Development-Production Scenario: Two Divergent WP Sites

  • Hello, All:

    [Like almost everybody here, I’m sure] I publish a site using WordPress. The site includes a bbPress forum.

    Up until recently, I’ve maintained two separate sites: a Development site and a Production site. Using this arrangement, I develop content on the Development site and then use the excellent Duplicator plugin to migrate the entire Development site to Production each time that I publish a new page or post. This process worked well before the site had any user accounts other than my own and before the site had any forum posts. But, recently, a few users have signed-up and, some day, I hope to have a flourishing user community in the forums. However, this would create two diverging sites: One with new content (i.e., the Development site) and one with new user accounts and a dynamic, growing forum area (i.e., the Production site).

    Clearly this methodology is limited because of the dynamic nature of forums on the Production side and the inability to export+import WP user accounts easily. How can I maintain the dynamic content of the Production site (i.e., User accounts and Forum posts) while creating new content on a Development area? e.g., Does it make more sense to…

    1. Migrate only the pages and posts from Development to Production:
    1. Export only the pages and posts from Development using the built-in WP Export Tool, and then
    2. Import the pages and posts to Production using the WordPress Importer plugin?

    Or…

    • Continue using the Forklift methodology to move from Development to Production in addition to backing-up user accounts and forum posts [from Production] and restoring them [to Production] afterwards:
    1. Export the forums from Production using the built-in WP Export Tool;
    2. Export the user accounts from Production using some other tool;
    3. Migrate the entire WordPress installation from Development to Production;
    4. Re-introduce the forums into Production using the WordPress Importer plugin, and then
    5. Re-introduce the user accounts into Production using some other tool?

    TIA,
    Eric Pretorious
    Portland, Oregon

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    I imagine just about everyone simply generates their normal day to day content directly in the production site. It can be maintained as a draft post until it’s been refined enough to be published. Any small errors caught after publishing can always be corrected anyway. I don’t see any benefit in creating this sort of content in a separate development site.

    When it comes time to write custom code, that is where a development site comes into play. Writing code inevitably means making mistakes, some of which will crash a site, so writing code on a live production site is certainly living dangerously. All of my custom code is always contained to either a child theme or a site specific plugin. Any new code is developed on the development site. When it’s been fully tested, I merely copy my entire theme or plugin to the production site.

    There is no need AFAIC to have my development content match the production site. Sometimes something complex, like a new home page, requires matching content. In such a case I just copy over the content of that one page. There’s no need for everything to match. I have sample content on my development site, but it doesn’t always match production content. There’s no need.

    Depending on the situation, I use different configurations, such as when developing a completely new site where several people need access, I’ll create a third staging site and move it into production once everyone signs off on it. My development site is not accessible from the Internet.

    It can be difficult to adapt to a new workflow. The key is to see where what you are doing is wasted effort and find ways to make things as efficient as possible without compromising security. Sometimes you have to force yourself to work in a new way for a couple weeks before you can be sure if something is working or not.

    My way is maybe not the best way to do things, but it works for me. YMMV

    Thread Starter epretorious

    (@epretorious)

    Thanks, BCWorkx:

    I agree with what you’ve said – That’s the model that I currently employ – but I would like to maintain a separate site for Development so that the WWW statistics aren’t bloated by my inch-by-inch development style on the Development site. ??

    I know that it seems vein but I’m very interested in tracking visitor statistics (and, right now, I am my #1 reader [according to the stats]). ??

    I suppose that I could just develop on Development and then copy-and-paste the HTML into Production. (That’s how I’ve been migrating edits/fixes from Development to Production.) Or I could just export/import posts and pages using the WordPress importer and WordPress Export Tool. Both seem equally effective. One’s just a bit more automated.

    Thanks, again!

    Eric Pretorious
    Portland, Oregon

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by epretorious.
    • This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by epretorious.
    Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    I don’t know how you’re collecting visitor stats. I hate promoting Google, they need no help, but Google Analytics works well and you can filter out your own visitation. Beware of installing conversion code though, the current version can be quirky inside of WP. I’ve had to use the noscript web bug even when JS is active to get it to work in some cases. Just the conversions, the stats code works fine.

    You gotta do what works for you, but it’s interesting seeing how others work. You never know when you might pick up a good idea you hadn’t thought of ??

    Thread Starter epretorious

    (@epretorious)

    >> Or I could just export/import posts and pages using the
    >> WordPress importer and WordPress Export Tool…
    >
    > You gotta do what works for you, but it’s interesting
    > seeing how others work. You never know when you might pick
    > up a good idea you hadn’t thought of

    1. Importing/Exporting pages & posts seems to achieve the desired effect.
    2. I agree!

    Thanks, BCWorkz!

    Eric Pretorious
    Portland, Oregon

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by epretorious.
    • This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by epretorious.
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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