This document provides instructions for setting up a local development environment or "sandbox" for testing and developing WordPress websites using XAMPP on Windows and OSX systems. Key steps include downloading and installing XAMPP, which bundles Apache, PHP and MySQL. Once installed, WordPress can be downloaded, unzipped in the XAMPP folder, and accessed at localhost. Virtual hosts allow hosting multiple sites on the same machine for development. Best practices include keeping the sandbox similar to production servers and taking regular backups.

1. Sandbox: Running WordPress on Your Local Machine Presented by: A. Alfred Ayache, ZCE @NotrsWebmaster [email_address] http://notoriouswebmaster.com

3. Copying and moving files

4. Running programs and batch scripts

5. Editing text files with a text editor

7. Should not be exposed to the world.

8. Not security hardened.

10. Testing downloaded themes and plugins

11. Testing beta releases of WP

12. Developing your own themes and plugins

13. Developing websites and web apps

14. Running local copy of web apps (other than WP)

15. Learning Web programming (PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python)

16. NOT RECOMMENDED: running a local production server

17. WordPress Requirements WordPress XAMPP PC OSX Version 3.1 3.2 1.7.7 1.7.3 PHP 4.3 5.2.4+ 5.3.8 5.3.1 MySQL 4.1.2 5.0+ 5.5.16 5.1.44 Optionally, you may also need mod_rewrite and email capabilities, depending on how you want to configure your installation, or what plugins you want to test.

19. Apache , PHP , MySQL , phpMyAdmin , and more!

20. Available for Windows , OSX , Linux and Solaris

21. Super easy installation (especially compared to manual installation of the components)

23. A webserver can serve HTML, CSS and JS; but can also process PHP .

24. Then, PHP can access MySQL databases.

26. MySQL is the database used to store your WordPress data, such as posts and user information.

27. Together with Linux and Apache , they form the LAMP stack; one of the most popular platforms for web development.

29. Unzip to C:AMPP

32. Start Apache and MySQL

33. http://localhost/

35. Download vcredist_x86.exe from Microsoft, and run it. This will install missing DLL's.

36. Try starting Apache again.

37. (BTW: no problems running on Win7.)

39. Double click dmg, and drag XAMPP to Applications folder

41. Start Apache and MySQL (order is unimportant)

42. You'll be asked for the admin password to your machine

43. The LEDs should turn green

44. http://localhost/

46. XAMPP Control may even show it as started, but it hasn't.

48. Quit Skype , and start Apache again. You should be good to go.

51. Unzip it under /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/htdocs/<dir>

52. In your browser go to http://localhost/<dir>

54. In your browser go to http://localhost/~<username>/<dir>

56. Unzip it at C:AMPPtdocslt;dir>

57. In your browser go to http://localhost/<dir>

59. Enter a database name (alphanumeric and underscores, no spaces or special characters) and click Create

61. OSX will not: you'll need to edit the wp-config-sample.php and save it as wp-config.php

63. database user ID (root)

64. database password (blank)

65. database host (localhost)

68. Virtual hosts (aka vhosts) allows you to host multiple web apps or sites, on the same machine.

69. This is what the hosting companies use for shared hosting.

75. Just add another line with the localhost IP, a space or two, and your desired domain name

77. Insure the include for httpd-vhosts.conf is uncommented:

79. DocumentRoot and Directory must be the same, and point to the document root of your virtual site

80. Use forward slashes between dirs, even on Windows. No slash at the end.

81. Restart Apache

82. In your browser: http://mybloggittyblog.blog

84. Thanks to their efforts, we can easily communicate with unprecedented reach.

86. Install WP/plugin updates as they become available

87. Take regular backups

89. ID's and passwords

90. Directory path

92. WordPress.tv

93. XAMPP - http://apachefriends.org

94. Notepad++ - http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

95. TextWrangler - http://barebones.com/products/textwrangler/