Maintaining local install and online store simultaneously

Hi There,

I'm soon uploading a local install of opencart to a server, but I'm wondering if there's some kind of best practice that people follow to keep the two versions in sync.

Do most people just make changes to the local version and then upload the changed files as and when they're made, or are the two often synced via a program like dropbox, or what?

This may seem like a dumb question, but I'd be interested to know the standard, most reliable way of keeping the two in sync, or indeed any alternative methods of doing this.

Thanks,
Dan

As a practical matter local installations are ordinarily carefully adjusted before uploading with appropriate changes on the public server, and that continues on through subsequent changes, leaving the local source at the ready and the public shop as running safely on its own with the changes there brought down to the local machine in order to keep a complete backup on hand. To "sync" the two as soon as any local change might be made is ordinarily counterproductive in that regard and light. If it were done by connected software, then tests and provisional or improvident changes would tend to go up before you were ready. Only satisfactory local changes need to be uploaded.

Thank you Butte, what you're saying makes sense.