How Do You Use MAMP?
First, a little about my work flow. I set up the sites in the htdocs folder and then use skEdit to work on xhtml, css and php files and Safari to view the results. I give about 2/3 of my screen to Safari and the other 1/3 to skEdit. I’ll work on the code save it and then command-R in Safari to view the results. With MAMP in the work flow it allows me to work faster and see changes with no risk of ruining a live site.
The new version of WordPress came out and I really wanted to see it in action. Instead of hoping that everything would be OK if I updated my active sites, I uploaded the folder to the htdocs folder and started testing. I copied my themes to the new WordPress folder and so far so good. Everything appears to be functioning perfectly, but it really took the stress out of it.
WordPress theme building is also much faster than trying to do it with the built-in theme editor. Developing locally allows me to continue to work on the same Page or section of the site by using command-R. If I use the theme editor and I want to view the site it takes me to the index and I have to find the right section to view the changes. I suppose I could open two pages side by side one with the editor and one with the page, but the save lag time alone makes using MAMP faster.
I have a client who is interested in Openads and I’ve never worked with it. So I popped it into the htdocs folder, started it up to see if it was any good and I’ve been playing with it all night. I’m sure it will save me a headache when I actually set it up for real. Having a local server playground has proven to be invaluable.
Building simple css sites using MAMP has allowed me to tinker a lot more. My work flow above has proven much faster than the old edit, upload, view. I can see the results so much quicker that I’m more inclined to try things that would have otherwise seemed like a waste of time.
MAMP still has some issues like limited support for one, but it has proven to be a very versatile and powerful addition to my toolkit. Now that you have MAMP setup and running how are you using it?
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- From Michael Doig - An Intelligent Mix Of Design And Marketing » Blog Archive » Installing Wordpress Locally Using MAMP | Feb 22, 2006
installed it months ago but never used it till now. my wordpress blog needs to be upgraded to WP2 and besides, it needs a new theme as it is has grown and I want to be able to tweak themes to my specifications. And so I fired MAMP up, used your tutorial (with some difficulties since Safari didn’t initialise the install page), and now staring at WP2 on my Mac. So a huge thank you for the tips.
Not everything is going well though. Now I need to tie-in the new WP2 pages with the old database I’ve downloaded and imported into MySql. I think it’ll be easy but I’m a bit stumped here!
Anyway, do have a good week!
cheers!
Oh dear. My database is a bit too large it seems, i had to import by copying the text (sql file opened with bbedit) one bit at a time and paste it inside the mysql form. took me ages but it’s all done now.
Yeah!
Got it going…thanks a million.
Now, how do I sync with my live site?
It’s been tough to track down a strait answer for this.
Much appreciated,
Asa
I have the same question as Asa. How do I import my current live wordpress blog into the local?
Thanks Much,
Phil
Hey Michael,
Thanks to your excellent tutorial I have now joined the ranks of WordPressers to scoop out the hype before committing to an on-line space.
Question – since I’m really just getting introduced to this – will MAMP allow me to preview sites created with other more WYSIWYG type web apps like iWeb, RapidWeaver, and Sandvox? It would be good to test links and interactivity before launching.
I’ve started to use MAMP locally with Joomla for a few site developments. Also yet to sync with live server so I’m interested in a reply to the same question above
….the question being, how do I sync the local site to the remote server?
“I have the same question as Asa. How do I import my current live wordpress blog into the local?
Thanks Much,
Phil”
I’d like to know this too. Thanks for the brilliant tutorial by the way.
I started out with mamp and wordpress, but I simply do not get how i move the content from the local server out to the main internet ? I tried to find it on wordpress, But no luck please help ?
Well, I’ll have to try this. But, word press uses a myaql database. At your hosting company you have a mysql database.
So if you export the database using phpmyadmin you should be able to move the information from either place local or from the server. By import or export.
