Extremely new member! Need help!

[mitsoschelsea]

Hello!
As you already read, I am new here!
A friend of mine asked me to do some changes in a site he possesses. I am a (wannabe) computer engineer, so I accepted the offer!
All I want to ask, is what usernames or passwords, or addresses do I need from him, and then how to start, using FZ Client, or FZ server!
Thank you and I apologise for my newbieness!!

[boco]

what usernames or passwords, or addresses do I need from him

Server address (Hostname or IP), FTP username and FTP password.

using FZ Client

This.

Some reading: Tutorial and Using.

[mitsoschelsea]

Thanks mate!
I want for example, to do some changes to his site.
I want to remove some tabs, add some else and do some changes on registration, to be more "dynamic".
How can I do that? I mean is there a way to do this via FTP? Or I must do something else?
Thanks again!

[boco]

FTP is only for transferring the files. You need to use a different software (HTML editor or just a text editor) to actually work on them.

[mitsoschelsea]

So if i want to change something in HTML, I download the HTML script to my Desktop, edit it, and then put it back again via FileZilla?

[boco]

Exactly.

[mitsoschelsea]

How can I test if this changes that I made are working, without making changes on the original website?
(I mean to do it, because I am not sure if it works).
Thanks!

[boco]

If there's enough webspace, you could have a secret duplicate of the true website, in another directory. What I'd recommend is setting up a local webserver for testing. There are pre-built packages available, such as XAMPP.

[mitsoschelsea]

So do I need to make a new database via control panel?

[boco]

If you want to make a duplicate on the webspace you do not necessarily need a new database (just a different table prefix), however, I do recommend it. With a separate database and identical table prefixes in both it's just a matter of dumping the DB of your site and restore it to the copy in order to sync them.
A local testserver needs a new database for obvious reasons.

[mitsoschelsea]

So I download XAMPP, and given the directions, I go through?
Do I have to set up a new local server via FileZilla Server, and copy all the files from the original server, or XAMPP does it for me?
And then the URL won't be the same as the original website's URL?

I also want to mention, that the original site, is ASP written...

[boco]

Please note first that XAMPP, as third-party product, is outside our support scope. For questions with XAMPP itself you need to use their support resources.

XAMPP is a bundled, pre-configured package of Apache, PHP and MySQL. They include FileZilla Server AFAIK but you don't need it when working on the same machine. Just download the website files and put them in the XAMPP web directory. Then you dump and download the database of the site and restore it to a new, local one (through PHPMyAdmin or a similar software).

That should give a copy of the website running on localhost. Of course my explanation is extremely simplified; for detailed tutorials XAMPP support or forums dealing with that stuff directly will be far better than our limited support here.

[mitsoschelsea]

I asked at a XAMPP forum, but then I saw that the last post was on June '14.
Anyway, how do I get started (probably without XAMPP)? I open my control panel, make a copy of my Database and then open FileZilla server, on 127.0.0.1?
Then working on the copied Database?
Am I right?

[boco]

Without a local instance of a webserver software, PHP and a database software, you cannot host a local copy of the site. Webserver (Apache), PHP and database software (MySQL) is exactly what XAMPP (or other AMP/AMPP distributions) want to provide.

So the only other option is to make a duplicate of the site on the webspace. Dumping and cloning the database should be done with your hoster's tools (databases aren't files). Only downloading and re-uploading (or just uploading a local copy) of the website files can be done using FileZilla.

Other than the file transfer, everything else is outside this forum's scope (and outside mine). Sorry.