the first step of getting the testing server set up. I am trying to use XAMPP. It says I have to use htdocs as my site root folder. I tried to get around this, but couldn't get that to work. If someone could please give me a step by step, simplified, I would greatly appreciate it. I don't know if I have to move my entire site files into the htdocs folder (which I tried and it did not work) or if I can create a folder to hold my files. For example: if you go to my site and go to the High School section, you will see that we sort the high schools by ABC order, by public and private (SCHSL or SCISA, SCACS, etc.) and then by classification and region. Right now that is all done by hand, between the 2. VERY TEDIOUS to make changes to. I want to make this a database, so that I can sort it onto any page I want. I know and understand how to creat all of the pages, but I just can't seem to get past this first part of creating the testing server. ANY HELP AT ALL will be greatly appreciated, because I have a lot more than just my High Schools that I need to get set up this way. Thank you!

Report · Aug 29, 2009

Setting up a PHP development environment

Report · Aug 31, 2009

Ok, I have been following your steps. I have done tutorials through you and "The Missing Manual" series. Now I am trying to start from scratch, but I am lost under the Create a MySQL database adn user account, Create a new database and import data. When I get to step #4, I don't already have a .sql file created. I do however have some tables created that I could create something from. I just need some help with this step.

One more question, do I have to store my entire site under htdocs, or can I just store the relevant file folders while I am testing in htdocs? Thanks.

Report · Sep 01, 2009

Using phpMyAdmin to create your own database takes up a full chapter in my book, The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS4 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP, so it's not something I can describe in the reply to a forum post. Basically, you use phpMyAdmin or another MySQL front-end, such as Navicat, to define the tables and the data types for each column.

It doesn't matter where you store your files, but if you don't store them in a subfolder of htdocs, Dreamweaver will need to copy them there each time you test a page. If you're building a new site from scratch, my recommendation is to put everything inside htdocs.