Concatenating production and change libraries for a web site

[billhorne at attbi.com]

(responses below)
> On Wed, Apr 16, 2003 at 12:04:17PM +0000, billhorne at attbi.com wrote:
> > The troop's goal for the web site is that it be maintained by the
> > scouts, not an adult, and the raison d'etre for the separate
> > directories is to introduce them to change control in general, and
> > to (if possible) allow them to see the results of their efforts
> > without having to roll a development library into production.
> 
> I think the easiest way to do this is to simply develop the testing
> site in a different location, i.e. a different machine, if possible
> (this is easiest from a number of perspectives), or just a different
> directory under the root of the existing web server (say,
> /.../htdocs/testing/).  

Good idea: the directories I'm setting up are on a "testbed" machine, not 
the actual www server in Ohio.

> If you really don't want people to be able to
> get in there other than the scouts who are maintaining it, you could
> password protect it, or whatever.  once you've decided that the site
> is AOK, just copy the files into the "live" directory.

That's where I'm in need of help: I've password-protected the "development" 
directory, and the "production" directory is read-only. However, I'd like 
any web page that's in the "development" directory to be AUTOMATICALLY inserted
in place of the production version, so that ONLY modified files are in the 
development directory.

> Or, you could develop in a directory which isn't in the document root,
> and just provide an alias to that location.  You can still manage
> source control via CVS, and just check out the site in the "live"
> location when the files are ready.

Will the alias allow for overlays of development pages in place of production 
versions? If so, that's what I'll do.

Thanks for your help.

Bill Horne