Intro to APACHE, MySQL, and PHP & freely available (hackable) Packages Aonghus Sugrue 04 Oct 2012 Apache, PHP, and MySql WHAT? 1.Apache as a web server 2.Php as a server side scripting language 3.MySql as a database You will use HTML, CSS, Javascript, Jquery etc with the bundle above WHY? Open Source free!!! Good as proprietary even Facebook use it! Lightweight Many freely available bundles built using it Wiki, Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, OpenCart Setting up Development Environment You can install all 3 of these separately and then configure them to work together: DONT! Packages freely available for download that allow for one quick installation: XAMPP (http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html) choose the installer and not the zipped files!http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html WAMP Setting up Development Environment Typeinto your web browser. Please note this page will not display if the APACHE server is not started as per the previous slide!! Setting up Development Environment When your apache server is running it is looking at the htdocs folder within the XAMPP folder installed on your computer. Most likely location: C:/Xampp/htdocs For WAMP it will be the wwwroot folder In english, what this means is the server lloks at this folder for your webpages. This is where you put your.php, html, css, javascript files Setting up Development Environment Add some php code and save Go to w3schools.com to learn php and mysql. Setting up Development Environment Working with MySql in XAMPP Go to browser and type At the xampp homepage click on phpmyadmin This is a GUI system that you can use to work with the MySQL database engine Note: default user is root and password is not set, i.e. PhpmyAdmin Easy to figure out Create some databases and tables Mess around with it Integrating php and mysql W3schools is a good resource to learn php and mysql Learn them separately on their own first before integrating them. W3schools has tutorials that show how to integrate them. A great book is Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache All in One You can learn all the technical stuff to do with php and mysql on your own time. Now well look at taking an existing package and using it on your XAMPP or other development setup Content Mgt Systems (CMS) Many developed already and freely available Examples: Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal, etc To run these you either need a hosting package online or a development environment (e.g. XAMPP or WAMP) Also the CMS above are all built using PHP and MySql and as such you need development environment or hosting that can handle these these CMS Example Wordpress Go to wordpress.org (NOT.com) Download the source files CMS Example Wordpress Extract the files into a folder in your server folder (i.e. htdocs if using XAMPP) CMS Example Wordpress Rename the folder to something appropriate: your new site, blog, etc Go to your browser and type inthe_wordpress_folder] CMS Example Wordpress Screen will say there is no configuration file. For some other packages you may need to alter that separately. CMS Example Wordpress Go back to your database and create a blank database Go back to the browser and insert the database name, username (will be root unless you changed it), and password leave blank, and leave the host as localhost Click next and your done. Your wordpress install should be complete and its up to you what you do next!! It is very flexible and hackable learn php and mysql and then you will be able to customise as you wish!! CMS Example Wordpress Next page will give you option to login From then on, if you want to login to the backend you go to the directory where you extracted the wordpress files: note above that I extracted the wordpress files to the folder mynewwebsite in the htdocs folder. As such, you can access the login ate/wp-login.php Wordpress After Login Wordpress What the site looks like Go to Up to you how to customise it You can either choose from the many 100s (maybe 1000s) of design themes. You can build your own theme; e.g. skelligslandscaping.ie is built using wordpress and I created a custom wordpress theme. Good tutorial, a little old at this stage, isg-custom-wordpress-themeg-custom-wordpress-theme Codex at wordpress.org has plenty information on wordpress files 3 examples of Wordpress Use aonghussugrue.wordpress.com uses wordpress.com to create website. This options means .wordpress will be included in domain name. Good for familiarising yourself with wordpress Skelligslandscaping.ie Completely built using wordpress (i.e. all content managed by logging into wordpress backend) Linx.ie Footer section of every page and blog page are wordpress driven; the rest of the website is managed through standard.php and html files outside of wordpress (note: this site is not fully live yet: temporary location = Up to you how to customise it Plugins allow you to add whatever features you need from shopping carts to calendars to social media widgets. If a plugin does not exist for your specific need, then you can always build it yourself:- Could be good commercial opportunity if you build a good plugin Some plugin developments are worthy of project in and of themselves Other Examples Similar process for most other packages: Mediawiki for a wiki Drupal and Joomla for different CMS OpenCart for full e-commerce site