Building and Updating Existing Websites With databases

[MasterC3501]

I am not new to the webdesigning world. I have a few successful websites but I want to start building them differently. In the past I have always built my websites with things like wordpress or magento for ecommerce etc. The problem is that I have some sites that I want to redesign without effecting them online until they are completed.

So lets say I have a ecommerce website already in existence and want to rebuild it using a new version of the platform like Magento but want to keep the database that contains all of my customer and product info as well as modules and stuff. So essentially I want to download my existing website content including the databases and make changes to them then upload them back up to the website when everything is completed without effecting the website or taking it down for maintenance etc. Now I know if I was using just a straight html site or something I understand how that kind of works when building them offline and that seems simplistic enough. But this site if very in depth and of course uses databases that contains information that I need to keep in order for my customers to log in and I of course dont want to start everything from scratch with my products and such so what I am trying to figure out is how to download the website and make the changes I want to make while still being able to view those changes on my computer as if I was surfing the site online and then when completed I can upload the changed files. I am a basic coder and developer so i dont understand how databases interact with the websites and stuff so I dont want to just like upload the completed coded files when they may require changes to the databases and stuff.

I really hope that this all makes sense to someone cause I am completely lost as to where to go from here.

Thanks in advance and please if you can be descriptive in your response.

 

[leroy30]

IF you aren't doing any database changes or anything that could potentially corrupt your database, then Just point your development website to the same database as your live website.

i.e. for Wordpress on your local machine, in the config file change the hostname from 'localhost' or '127.0.0.0' to something like 'myurl.com'.

Should work.

 

[Edge]

If it's on the php platform then install xampp or wampp on your local pc and then you can get it all running locally - this would be necessary only if you were making database changes.
If you go with suggestion above you may face problems accessing a remote database depending on control over your web hosting package.

 

[MasterC3501]

If it's on the php platform then install xampp or wampp on your local pc and then you can get it all running locally - this would be necessary only if you were making database changes.
If you go with suggestion above you may face problems accessing a remote database depending on control over your web hosting package.

Well for instance I have a slightly outdated magento version running on one of my ecommerce sites and I want to update it as well as make some changes and I am thinking that I am going to a newer version of the platform it would require database changes so with these programs you mention I could essentially download all the files I have on my server and also download the database and the software will allow me to make changes and view them then upload them when I am done right?

EDIT: Oh and does it matter if I use a windows based version of these softwares even though my server is linux? Like will that mess anything up when it gets uploaded back?