Duplicate a Volusion webstore for testing purposes

Question

I'm working on a Volusion webstore. I'm doing some custom templating, design changes and I integrate some nifty JavaScript libraries. But I want to be very cautious with the production version of the webstore. If some of these design changes would go terribly wrong, potential customers would see these errors, too.

The Volusion Support Center has the following article:

There may be times when you need to close your storefront for a brief period. For example, you may need to update your product line through an import or make extensive design changes – you probably don't want customers browsing the store while you’re working on it. To temporarily close your store: Go to Settings > Maintenance in your Admin Area. Click Close My Store. To re-open the store when your changes have been made, click Open My Store.

Closing the store does not hinder your access to the Admin Area. While the store is closed, you'll see a message at the top of the storefront stating that the store is currently closed to customers, but you will still be able to navigate through it. Visitors to your storefront will be greeted with a default message stating that the site is temporarily down for maintenance and will be back online shortly. You can tailor this message by clicking Customize Your Maintenance Message Here.

Sadly, this is not what I want. I want my production webstore to keep running while I make some design changes to a duplicate to be able to assess the quality of my work. If I am satified with it, I want to move the design changes to the production webstore.

What would be a good way to achieve this? I've been thinking about copying all files from the FTP server and try to run them on a local IIS server? But that seems like a lot of work, and I'm not sure it is worth the effort. Any thoughts?

Answer 1

You won't be able to simply copy the files from you FTP area to another server - they don't include any of the core Volusion scripts, only the templating and uploaded files (product images, etc.) - you'd just have a collection of files that didn't do anything.

As far as I'm aware the only way to do this would be to pay volusion for a second store to use as a staging site.

Answer 2

Yes unfortunately you would have to pay for a second store, it's quite useful if you do a lot of modification on your website. But then again it comes at extra cost.