By rdoiron on

I've started experimenting with Drupal for my nonprofit's new website. Before I go too far, I want to find out what's the best way to build and test a new site while keeping the old one up and running.

Our current site is here (cobbled together with Movable Type and Ning):
http://www.kitchengardeners.org

and I'm playing with Drupal here:
http://drupal.kitchengardeners.org

Can I continue building the new site there and once it's looking like I want it rename the "drupal.kitchengardeners.org" file folder on my server "kitchengardeners.org" and have it work properly?

Is there a better way?

Thanks,

Roger

Comments

jgknight’s picture

jgknight commented

You can rename the folder, but you will run into issues. Every file uploaded and every image uploaded have their relative path in the Mysql database.

So if you upload Image.jpg, in the mysql db it will have something like Image.jpg - /sites/drupal.kitchengardeners.org/files/images/Image.jpg

What I did to migrate was I downloaded a copy of my entire Mysql DB in plaintext sql. Then I did a find/replace (like find drupal.kitchengardeners.org replace with kitchengardeners.org) and uploaded the SQL to my server.

Depending on the size of your site, this may be impossible to do with something like notepad and you would need to either use SQL, some type of automated script or something else which I do not have.

Another solution is to leave the drupal.kitchengardeners.org folder in place, create a copy of it and rename that to kitchengardeners.org. That way exisiting files and images will be taken from the drupal.kitchen folder and new ones will be placed in the kitchengardeners.org folder.

deemoney’s picture

deemoney commented

i just read your post while searching for solution to migrating my ning site. I anxious to know if you have got some headway with your site...

Good luck

Caro-2’s picture

Caro-2 commented

Same here.. got any luck yet?