My next mission was to get a local version of WordPress up and running on my mac, so I could do some testing and implementation of new features without the fear of totally messing up my live version!
I found Installing WordPress Locally on Your Mac With MAMP on wordpress.org and worked my way through the steps mentioned.
A quick overview of the steps involved for getting WordPress working locally include:
- Download and install MAMP: Mac – Apache – MySQL – PHP
- Download and install WordPress
Obviously this is a very simple overview, so head over to the article on wordpress.org for full instructions.
I would just like to point out that I set up a new database locally but did used my live WordPress working files. All I had to do was change wp-config.php to wp-config-online.php and when I accessed http://localhost:8888, the process of creating a new wp-config.php locally automatically occurred without a hitch. Just be sure never to upload your local wp-config.php to your live site and all will be fine with both versions!
If you are on a Windows platform wanting to install WordPress locally, see Installing WordPress on your own Computer for guidance.