Hi Tina,<div><br></div><div>There are many ways to handle this, my answer is one, that I have found the simplest, easiest to implement.</div><div><br></div><div>My preferred way requires that you create a subdomain. It could be called anything, but let's call it "drupal" so the domain would be: <a href="http://drupal.example.com">drupal.example.com</a>. In cpanel, and probably others, when you create the subdomain, a subdirectory will automatically get created at <a href="http://example.com/drupal">example.com/drupal</a>. The Drupal files go in the drupal subdirectory. But you navigate there via <a href="http://drupal.example.com">http://drupal.example.com</a> and NOT <a href="http://example.com/drupal">example.com/drupal</a>.</div>
<div><br></div><div>When you are ready to take the site live, back up the old site's files and then remove them, and then simply move all the files and directories in <a href="http://example.com/drupal">example.com/drupal</a> to <a href="http://example.com/">example.com/</a> (make sure the .htaccess file gets moved with everything else).</div>
<div><br></div><div>With this approach, there is no need to fuss with the settings.php file or with the .htaccess file or any other trickery.</div><div><br></div><div>Look at the following two examples for how you write paths for links internal to the site. Let's say you have an "about" page, and you've created a custom URL for it "about". During the development process it's url is:</div>
<div><br></div><div><a href="http://drupal.example.com/about">http://drupal.example.com/about</a></div><div><br></div><div>For Drupal config screens that ask for a "path" like the menu set-up screens, the path you will give is: </div>
<div><br></div><div>about </div><div><br></div><div>(NOT "/about" and NOT "<a href="http://drupal.example.com/about">http://drupal.example.com/about</a>")</div><div><br></div><div>If you are creating a link to the about page "inline," meaning that you are writing text in the "body" field or some other field and creating the link "by hand" -- then you want use a "root relative" link as follows: <a href="/about">Visit the about page</a>. Note that you WANT the leading "/" in this case.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Hope this is clear!</div><div><br></div><div>best,</div><div><br></div><div>Shai<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 4:50 PM, Tina Williams <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tina@words-etcetera.com">tina@words-etcetera.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">I am new to Drupal, and I'm setting it up for a 1000 member<br>
organization's website. Drupal will run their website as well as<br>
using CiviCMS (thanks for the recommendation!) for our membership needs.<br>
<br>
Because they have a current website, and I can't take it off-line<br>
while I develop the Drupal one, I've set Drupal up in a folder. Now<br>
I'm beginning to worry about how hard it will be to move all this to<br>
the root directory??? Am I worried about nothing?<br>
<br>
How difficult is it to move from the folder to the root and how many<br>
things can go wrong?<br>
<br>
Am I asking a really stupid question?<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
<br>
Tina<br>
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