phpWCMS Installation tutorial

After you have downloaded the latest release from the Project Archive you should unzip the packaged files then upload this to your webspace using your favorite FTP application. Once uploaded successfully it should be look similar to the image below.

To start the Installation process you open a Browser window. Enter the address (URL) where your phpWCMS files have been uploaded too, include the sub-directorie/s you may have used followed by /setup/index.php.
(e.g. http://www.YourDomain.com/YourSubDirs/setup/index.php)

After reading the License agreement click the "I AGREE (CONTINUE)" Button to accept the terms and conditions which you agree to abide too. You will now be presented with a screen like the image on the left.

For this step you will need your mySQL database login details (Database name, User name & User password). If you do not yet know your database login details you should ask host for this. You will only need to use the prepend table names If you intented to install more than one version of phpWCMS within the same database. If you are unsure of this then you are advised to leave this field empty.

If this is your first installation of phpWMS and no previous database has been installed you should now click the create all tables instructing the setup process to build the database structure automatically. Leaving this box unchecked is for those users whom are updating or reinstalling phpWCMS over an existing version.

Your final task in this step is to click on the send db data. Any errors within this step are more than likely caused by incorrect entry of data. You should check that all is correct before continuing with this setup.

Step 4 is where you provide details of your website and for the default Webmaster/Administrator of the site
The first field is for your full domain address followed by a 'trailing slash' /
The next three fields set the 'User name', 'User password' and 'e-mail address' for the Webmaster/Administrator Account. The details you supply in this step are not the same as your database details from step 3. It is strongly recommended that you do not use the same information for both steps.

If you checked the Create all DB tables in the previous step then you must check the create admin account in this step otherwise no admin account will be created thus providing you with no way of logging in.

The remaining fields may be left 'as is' unless you fully understand the settings you wish to use here. You will be able to change and alter the setting for these fields at a later date via edits to the include/conf.inc.php
Click the send site data button to commit the information and proceed to step 5.

Normally you don't need to change anything here.

Only take a look at the field "phpwcms root", which should be filled out with the subdir where your phpWCMS is uploaded. (only check this option to make sure that the subdirectory where you uploaded the phpWCMS is listed. If you installed this in root, then leave this blank.) 

Hit the "send path values" button to come to the next step.

This step offers a few configurable settings. It is not neccassary to alter any settigns here unless you fully understand their implications.

In the field  "upload file size" you can setup the maximum file size which will be upload via the filecenter in the backend.

"content width" determine the width of the main content area.

"list image" determine the size of the preview images.

"preview image" determine the size of the images in normal view.

"logout time" determine how long you will be logged out after a certain time of inactivity. Standard is 1800 seconds (30 min).

"page compression" determine if the page compression will be enabled..

And at last you can setup a the "charset".

Hit the "send content values" button to come to the last step.

So if everything has gone well and there are no permissions or path problems then your screen should resemble.

If not, you should now refer to Error messages and correct any errors before continuing.

Once you have a full compliment of green boxes you should now download and save the newly generated config.inc.php file to your config/phpwcms/conf.inc.php replacing the existing file.

IMPORTANT delete the Setup folder as this presents a security risk to your website.

You have successfully completed your phpWCMS installation.

You may now LOGIN via the link in the upper right of your screen to the backend with the username and password you entered in step 4.