moving from test site to live

Question

I currently have a test Drupal site where I am testing the different modules and Views, display settings, etc that I would like to eventually use on my live site. But I am adding data to the test site as well, data that will also end up on the live site.

Because I am installing and uninstalling modules, would it be better to start the live site from scratch or can I safely move the test site to the live site without worrying about orphan code/settings slowing down or otherwise adversely affecting the live site?

Answer 1

One of the most common ways to move configuration data is to use the Features module. However, this will move only configuration, not data (nodes/content). Still, it's not too difficult to set up; you can take a look at this tutorial for an overview.

Moving data is much harder; the Migrate and Feeds modules are two common ways to do this but both are quite painful to set up and probably not worth the trouble. For content, I just keep a list of the info in an Excel file and then cut and paste it in-- it's not a great solution, but in my case it saves a lot of time.