This is the kind of thing I’ve wanted to setup for months. I had no problem getting it to work at the office, but now I’m trying to set it up on my home machine with no luck.

Both are OSX 10.4 using the default install.

I’m trying to setup multiple testing domains with very erratic results, mostly 403 errors, then it will start working but pointing the wrong directory.

thank you for your tutorial – although I tried the other solutions (NetInfo, Headdress) they did not really work for me. I guess I did something wrong with NetInfo and I didn’t really dug into Headress (plus I need more than just two development domains).

I don’t think doing it the manual way by editing some files is to difficult.

Again, thanks a lot, I definitely like my new shiny .dev-Domains :).

Best regards
- Jérôme

If you’re working on a team, I’d hope you’d have subversion or CVS set up to check them out to your domain.

And running the same versions as your host isn’t hard. But I’ve had no trouble developing in the latest version of PHP and MySQL on a Mac and running it using an old version of both on our Linux production server.

And why would you want to auto-upload when you save? Shouldn’t you do testing first?

I’m a one-man shop developing small to medium sites, so I don’t need a complicated system. Here’s my super simple technique:

Super easy, browser-bookmark based access to everyone of your dev sites.

Here’s how:

I keep my dev sites in the ~sites folder (PhP enabled in Apache) on my Mac. Then I saved a bookmark of the ~sites folder (http://127.0.0.1/~my_user_account/) in my browser’s Bookmarks Toolbar for fast, easy access. I name the bookmark “Local Sites Index.”

Clicking this bookmark opens a webpage listing an index of (dev) site folders in the ~sites directory; but they are listed alphabetically. Click on the “Last Modified” column header and the list re-sorts by date modified to force the most recent to the top of the list. Notice that the address in the address bar now reads: (http://127.0.0.1/~my_user_account/?M=D).

Next, modify the saved bookmark’s address accordingly: http://127.0.0.1/~my_user_account/?M=D

Then put this bookmark in the Bookmarks Toolbar of ALL of your browsers that you need to test in.

THAT’S IT! Now to see your sites, just open any browser and hit the Toolbar Bookmark you’ve just created to display a clickable index of all of your dev sites; all in their Apache/PHP glory–with the most current ones at the top of the list. (You can re-sort alphbetically by clicking the “Name” header.)

I go one step further: I make this ~sites directory page the Homepage in my main dev browsers. Now I merely start any browser and up pops a clickable list of all my dev sites; with the most recent ones right at the top of the list!

Summary: No typing of URLs neccessary, just launch your browser, and click once to see any site that you’re working on.

http://woss.name/2006/11/13/setting-up-local-name-server-on-mac-os-x/

Totally agree. Headdress automates this process and makes development drop dead easy peasy.