TMS:Website Development Log

This is a development log for the main Mars Society website.

The most recent version of the website (v6) was designed by James Burk and Shawna Armstrong.

Local Workstation Setup

• OS: I use Windows Subsystem for Linux on Windows 10. Set this up by downloading Ubuntu 18.04 from the Windows Store.
• Locally installed tools:
  • Windows:
    • Visual Studio Code
    • Filezilla
    • HeidiSQL
    • Git for Windows
  • Ubuntu (within WSL)
    • Apache
    • MariaDB (this can also be installed on the Windows side. MariaDB Is a drop-in open-source replacement for MySQL, which is now owned by Oracle)
    • NPM / Node
    • Gulp
    • Git
    • WP-CLI

I create a C:\Sites folder with Windows Explorer and associate that within Ubuntu by using "ln -s" to make it ~/Sites.

I set up the local Apache to host a domain such as "marssociety.test" to point to localhost with that ~/Sites directory. This allows me to easily use a browser in Windows 10 to test the local instance of the site, running on Apache.

Set up Wordpress locally

• Reference: https://hellojason.net/blog/how-to-setup-wordpress-locally-on-windows-subsystem-for-linux/
• Install wp-cli to live at /usr/local/bin/wp
• Install and configure Apache to use local Sites folder as above, creating a new .conf file and enabling it.
• Edit Windows hosts file to use .test domain
• Run the WP-CLI command "wp core download" in ~/Sites/v6
• Update the wp-config.php use local database and hostname as "127.0.0.1" (loopback IP address).
• Test the configuration by opening a browser and doing Wordpress Setup.
• Ready to go!