T U T O R I A L S E R I E S
Moving your WordPress weblog inside your PC
Why ??
One reason is that you can do a lot of developing (playing around) much quicker as there is no need to use ftp. An added bonus is that no-one can see when you make some strange mistakes.
You can also install plugins, upgrade to the latest nightly and virtually anything else confident in the knowledge that if it goes wrong, there is no impact on your actual site.
Have a read of the whole page first before starting. It's not a complex procedure at all, and once you have xampp set up, it's very easy to then also try other web applications which need mysql and php.
If you want to learn php, then having this sort of thing on your machine again speeds things up simply because there is no ftp involved.
But this only covers Windows ! Yes, sorry .... if you send me a Mac, I'll do a guide for that too :)
One reason is that you can do a lot of developing (playing around) much quicker as there is no need to use ftp. An added bonus is that no-one can see when you make some strange mistakes.
You can also install plugins, upgrade to the latest nightly and virtually anything else confident in the knowledge that if it goes wrong, there is no impact on your actual site.
Have a read of the whole page first before starting. It's not a complex procedure at all, and once you have xampp set up, it's very easy to then also try other web applications which need mysql and php.
If you want to learn php, then having this sort of thing on your machine again speeds things up simply because there is no ftp involved.
But this only covers Windows ! Yes, sorry .... if you send me a Mac, I'll do a guide for that too :)
Depending on how you do this, you may or may not be altering data inside your WordPress install.
BE CAREFUL - I will not be held responsible for any damage caused to your data.
BE CAREFUL - I will not be held responsible for any damage caused to your data.
First thing to do is download and install Xampp. This is covered on this page. Ignore the part about WordPress there, but do read the Notes at the bottom.
Second thing is to download is your blog. Open your ftp folder and download everything to your machine.
NOTE: You may have a lot of images / other files on your blog which make this download a large task. Doing this therefore serves two purposes:
NOTE: You may have a lot of images / other files on your blog which make this download a large task. Doing this therefore serves two purposes:
- It enables you to adjust your blog in any way you wish and see a full effect
- It means you have a full backup of your blog - and that is always a Good Thing
And lastly, you need a copy of your database.
To do this, you can use my guide here or the excellent and highly recommended plugin from Skippy.
Just to be sure, make a copy of the copy and keep the copy of the copy safe. You got that didn't you ? :)
To do this, you can use my guide here or the excellent and highly recommended plugin from Skippy.
Just to be sure, make a copy of the copy and keep the copy of the copy safe. You got that didn't you ? :)
As it is now, if you put the .sql file into Xampp, it will still think it is on the internet and it will try to use those files. Not what you want. So you need to change your blog address inside the database. Database files can get quite large and opening them can be slow - it could crash your machine too. So let's not do that. Instead, download this file: SCR 1.0.002 Freeware edition (13KB) . Use that to search and replace your website url with your Xampp url.
For instance, here is how I do it:
This should mean that any URL's within your site - for images, areas outside the blog - will still work.
For instance, here is how I do it:
This should mean that any URL's within your site - for images, areas outside the blog - will still work.
Now you need to restore the database .sql file. That is covered on this page.
NOTE: In the page where I describe how to set up a Xampp database, I said to use the character set utf8 unicode ci. If the Restore starts giving you problems related to the character set, see what it has set inside it and make another Xampp database using the required charset.
NOTE: In the page where I describe how to set up a Xampp database, I said to use the character set utf8 unicode ci. If the Restore starts giving you problems related to the character set, see what it has set inside it and make another Xampp database using the required charset.
And once you got here, using your browser go to http://localhost/wordpress and your blog should appear.
If there is a problem, check very carefully that you did all the steps here and that there isn't a simple mistake that has crept in. Posting to the forums when we can't take a look at the problem is a bit like asking us to shoot black cats in the dark ! So if you need to post, be as descriptive as possible.
If there is a problem, check very carefully that you did all the steps here and that there isn't a simple mistake that has crept in. Posting to the forums when we can't take a look at the problem is a bit like asking us to shoot black cats in the dark ! So if you need to post, be as descriptive as possible.
Q & A
- But if I have changed my database, what happens when I put it back ?
- You will not be putting your database back. You have done all this so you can experiment with your blog's layout and other aspects. It is those changes that you will take back to your website, not any changes in the database.
- Can I use Xampp to run my blog so I don't need hosting ?
- Yes. BUT this has security implications for your computer and before you even try this you should go and read up on all the security issues involved. I do not advise on this.
These pages are independent of http://wordpress.org