Installing development tools
Hi all,
The next step I took after coming up with my initial website ideas was to install some stuff on my machine that would allow me to start building a local version of my site. Note that all the programs I have used so far are freely available, and that I'm running Windows XP. So, what am I using:
1. Programmer's notepad. I love this program. Its a free, open source text editor. It recognises tons of files types (css, html, php etc) and displays formatting appropriate to the file type. All my files are hand-coded using this program.
2. Apache web server, version 2.2.3. Apache is open source and the most widely used web server on the internet. I used this excellent guide on how to install the apache web server on windows. Followed the instructions with no installation problems. The only problem I have at present is that I can't work out how to view the locally installed manual files! I think I'm missing something obvious here - maybe someone can help. If I open one of the html files in the manual directory (C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\manual) the following is all that displays in my browser (both firefox and IE):
URI: caching.html.en Content-Language: en Content-type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Seems like the manual is offered in different languages but I don't know why it doesn't just show the english version for me (I assume it would try to use the browser's language setting). Well, no big deal anyway, I can always find manual information online if necessary.
3. Php 4.4.4. Again I followed the excellent tutorial on thesitewizard How to install and configure php4 to run with apache on windows. I ran into a problem regarding compatiblity of apache 2.2.3 and php 4.4.4 on windows, which was not covered by the tutorial. Found a fix after some searching (sorry I can't remember exactly where!) but it involved using some different dll's (one is php4apache2.dll I think) and a couple of small configuration changes. Also had to download the Microsoft Visual c++ redistributable package so the dll's would run. After that I browsed to http://localhost/phpinfo.php and it worked! Very pleased to have a web server with scripting language installed and running on my machine - with a minimum of fuss.
4. The other thing I needed was an FTP client - for uploading to the host when I had one. I'm using LeechFTP. It's an older FTP client and doesn't have all the new features or nice interface of some newer ones. On the other hand it's free and does the job for the relatively small amount of use I give it. The only real problem I've noticed is that if you upload a new version of an existing file, sometimes the result is that you get a strange mixture of the old and new file on the server! Anyone else come across this problem? I actually seem to remember the same thing happening with a different FTP client in the past. My workaround is to ensure that I delete the file on the server before uploading the new version. If anyone can recommend a free alternative to Leech FTP, I'd be interested to know.
That's it - a total of 4 programs installed on a windows xp laptop and I have a functioning development environment. Next entry will talk about choosing a host and domain name registration.
The next step I took after coming up with my initial website ideas was to install some stuff on my machine that would allow me to start building a local version of my site. Note that all the programs I have used so far are freely available, and that I'm running Windows XP. So, what am I using:
1. Programmer's notepad. I love this program. Its a free, open source text editor. It recognises tons of files types (css, html, php etc) and displays formatting appropriate to the file type. All my files are hand-coded using this program.
2. Apache web server, version 2.2.3. Apache is open source and the most widely used web server on the internet. I used this excellent guide on how to install the apache web server on windows. Followed the instructions with no installation problems. The only problem I have at present is that I can't work out how to view the locally installed manual files! I think I'm missing something obvious here - maybe someone can help. If I open one of the html files in the manual directory (C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\manual) the following is all that displays in my browser (both firefox and IE):
URI: caching.html.en Content-Language: en Content-type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Seems like the manual is offered in different languages but I don't know why it doesn't just show the english version for me (I assume it would try to use the browser's language setting). Well, no big deal anyway, I can always find manual information online if necessary.
3. Php 4.4.4. Again I followed the excellent tutorial on thesitewizard How to install and configure php4 to run with apache on windows. I ran into a problem regarding compatiblity of apache 2.2.3 and php 4.4.4 on windows, which was not covered by the tutorial. Found a fix after some searching (sorry I can't remember exactly where!) but it involved using some different dll's (one is php4apache2.dll I think) and a couple of small configuration changes. Also had to download the Microsoft Visual c++ redistributable package so the dll's would run. After that I browsed to http://localhost/phpinfo.php and it worked! Very pleased to have a web server with scripting language installed and running on my machine - with a minimum of fuss.
4. The other thing I needed was an FTP client - for uploading to the host when I had one. I'm using LeechFTP. It's an older FTP client and doesn't have all the new features or nice interface of some newer ones. On the other hand it's free and does the job for the relatively small amount of use I give it. The only real problem I've noticed is that if you upload a new version of an existing file, sometimes the result is that you get a strange mixture of the old and new file on the server! Anyone else come across this problem? I actually seem to remember the same thing happening with a different FTP client in the past. My workaround is to ensure that I delete the file on the server before uploading the new version. If anyone can recommend a free alternative to Leech FTP, I'd be interested to know.
That's it - a total of 4 programs installed on a windows xp laptop and I have a functioning development environment. Next entry will talk about choosing a host and domain name registration.
posted by Gordon Simpson at 2:17 PM
2 Comments:
my current favorite htmo editor is http://www.nvu.com/index.php
and by the way, grow up - ditch the bitch. XP is so last year. http://www.ubuntu.com/ man.
p.s.
why can't I sign with my wordpress identity?
Thanks for the tips Y. You are right, I'm going to check out ubuntu when I have time (its a linux distribution - including a trial version that can be run on windows from CD without any installation)...
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