How to continue developing site locally once it's live?

Just starting with creating a local site to upload to another server but once its live I want to be able to continue adding to it on Local Flywheetl, only uploading new material instead of having to export the entire site each time. Is there a way to do this? I’m a long time wordpress user but am not yet familiar with working directly with database and php files…

Hey there, so first question, are you using Flywheel as your host?

No, I’m using a different host.

Hey @Bluefish

Anytime you are working with WordPress between two different environments (in this case, Live and Local) it can get difficult to sync changes between the two due to how WordPress and various plugins store data within the database.

As a rule of thumb, I would try and do as much “content work” as you can on the Live site. This means things like creating posts, adding media, etc.

Try and reserve Local as a way to try crazy ideas, experiment with new plugins or work on custom themes or plugins. The beauty of working in a Local environment is that it’s really easy to wipe the it clean and start from scratch.

That being said, if you do need to push changes up to an existing site, there are a number of tools that can help with that. One of the best tools for synchronizing databases is the “WP MIgrate DB Pro” plugin from Delicious Brains: https://deliciousbrains.com/wp-migrate-db-pro/

It allows you to pull and push certain tables within the WP database.

For files, the best way to upload incremental changes would depend on the host, but likely will rely on some sort of FTP solution.

Hope that helps give you a little direction on this sort of workflow question!

– Ben