[wp-hackers] Hosting Profiles (WAS: Tips for moving a Wordpress install)

[Mike Schinkel]

On Dec 1, 2009, at 4:23 PM, Otto wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Christian Gundersson
> <gundersson at gmail.com> wrote:
>> How do you guys move from a development install to a live install site?
> 
> Short answer: I don't. Not with content.
> 
> When developing plugins, themes, etc, then those are easy to move
> around, generally speaking. The content, not so much. So I keep the
> dev sites having test content only. I don't write posts and such on
> dev and then move them to production, I write them on a staging or
> production site, and just don't publish until I'm good and ready.
> 
> If you want to move an entire site, then yes, you're going to have to
> do some searching and replacing on the sqldump. I've never had any
> problems doing this, just make sure to keep the old database around
> until you actually have the new site up and running.
> 
> Note that an Export/Import operation can indeed keep the media files
> working properly, but it has to go directly to the other site to
> retrieve the files in question. Because of this, your staging site
> usually has to be internet visible. This is one reason I advice people
> to keep their sites on live servers, in hidden directories and such.
> Running localhost systems is fine for development, but not for
> staging.

Sounds like something that could be addressed,] with a little effort, no?

What if we added the concept of "hosting profiles" to WordPress that allowed the admin to add additional hosting profiles? That would give future plugins the ability to add support for hosting profile and thus make it easier to move a site.  Let's say you move a site;  Wordpress could first check to see if it is located at the current default location and if not offer the user to login as admin and change the default location.

This would need to be a core feature because otherwise very few plugins would be likely to support it.

Anyone see a problem with this approach?  This could solve a problem that far too many people experience and make WordPress more accessible for serious use.

-Mike Schinkel