Important
EOL notice! Acquia will no longer provide updates or support for Dev Desktop after June 30, 2021. Acquia recommends transitioning to the use of Acquia Cloud IDE for a managed development environment on Acquia Cloud Platform. To learn more, see Migrating from Dev Desktop to Cloud IDE.
Acquia Dev Desktop displays all your websites in the left panel. The following icons distinguish the location of your websites:
| Icon | Description |
|---|---|
 |
Exists both locally and on Acquia Cloud |
 |
Exists only locally in Acquia Dev Desktop |
When you select a local website from the left panel, Acquia Dev Desktop displays the following fields:
to
open a command line, set your Drush path, and go to your website’s docroot
folder. You can also open the command line by clicking
More > Open Console.mod_fcgid),
and not Apache module (mod_php). For more information about the
Config tab, see Config.You can work with the database in your local website, using phpMyAdmin (which is included in Acquia Dev Desktop), the command line, or other database administration tools.
To access the database with phpMyAdmin, click the Local database link to inspect and manage your website’s database in your browser, using phpMyAdmin. phpMyAdmin is a full-featured database management tool through which you can examine your database structure, run SQL queries, perform import and export operations, and more. See the phpMyAdmin documentation for more information.
You can access the database from the command line and use the mysql
command line tool. To do so, complete the following steps:
Click the console icon at the end of the Local code line, or click More> Open Console.
In the console, enter mysql.
This command gives you access to the mysql tool, which enables you to
execute SQL commands against your database. For more information, see the
mysql documentation.
When you select an Acquia Cloud website in the left panel, Acquia Dev Desktop displays information about the website. Click the arrow in the left panel to view information about the website’s other environments (Dev, Stage, or Prod).
Acquia Cloud workflow: Opens the Cloud > Workflow page in the Acquia Cloud user interface, so you can drag and drop your website’s code among the Development, Stage, and Production environments, switch deployed code branches or tags, and manage other aspects of your Acquia Cloud website.
Cloud site: Click the link to view the website in your browser, served by the Acquia Cloud server.
Git: The location of your website’s code base in your Acquia Cloud VCS (version control system). Click the clipboard icon to copy this URL to use at the command line or in a client to make changes to your code repository. For more information, see Working with code and Sending updates to your code repository.
Code: The name of the branch or tag currently deployed on Acquia Cloud. To change the version of code deployed in an environment, click Acquia Cloud workflow. On the Cloud > Workflow page, select the code version you want, using the code selector in the environment’s Code block. Learn more.
SSH: The URL of your website’s Acquia Cloud server.
to copy the URL. You can
then use it at the command line to connect to the server. to connect to the server.For more information, see Working with code and Sending updates to your code repository.
Clone the site locally and use it in Dev Desktop: Select this option to
create a local clone of the Acquia Cloud website in your Acquia Dev Desktop
local sites folder. For more information, see
Working with sites on Acquia Cloud.
For more information, see Working with sites on Acquia Cloud.
You can use a local Git client with a graphical user interface to work with your code repository. Some examples are:
You can configure your Git client by pointing it to the location of your local code repository (listed on the Local code line in Acquia Dev Desktop) or Acquia Cloud code repository (listed on the Git line in Acquia Dev Desktop).
The Local site URL link for local websites provides a Use https check box. When you select the Use https check box, Acquia Dev Desktop serves your website using the HTTPS protocol and uses a self-signed SSL certificate to simulate secure traffic. You can develop and test secure websites locally without requiring you to duplicate the SSL certificates you use on your production website.
Note
By default, Acquia Dev Desktop uses port 8443 for HTTPS traffic instead of the standard port 443. Due to this behavior, redirects from HTTP to HTTPS based on port 443 won’t work. To have Acquia Dev Desktop use port 443, update the settings at Acquia Dev Desktop > Preferences > Ports.
The Apache and MySQL status indicators at the bottom of the dialog denote when the Apache server and MySQL server are running (green) or stopped (gray). Click Start/Stop to start or stop them.
XHProf is a hierarchical profiler for PHP allowing you to evaluate your website’s code performance. To enable XHProf in Acquia Dev Desktop, complete the following steps:
In Acquia Dev Desktop, go to Acquia Dev Desktop > Preferences.
Click the Config tab.
In the Stack configuration files section, find the php.ini path
for the version of PHP you are using, and then click its Edit link.
Your php.ini file will open in a text editor.
Search for and uncomment the following line by deleting its semicolon
( ; ):
;extension=php_tideways_xhprof.dll
Save the php.ini file.
For more information about using XHProf to evaluate code performance, see the Using XHProf to evaluate code performance Knowledge Base article.
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