You will have to edit the wordpress config file if your database tables do not match as well as the directories. Make sure to copy over all of the dependent files i.e. (images, mp3 or videos if you have them)
That’s should be most of the answer. Look up how to back up or move your databases using phpmyadmin, move you word press files (make sure you have checked the versions) The rest should sink up..good luck
Thanks for your post Michael – it just opened so many new testing doors for me.
Thanks for the tutorial, it was a huge help. Now I can test my themes on my local machine.
Hello,
On syncing your WordPress Live and Local versions. I think it would be tricky because of the database and the config file. Although maybe you could set up your sync to ignore the config file?
What I am interested in though is keeping my MAMP folders synced. I am running an iMac and a Macbook. I want to be able to fire up either one and have the same local info synced both MAMP installs.
I am pretty sure that all I have to do is keep the htdocs and db files synced and the rest will just be MAMP files that don’t usually change.
I will come up with a solution, but in the interest of saving myself some time. What syncing solution would you create??? Thanks.
How do you delete a database from Mamp? I have been over the documentation and I cannot find anyway to delete a database.
When working on more than one WordPress blog do I have to rename the WordPress folder and create another database or can I use the first one I created?
HELP!!
Jan
Hello,
I’ve managed to export my blog however I must have done something wrong as I cannot post, save or upload media to the blog.
Does anyone have information for importing a WordPress installation from a MAMP server setup to an account on a shared Linux server.
If I do not get this working I will have to start all over again with over 200 posts. I really need to get this blog online and working.
Thanks for the tutorial, really helped me find my way through this minefield…strangely I got the Server error messages/already installed WP, so I wiped it all and started from scratch..perfect!
Cheers
D
When I type in http://localhost:8888/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php in the brower, I get “404 Not Found. The requested URL /wordpress/wp-admin/install.php was not found on this server.” The green lights on my Apache and MySQL servers are both on.
Do you know how to fix this? Thanks!
@ Selina Don’t mean to state the obvious but is the wordpress install path actually wordpress/wp-admin/install.php. Is the folder with the wordpress files actually called wordpress.
And another thing to check might be the wp-config.php file is correct.
You can check out a tutorial I wrote about installing Mamp for WordPress. It might enlighten you.
http://www.seansmyth.ie/blog/2008/08/29/installing-wordpress-locally-on-a-mac/
Hope that helps! :D
@Jan:How do you delete a database from Mamp?
you delete a database from the browser. Start MAMP, click the ‘open start page’ button, in the browser that opens you click the phpMyAdmin link, in the window that opens, on the left hand side you see phpMyAdmin logo, underneath is a tiny logo ‘SQL’. Press that. In the popup window that opens type
drop database wordpress
and press ‘go’. Then you have to return to the phpMyAdmin window, where you have to dismiss an alert by pressing ‘Yes’. If all went right, a note is shown “Your SQL query has been executed successfully” and wordpress is no longer in the popup menu with databases.
Hi Mike,
Thanks a lot for this great tutorial: I followed it and it worked fine. I have built a small blog which I use to get familiar with the possibilities of WordPress and understand themes issues.
Now, I would like to recreate it on another machine. I have installed the latest MAMP version, and it is OK.
But what files should I save/restore from the previous machine? Shall I need to run WP installation procedures again? I tried to just copy my blog directory (which is within htdocs) and my database (which is within db/mysql) and it does not seem to be sufficient. When I go to http://localhost:8888/my-base/ I get an error message : “Error establishing a database connection”.
I believe the same questions would apply when one has to upgrade MAMP to a newer version?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Open Mamp Start page and go to php myadmin.
Select the database you want to delete.
On the far right of the screen is a red X with the title ‘drop’
press that button if you really want to delete the database forever to hell.
Hi
Thanks a lot for your tutorial about MAMP. Very useful.I can’t imagine it has been written in 2006 ! At that time, I was still working on Flash…
But how to transfer a local wordpress ?
Once I’ve finished on local, what is the solution to easily transfert the whole wordpress site.
On the wordpress codex, they explain we need to work on the wp-config.php file, but I doesn’t succeed in doing it
Please could you help me