The first part: Website development on CMS

Installation on a computer

First, we need to download the engine itself and install it.

There are two ways:

Copy the downloaded engine to the server and install it right there;

Install CMS on a local webserver located on your computer.

Each method, as usual, has its pros and cons.

When installing the CMS directly on the server, you will save time on installing programs for creating sites, which are indispensable when developing on a local computer. To work with the engine code, code editors are often built into their administrative part, which allows you to make edits directly via the Internet.

Besides, when editing online, you are not tied to a computer on which a local copy is deployed and the entire set of the necessary software is available.

But online editing is also a disadvantage, as you are very dependent on the availability of the Internet. And its disappearance or malfunctions while making edits, especially during the installation of components, leads to wasted nerves and time.

Code editors

Besides, not all CMS has built-in code editors. And if they are, then they leave much to be desired. For example, there is no such editor by default in OpenCart. It is available when installing the CodeManager module, but its functionality is not entirely suitable for comfortable and productive development.

And the default code editor built into the WordPress engine is generally disgusting. Once the changes are saved to the file, you cannot revert the changes. No automatic code formatting, syntax highlighting. You don’t have to go further.

In such a situation, when creating a website on a CMS, you may need a second approach to installing the engine – on a local computer. It works in case of any engine choice and is universal.

When making edits to an already running resource, working with a local copy also has many advantages over remote editing. Because in case of some failure during online editing, it will take a certain time to restore the site’s work, which the resource will be unavailable. And you will lose users, traffic, and place in the search results of sites whose robots cannot index an inaccessible resource.

How to restore work

To restore work, you will need an up-to-date backup copy of the site (backup), which is not always kept by the hosting provider, and if it is, it is not always fresh. When working with a local copy, you will not be familiar with such problems. You will not edit the site directly and it will always work.

In case of failure when working with a local copy, you can always get a backup by simply downloading files from the server. The most you donate is lost changes. But no one is immune from this, just be careful when editing.

One of the main advantages of this method is that when you install the CMS on a local computer, you can work without being tied to the presence of the Internet.

Personally, this feature helped me a lot when I freelanced, working in a factory. We didn’t have Internet coverage at all, even for business purposes.

It was possible to break into the network using the phone as a modem, but at such a speed even a regular site was loaded for about 5 minutes.