So you want to start creating or editing WordPress themes, but don’t want to break your website?
You need a local development environment!
It’s basically plopping a server on your computer, so you can test things out before putting them on your hosting server. If you want to do much of anything surrounding web development, even playing around with your blogs CSS, this is a must.
I recently made a switch from a Windows environment to OSX and previously used XAMPP (tutorial here). Although I could have done the same again, I had heard some great stuff about MAMP.
So, here’s how to do it!
How-To Install & Setup MAMAP
Go to the MAMP website, download and install.
Once it’s installed, start it up!
Green lights mean: GO!
And your browser will show everything is up and running, including a link to your phpMyAdmin.
You may notice first off, that your URL is a brute. Since MAMP uses ports 8888 and 8889 by default for Apache and MySQL, your URL is going to look something like this:
http://localhost:8888/awesomewebpage.php
There’s an easy fix so your URLs look like so:
http://localhost/awesomewebpage.php
Let’s change those ports to 80 and 3306, but first, we need to double check something.
Your Mac has Apache already installed on it, so we need to make sure it’s turned off. Otherwise, there will be a conflict as both Apache and your MAMP install will both try to use the same ports.
Under your System Preferences, look under Sharing:
Once you’ve confirmed it’s off, open your MAMP Preferences under the Ports tab:
Ta-da!
You should have prettier local URLs now.
Now, where should you drop your favorite CMS?
Swing over to the Apache tab under your Preferences and take your pick!
Congratulations!
You’ve installed a local development environment!
Now, setup your database, install WordPress or whatever your favorite CMS may be, and start having some fun!
Jason Bradley says
You stole my blog post idea :). I use MAMP for local development and it’s fantastic! I also wrote an Automator script that I can quickly create a new WordPress installation with Standard (of course). Maybe I will share that sometime soon 🙂
Eric Dye says
Do you have ChurchMag keys? If not, email me and I’ll set you up. Would love to see a post on this!
Paul Clifford says
I’ve used MAMP for some time and love it. You can also use it to turn an old mac into a webserver (say for on the LAN or even for a low-traffic site). Cool stuff.
Eric Dye says
I was super-duper happy with.