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Todd Volmari
4,959 PointsCan I build a wordpress site before going and getting a domain name?
Can I build a wordpress site before going and getting a domain name? I don't want to go purchase a domain name if I'm not sure if my site will work the way I want it to.
5 Answers
John Leskas
24,093 PointsFirst you have to download the local server: A .Wamp for Windows: http://www.wampserver.com/en/ B. XAMPP for Mac : https://www.apachefriends.org/download.html
You can download the 32bit or 64bit respectively. Then you follow the default install of each installation. Try and Search "wamp or xamp server tutorial" in Youtube and watch whatever screencast you like. Also there are some good courses here at Treehouse to begin with. See in the wordpress section for beginner. They explain very briefly the installation of a local server.
John Leskas
24,093 PointsYes of course I can Darren. First things first, as I said before you must download one of the programs above: XAMPP for Mac and WAMP for Windows. I'll instruct the version for Windows because I am using a Windows system.
- Run the setup for Wamp Server (32bit or 64bit respectively) * You can see the version of your Windows in the System panel.
- Hit Next -> Accept Licence Aggrement
- Set the path of your local server installation ( C:\wamp is the default and I recommend you to keep it simple as it is ) 4 Hit the checkboxes if you want to Create a Quick Launch icon and a Desktop Icon.
- Hit Next and then Install.
- After a while a popup is showing with the explorer.exe as default browser. Leave it like this and Hit Open.
- Next is the panel with the PHP mail parameters. You don't want something like this so you leave the fields untouched and hit Next.
- Last hit finish and check the checkbox that sais "Launch WampServer 2 now"
You are ready to go. Now open a web browser like chrome for example type http://localhost and hit Enter. Now you must see the screen of the WampServer. Last step is to make the famous 5 minutes install for wordpress in a folder inside wampserver. The path where you will install your Wordpress installlation is C:\wamp\www[your_wordpress_instrallation]\
Say for example that you want to Install a site with the name treehouse. First step is to create a folder inside c:\wamp\www\ and name it treehouse and the full path is c:\wamp\www\treehouse\ Inside that file you install your Wordpress installation or whatever you like, and you access this site locally from your web browser through the address http://localhost/treehouse.
I wish to help you adequately.
John Leskas
24,093 PointsYes, of course you can. Try to use a local server on your computer eg. WAMP for Windows users and XAMP for Mac users. and download an installation of wordpress from https://wordpress.org/download/ and do the famous 5 minute install to install Wordpress locally.
Darren Healy
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 23,565 PointsThanks for the detailed answer John. I installed it and opened WAMP...looks a little overwhelming at first! I'll need to have a play around with it.
John Leskas
24,093 PointsYou are welcome Darren. Hope my answers helped you, always at your disposal.
Darren Healy
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 23,565 PointsThis is a good question and one I've been thinking about myself recently. John, can you elaborate further on how you would set up a local server?