[wp-hackers] Site Address during development

[Lynne Pope]

I disagree with those who say this is an issue for only a small number of
users. If it was, then there would not be over 7 million results in Google
for the search, "WordPress changing domain names" and 4.4 million on how to
change domain name. There's a further 1+ million on "wordpress change site
url database". Assuming these entries have all been written to pass on
knowledge learned/meet a need, then it's reasonable to assume there are a
lot of largely-unskilled people messing around with their databases.

Also consider the support forums: http://wordpress.org/tags/domain - a LOT
of those cries for help may not have happened if users only had to make a
change to their domain from their admin settings.

I'm convinced that providing a simple, bullet-proof way for people to do
this would result in a better experience for all users.

I'm not convinced that using wp-config.php is the way to go. It might be the
easiest to implement but relative URL's have their own sets of problems and
apart from feeds, their use is limited where users do not have the ability
to use htaccess files. Arguing that other CMS use relative URL's with the
domain set up in config overlooks the issues users have with those.


Lynne