Temp index.html page / View WP site while developing

  • Hi. I inherited a new installation of WordPress for a site I’m going to help develop. The current/old HTML site is still live, and needs to remain so during development. The WordPress site was installed in the root where the static index.html old site is. Anyone visiting the domain sees the index.html page correctly due to priority.

    But I’m wondering about any tips for seeing what I’m doing while developing the WordPress site? I would have probably installed WordPress in a subdirectory for easier development, but someone else set it up in root and it would be too much trouble to change this now.

    For instance, I’m playing around in the theme Customizer, but the interface is showing me the index.html page, NOT the WordPress home page that I’m trying to customize. I know with other pages I can possibly get by with the ‘Preview’ option, but how do I see what I’m doing with the Home page in the Customizer?

    – Any other tips for being able to see what I’m doing on the WordPress site without affecting the static index.html site?

    I know there are ‘coming soon’ types of plugins that help with this too, but then I’d have to redesign the static page in the plugin’s interface. Would rather not.

    THANKS

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • Yeah, this is all a bad idea.

    Why don’t you just re-install or move your WordPress instance to a new directory ?

    Install a migrate plugin i.e. :
    https://en-ca.www.ads-software.com/plugins/all-in-one-wp-migration/
    Create a migration file.
    Login to control panel at host.
    Create a sub-domain.
    Install WordPress on sub-domain.
    Install All In One Migration
    Import the migration file.
    Delete / Remove the existing instance of WordPress.

    Should take you 15 minutes to do all this – and avoid any conflicts or Google indexing records during development.

    Thread Starter KennyLL

    (@kennyll)

    Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the cPanel, otherwise I probably would have done the install into a subdirectory using Softaculous. It’s been too much of a hassle to try to get in touch with the person who is in control of this, as it goes through a middle-man, etc.

    – Any other options for working WITHOUT moving WordPress to a subdirectory (which I’d have to re-migrate back to root anyway when done)?

    You don’t own any other URLs? If not, just buy one for your dev – they are cheap.
    The migration using the plugin is a very fast approach to move sites.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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