Update live site | drupal.org

Posted by AMC on December 29, 2012 at 12:19am

Hi,

as this is my first post I want to say hello and thanks for all help I could receive...

I'm planning to start a Drupal 7 site. I've been reading a lot but there's one question I haven't find the answer...

I want to publish (live) one site with some limited functionality. I'll go on developping more functionalities in localhost. When I be ready to publish the new functionalities, what is the workflow? I understand I have to install the new modules, the theme, etc. on the new site but what about content? The live site will have users content and I'll have new content (taxonomy updates, content types, nodes, etc.) in localhost that I want to transfer, but preserving the old ones in the live site...

Sorry if it is obvious but I can't figure how to do it easily...

Thanks

Comments

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Posted by VM on December 29, 2012 at 2:03am

investigate deploy.module

you can also diff/merge the DB's
look into rsync is another method to investigate

This can be quite a difficult

Posted by gooney0 on January 6, 2013 at 2:54pm

This can be quite a difficult problem. If your changes are strictly in files you can copy those. If your changes involve content or other database entries you'll want to look into "Features."

http://drupal.org/project/features

Scott R. Haven
Sr. Software Engineer
Paisley Systems Inc.
Drupal Development and Support

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Posted by tryitonce on January 6, 2013 at 7:03pm

yes, that is the problem. When you created something and it goes life it limits what you can change in the future. So, when you then improve your site locally it will be difficult to "merge" it into the life site.

For ex. if you create a Content Type with CCK fields and later change the fields you will lose entries by your users. However, if you add new fields, the old ones will remain.
Same for Content Types (CT) - if you removed a CT later you would loose or at least bugger up your site.
If you know enough about MySQL you could solve it there - at least most of it.
Again if you keep "old" CTs and just remove them from being used (accessable for new entries) you can still show the old nodes created under this CT and introduce an improved CT for future use.
However, the real trick might be this:

Plan your site as much as possible in advance.
Structure the naming of things like Views, Panels, CTs, CCK fields and allow for future additions without removing old ones.
Keep it simple. Sometimes people create CTs for every aspect of form - but when we write by hand we just use a white sheet of paper and then turn it into Contracts, Letters, Forms, Applications; Maps, sketches, Images, etc.
Finally - always use the current life-site on your localhost to see what effect your changes will have.
Ahh- the good old classic one - organise your back-ups. Keep always more back-ups than you think you will need. I know we never do, but, at least, try - even when you work on localhost - when something is working - back it up - then go on tinkering ...

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