Re-designing a site

[JulesRS]

Hi,

I want to re-design my site but I am unsure as to the best way to go about this. I have an online shop in operation and I need to be able to download orders, update stock levels etc. and I don't want to affect this whilst re-designing the site.

I have the Actinic store running on my laptop. Therefore, would it be best for me to load Actinic on to my PC and import a snapshot of my current design on to the PC and to edit this. Then once I have finished put the new design on to my laptop?

What other options do I have to ensure I don't jeopardise my current site design?

I did see a previous post about this but I am still unclear as to my options.

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

[peblaco]

You can put your site into test mode for testing purposes.

[papermilldirect]

Hmmm we are considering a site redesign also.

Am I right in thinking that by switching to test mode that I could change ANYTHING I wanted to and it would not affect the normal mode? Literally rebuild the site so all pages etc are within actinic?

Also would the test setup be remembered for my next stint?

Cheers,


Paul

[Duncan Rounding]

Managing a store at the same time as redesigning on the same pc is not a good idea. Much better to use a different pc, otherwise you will not easily be able to upload chnages to your existing site until your new site is complete. You would also find that each time you switched out of test mode Actinic would delete all your test files from the server.

[NormanRouxel]

If you switch your own machine to test mode you'll have to return it to production mode to download orders and update changes. This may involve refreshing the site every time you do this.

Best duplicate the site on another system and run that one in test mode.

[papermilldirect]

The same advice from two top forum members.... that's convinced me!

All I need to do now is get our I.T. Dept to sort a virtual computer out for me, we use Thin Client and they are usually overworked.:-(

While we are on the topic, one of the nice touches I'd like to introduce to the new site is using the Smart theme, but I'd like the box tops (I think they're called 'Smart Header boxes') to have a graduated effect, similar to this site http://www.sportsdirect.com/, I really like the black fading to white effect...

Will this simply be a case of locating the images that make up the tops and photoshopping them? (I did actually find the corner pieces in a file somewhere) or is there a simpler way?


Cheers,

Paul

[Design2Please]

I have just been through the process of redesigining one of my sites. I used another domain for the new site so that I could still upload the site to test fully. Once I was happy with the new site I was then able to change the web settings to the ones for the live store and upload the new version.

Oviously you can only do this if you have more than one domain though.

[JulesRS]

Thanks to Louise, Duncan, Norman and Jonathon for the advice. I think I will set up on another PC as suggested - I don't have another domain to test on though.
Cheers,

[RuralWeb]

think I will set up on another PC as suggested

Its the best option really - keep the two completely separate to avoid a mishap