I have managed to get a database and hosting set up with Heroku.
My question is, when I am working on local target am I actually working on the live database?
My main concern is that I will lose data that may be submitted with a form on the site. So when I am working on local version am I working on a local copy or a remote copy? When I publish are only changes to the db structure deployed?
I am very confused.
Generally no, but you need to post some screenshots about your configuration because you could've deviated from the norm and therefore interact with a remote DB while on a local target
I think you still have to run the migrations manually (on the database manager), but George plans to make migrations run upon deployment. Publishing (deployment) never publishes data updates, only files. So, database content should not be modified. If anything, the structure might be modified if migrations do run upon deployment
I take this opportunity to recommend you to make a backup of your database if it's something you can't afford to lose