Test System

[WebWorker]

Hello, I'm just wondering what the normal method is for implementing a test system. This is particularly important for upgrading and making sure custom templates function with new backend code provided by WHMCS.

 

Please share your methods for testing in light of WHMCS being encrypted and licensed/locked to a particular IP address / directory.

[HostOrca]

If you have your license direct from whmcs you can get a license key to run a copy of whmcs on your pc (using xampp)

[jclarke]

I bought a second license to use for testing.

[Redundant]

Our license is from a Host...I'm curious about how others go about this as well. I'd love to start testing the latest Beta, but not sure how to pull that off without just upgrading my live site. Then, not sure how to decipher the changes since there probably isn't a changelog between beta and release for template modifications..?..

 

Thanks to anyone willing to share how they approach this!

[WebWorker]

Everyone, thanks for the replies. I got in contact with WHMCS's sales team about the issue. As mentioned by HostOrca, if you purchase the license directly, you get a dev key included. If you have a license through your hosting company, you can purchase a dev key from WHCMS for $60.

 

Regarding template changes: I use notepad++ to edit code and it has a plugin called "Compare" which I believe comes with it. Basically you pull up both documents you want to compare, hit ALT-D and you have yourself a Windows based diff tool.

 

A step up from this would be to look into some type of versioning system that can help you with merging/comparing different versions of code. SVN, Mercurial, SuperVersion, Sourcesafe, etc.