After I worked on it locally for a while, then installed the template on my host. I created a dummy static content page with some text in it and created a "special" access link buried within my menu tree, then assigned the new template just to that one page. Worked the kinks out of the new template, then made it the "default" template for the site.
Is it possible to load joomla on another domain, make the necessary modifications to a template and then copy that folder over to the new domain. I really like the versatile III template, but I don't want to be playing with it while the public sees everything messed up.
Ideally, I would work on things on your "local" machine. That way you don't have to edit the template in your graphics/html editor then upload the changes. That can be a pain in the butt. Since you are modifying an existing template, here probably the "best" way to do it, unless someone out there has another suggestion.
Download a Joomla server like
extensions.joomla.org/component/option,c...nk_id,311/Itemid,35/
and run it on your machine. That give you a copy of joomla on your PC and you can install templates and work on them, just like you were working on your webserver. All the files will be on your PC, just waiting for editing.
Once you have all the changes made to the template, and made the appropriate changes to the template_details.xml, simply create a new zip file of that folder and install it just like it was a normal template.
If you do any kind of web or php/mysql work other that in joomla, you might consider using WAMP (
www.wampserver.com
) instead of Joomla Server. WAMP is just a bundle of Windows Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Install and configure that and you're basically setting up a folder on your PC that behaves just like a webserver.