Setting up development sub-domain

[djkfunk]

ZC 1.3.9f

I'm about to officially launch my website, at which point i'll be setting up a development sub-domain (dev.mydomain.com) so i can make changes and do testing before i roll them out to my live site...

My question is: when i do that, will i need to have zencart installed separately on BOTH my live site and my development site, since i'll technically have 2 versions of my site? Or is there a way to change the config files in ZC so it can point to both places?

Might be a dumb question...i've just never set up a dev sub-domain because i've only developed basic HTML sites up to this point...I've already created the sub-domain and made it password protected through cPanel so only I will be able to access it (hopefully lol)

Any other tips or suggestions are appreciated...thanks in advance.

[afo]

You want to keep the development site separate from the live site. You'll need to create a separate database for the test site (you can import the data from the live site if you want). The two sites should never intersect.