Can I redevelop a site at the same time as keeping the existing site live?

[Sadcase]

I have version 9.0.4 Business edition, running one licensed site. However, I want to redevelop it without affecting the current site.

I have a way of doing this already. Actinic is run in a virtual machine using Parallels on a Mac; I can simply clone the virtual machine and point the development version to our file server (for use as a testing server), whilst continuing to run the old site unchanged and uninterrupted.

The disadvantage with this, once the redeveloped site is ready, is transferring the new site design onto the other virtual machine - wouldn't have sufficient resources to be able to run both virtual machines concurrently.

Ideally, I would like to create a new site using the same virtual machine as the existing site; this would make the transfer as easy as uploading the new site to replace the old. However, it appears from this thread that I require Business Plus edition in order to be able to do this; nothing is mentioned in the knowledgebase about it either.

I understand that there is a test mode in Actinic, but I can't change it a bit at a time - the site will be totally different.

Please can someone say whether this is possible, or should I just resort to the cloned virtual machine?

Thanks for your help in advance.

[Rich Brady]

You could buy Designer

Or continually swap snapshots? If you go down this route I'd have two clear folders to house each set, one for current site, one for the new layout.

Having the new layout in text mode will mean you're not overwriting your existing site.

[Sadcase]

Thanks for those suggestions!

Unfortunately, as we're a small charity, stretching to extra expense is not a viable option - I'm having to work with what I have now …

I'd not thought about continually swapping snapshots; I realised that I'd have to use the snapshots to get the final design from the other virtual machine, but I didn't think of doing it on the same machine.

I'll give it a whirl - thanks again!