Setting up a local test environment
Using XAMPP (Windows, Mac, Linux) or MAMP (Windows, Mac), you can create a test environment on your own computer for your Zen Cart.
For the remainder of this document, these tools will be referred to as AMP for convenience.
Note: If you don’t feel comfortable doing this, the second best option for creating a test cart is creating a new folder on your live server. This option is discussed here.
Testing Locally
1. Make a backup of your files and database
Follow the procedure specified in how do I backup my store?
2. Set your store on your local computer.
- Put your files at the webroot defined in your AMP.
- Load your database and create a database user.
3. Update your configure.php files
You will need to go through this file and set each entry to point to your local environnment.
4. Try a simple update to see if things work.
Try updating (for example), includes/languages/YOURTEMPLATE/english.php
and, then refresh your browser page and make sure the change appears.
Testing on your Server
This is not as good as a local test environment, but better than putting untested changes on your live site and potentially breaking your store.
1. Create a new test store on your server
Create a NEW database in cPanel called test_store
.
Use the backup that you just made from your live site to fill the database with data. (See restoring the database.)
Create a new folder on your server called test_store
. Copy the files from your live store directory into this folder
2. Prepare the configure.php files
In your test_store
folder, update the includes/configure.php
and admin/includes/dist-configure.php
files so that the path names and database names are for your test store.