What Software

[Steve.H]

Hi! I'm trying to edit a whole new theme, and right now, all my Website is made thru Dreamweaver.
But i want to know what kind of tools, do you guys use to edit your sites, PHP.

I can't "preview" the PHP files, as I do with .HTML files.

Thanks in advance!

[jabi]

You can't view php files on your local machine unless you have php and a webserver installed since PHP is a scripting language.

The webserver I installed on my WindowsXP machine is Abyss Web Server, a free personal web server available for Windows, MacOS X, Linux, and FreeBSD operating systems from  Aprelium Technologies  (http://www.aprelium.com/abyssws/).

Get PHP from http://www.php.net/.

You will also need to load mySql (http://www.mysql.com/)on your machine to work with the databases. I'd also recommend getting phpMyAdmin (http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/) to help you manage your database(s).

Once you have everything installed and configured correctly, you can set up your Testing Server using the PHP MySql server model in Dreamweaver.

[Nibbler]

PHP is a scripting language, you cannot simply 'preview' it. The files can be viewed in any text editor eg. notepad but will not be much use to you unless you know PHP.

[Steve.H]

Hey Jabi,

Thanks for such a detailed explanation, i got it now. I'll try to set up my Computer into a WebServer.
Really Apreciate

Cheers.

[jabi]

No problem.

One other hint. Since it's a pain to try and keep two separate config files for database access (one for the local host and another for the remote server) I set up my config file with an if statement.

Example include/config.inc.php

// MySQL configuration
   if($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] == "localhost") {
      $CONFIG['dbserver'] = 'localhost';        // Your database server
      $CONFIG['dbuser'] = 'local_dbuser';        // Your mysql username
      $CONFIG['dbpass'] =  'local_password';                // Your mysql password
      $CONFIG['dbname'] =  'local_dbname;        // Your mysql database name
   }
   else
   {
      $CONFIG['dbserver'] = 'remote_server;        // Your database server
      $CONFIG['dbuser'] = 'remote_username';        // Your mysql username
      $CONFIG['dbpass'] = 'remote_password';                // Your mysql password
      $CONFIG['dbname'] = 'remote_dbname';        // Your mysql database name
   }

Hope this helps make your life a bit easier.

Jabi

[rphMedia]

Hey Jabi,

Thanks for such a detailed explanation, i got it now. I'll try to set up my Computer into a WebServer.
Really Apreciate

Cheers.

It doesn't get much easier than this -

xampp

I run this on one of my partitions and it's really easy to setup and use.  I was up and running in about 10 minutes. It's a whole package, mysql, perl, GD, got it all.

Edit: typo