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After my major problem that i just resolved, ive decided i want a subdomain where i can test everything first.

Ive created a subdomain.

How do i use joomla on this subdomain? do i need to create a new database? Do i just need put the joomla files into it? will that involve having to install it?

Is this a simple process? Also will i have to use a different log in to the main website? Will it act as a completely new website? If not, then how will i manage it?

Thanks in advance!

For example...

I have www.site1.com
- On this site i have joomla installed on 1 MySQL database.

I create test.site1.com
- Does this act as a whole new domain? so...
- Does this use the same database as 'www.site1.com'?
- Do i have to install joomla on this subdomain?
- Can i change the template and content of this subdomain, leaving 'www.site1.com' unchanged?

Is this possible?
How will i go about doing this?

Thanks in advance!

cfaulds wrote: - Does this act as a whole new domain? so...
- Does this use the same database as 'www.site1.com'?
- Do i have to install joomla on this subdomain?
- Can i change the template and content of this subdomain, leaving 'www.site1.com' unchanged?

Is this possible?

I can't tell whether you want it to be possible to do exactly the above, or if you want it to be possible to do exactly the opposite of above, or a combination among those 4 particular points.

Does this act as a whole new domain?

How does a "whole new domain" act? You can have it appear to be a completely separate website, a sub-site, or even the same website. You can have shared users or separate users, you can have single-sign-on or separate login sessions.

Does this use the same database as 'www.site1.com'?

It can. It doesn't have to.

Do i have to install joomla on this subdomain?

You can. You don't have to.

Can i change the template and content of this subdomain, leaving 'www.site1.com' unchanged?

You can. You don't have to.

How will i go about doing this?

I don't know what you want, I only know:
You want to have a website that is separate from the main one. You have questions about how much it's possible and how much it's necessary to have the second site integrated with the first.

At the extremes, you of course can have test.site1.com be a completely separate site - two Joomlas, two databases, completely unique data. And you easily could have test.site1.com literally be the selfsame website as www.site1.com.

Between the extremes are:
Sharing a Joomla installation and at least part of a Joomla database, but not any site-specific data (content, users, extensions, etc.)
Sharing a Joomla installation and completely separate databases.
Separate Joomla installations and sharing most of a database (not recommended because of potential for J! core or extension version conflicts).
Separate Joomla installations sharing only part of a database (users, for example).
Single Joomla installation, single database, different/separate content and template.

All of those are possible.

You might be interested in a couple of extensions related to this whole subject.

JMS (Joomla MultiSites) permits the sharing of a single Joomla installation among many websites (mainly, the idea is you can consolidate sites you only have to do one upgrade operation. Also that you can rapidly provision and deploy new sites). The sites can share databases, have separate databases, or share certain parts of databases among each other (users, forums, social components).

JFusion is for sharing users as well as user sessions between sites (they must be on the same primary domain -a.b.com and c.b.com will work, a.b.com and a.c.com will not.) Users will have the same credentials, and for the "dual login" feature (what I call "single sign-on") a login at one site will save them from logging in again at the other (if they're on the same primary domain).

Thank you very much for your detailed responses!

Ill make myself more clear.

I have a website.
I want to make a new website, however i want to make it before i purchase the new domain name - not sure what it will be yet.
It wont be related to my main website at all.
However, my web hosting package only allows me to have 1 MySQL database which ive obviously used for the joomla install on my main website...

Can i make a completely different website on a subdomain without using another database? Is this possible? How will i do it?

It would make administration a little unwieldy, but one Joomla install and one database can serve two apparently separate websites.

You'll just configure the second site to have all its own menus, assign to all those menu items the template and modules for the second site (re-set in the first site any modules which appear in "All" menu-areas), maybe make unique content sections for the second site, and in order to have two frontpages with two different sets of articles, there's a component called Frontpage Plus, which lets you have many frontpage blog layouts, each showing a different sub-set of the "Show On Frontpage" articles.

If there are users besides the administrator(s), both sites will permit the same users. If that's a problem, there are access-control extensions for segmenting permissions in different areas.

The only thing I'll warn you about is that when you do buy a domain name and set up the second site separately, migration might be a real pain. If you run two sites as one, it might be kind of hard to split them later. If nothing else, you'll have to delete a lot of items from each site after you clone the second one to its own domain.

thanks for all your help

It seems too complicated and so what ive managed to do is set up wamp, and host it on my localhost which has worked perfectly.

However im not sure how i can access this from another computer with internet access ( i think i type in my IP for this computer - however i need to forward it because it takes me straight to my router and asks for my log in details though i dont have them - my dad does. im only 16! )

It will act as a totally different website - with its own set of files and its own database.

I would recommend backing up your live site and using the files as the basis of the new site.
Then backup your database, create a new database, and import the back-up into the new development db.
Edit the config file on the new development domain - to reflect the new paths and new database name, database user and database password.

You should then have two independent copies of the site - one for testing one live.
You may wish periodically to repeat the process so your test/development site is up-to-date.

Dean

Perfect answer.

Thank you very much!