Building site before going live.....what do you all do?

[netsultants]

When you purchase the license what do you all do? Do you just set it up on the domain and keep it live from install or do you somehow keep it internal before putting it on the web?

I'm looking for options of building it without exposing it.

Can you host it local? Do you just make it unviewable to unregistered users and don't accept registrations?

Thoughts

[King Kovifor]

You could technically build a .htacess file that disallows anyone from entering your forum.

[ishansoni1]

Just make index.html file and put custom text there and build your forum

or build your forum and then move it to proper location like built it on a folder named vbulletinisthebest495 and then you can move it to /forum or /forums or whatever you want defaultly on your live website

[Andy Huang]

I develop locally, while keeping a coming soon page on there.
Then, when I am ready, I upload and re-install things when it is ready... I re-install so it looks fresh, not an old beat 2 month old forum with no active content what so ever ;)

[jfelix]

^ how is this done locally??? you have a home server setup ?

[Andy Huang]

Yes... well, to be more precise, I have apache, php, and mysql installed on my computer, and I just do http://localhost/ :)

[netsultants]

Andy, can you get those free or are you paying for them?

[LGNetw0rk]

You could always password protect a directory called "forum" and have a place-holder page in the parent directory (ie: www.domain.com has a page (index.html) that says your site is coming soon while you work on it in private at www.domain.com/forum/).

[Andy Huang]

Andy, can you get those free or are you paying for them?
They're all (well, minus vBulletin; but if you already have a license, then its fine to use that for localhost testing) free.

Apache: http://www.apache.org
MySQL: http://www.mysql.com (look for community edition or whatever)
PHP: http://www.php.net

Or, if you're too lazy to set them up and configure them yourself, I used to use XAMPP on windows too: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

Some people use other pre-configured packages, too.

[jkcerda]

They're all (well, minus vBulletin; but if you already have a license, then its fine to use that for localhost testing) free.

Apache: http://www.apache.org
MySQL: http://www.mysql.com (look for community edition or whatever)
PHP: http://www.php.net

Or, if you're too lazy to set them up and configure them yourself, I used to use XAMPP on windows too: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

Some people use other pre-configured packages, too.

it would be nice to know what other pre-configured packages are.
is there somthing for teh absolute begginer? like me:(

[Andy Huang]

xampp is about as easy as it'll get; download, double click installer, and read on-screen instructions to complete installation. You'd copy files into your web directory (<where you installed xampp>/htdocs or whatever) and you're good to go to browser + http://localhost/ .

I'm not sure of the other packages available, as I don't use them. But I'm sure other members had mentioned other packages before, too.