Updating a site - what's the best way?

Hi guys,

I have a site currently running on IIS under Windows. I now want to make some 'sweeping' changes to the CSS and some of the HTML, in order to give the site a new look.

The site is currently developed in Dreamweaver, and makes use of PHP for a news database and discussion forum (implemented with phpBB), as well as several other 'dynamic' hand-coded elements (only on about half a dozen pages). There are a total of around 200 pages, plus the phpbb stuff.

What is the best way to update the site's look 'overnight'? - i.e. gradually make the cosmetic changes myself, while keeping the existing look for those accessing the site in the meantime, then publishing the update, once I'm happy, in one hit?

Should I create a new site via the IIS control panel, copy over all the 'static' (HTML, CSS) files from the active site, make changes and test until I'm happy and then copy them all back to the 'active' site?

I have already tried creating a new site under the IIS control panel on the server, and assigned it to port 8080. However, trying to access this copy via http://myserver:8080/ results in a 'page cannot be found' error. And yes, I've added index.php to the top of the list of files for this copy of the site (which is the default page for the active site). It just isn't showing anything. Even if I try to load it directly, i.e. http://myserver:8080/index.php I still get a 'page cannot be found' error.

However, if I try to access an image file, it displays fine. - e.g. http://myserver:8080/media/images/background.gif loads without a problem.

Do I need to reconfigure something in php? Or IIS? Am I even going about this in the right way?

As you can tell, I'm kinda guessing at the moment! Any pointers would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Dave

That's the method I would recommend.

Thanks ATNO...

Any suggestions on how to do this, seeing as I've already tried and not got very far? - index.php not loading, etc. ?

Cheers,
Dave

well, you could just create a folder and keep it there... you know, name the folder test or beta or something and password protect it with a .htaccess if you're really worried about people seeing it too soon. Otherwise, if it's just static html pages, you can truely just view those locally on your computer unless you're concerned about speed testing, etc.

The way that I've found easiest to do it, is simply create a subdirectory off of wwwroot and copy all files to the new directory. Sure, instead of typing http://myserver/index.php you'll need to type something like http://myserver/workspace/index.php (with workspace being your test directory), but that should work. You could create a new site on IIS, but that's a pain and easier just to create a subfolder, copy all your files there, make your changes, backup your existing, then replace them with the modified versions.