tussockjumper

Thanks WilliamsGraphics! I went with MAMP. I am sure this will save me a lot of headaches. Jane B- I followed this tutorial and got the local server working in no time: http://wp.smashingmagazine.com/2011/09/28/developing-wordpress-locally-with-mamp/

Any tips for freelance designing wordpress themes? What does your process look like when you take on a new client's website? Here's my main issue: I've had this problem when designing with Magento in the past: I don't want to make edits to the layout that go live on the clients site as I do them (just in case I make a mistake). In the past I have created a subdomain that is a copy of the main one, and edited within that. Then when it was time to go live I copied the entire thing. Currently I'm editing the layout of a wordpress site, but the edits are fairly small, so it doesn't seem worth it to create a subdomain (plus it can all be done within the CMS rather than FTP). This might even be really easy to do if it was just me making these changes to my own site, however, obviously I don't want to make a mistake! Of course I already plan to back up everything I touch...but There MUST be a simple way to do these edits, 'Preview' them without having them go live as I update pages...right? Thanks for your help.