Installation
From FiFormsWiki
This article describes how to install and configure FiForms for your operating system
Contents |
Microsoft Windows Installation
Installing The Servers
First of all, before you begin installing FiForms, you need to have a running MySQL database server and Apache webserver (or equivelant) running PHP. If you don't have these, a great way to get them all installed at once is to install XAMPP. Be sure you have this software installed before you continue.
Getting The FiForms Framework
Also, you'll have to get a copy of the FiForms Framework. You can download the latest stable FiForms Framework distribution from sourceforge.net. Or, if you're feeling a bit more adventurous, you can Checkout FiForms from CVS using Tortoise CVS.
Note: These instructions assume that you have FiForms version 0.9.4 or later. Currently, version 0.9.4 is in the final stages of release and is not available for download, so your only option is obtain FiForms from CVS.
Setting Up The FiForms Framework
For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to assume you want to install FiForms in c:\xampp\FiForms.
If you downloaded the zip file, extract the FiForms folder to c:\xampp\FiForms. If checking out from CVS, checkout into the c:\xampp folder and it will create the FiForms folder.
Create an alias to the scripts folder in the apache configuration, so that the page http://localhost/scripts/ will load scripts from c:\xampp\FiForms\scripts:
Navigate to C:\xampp\apache\conf and edit the file httpd.conf with a text editor such as notepad or Scintilla. Add the following lines to the bottom of the file:
Alias /scripts/ "C:/xampp/FiForms/scripts/" <Directory "C:/xampp/FiForms/scripts"> AllowOverride All Options Includes ExecCGI Indexes Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory>
After modifying the file, save it and restart the Apache webserver from the Windows Service Control Module. Then continue with the configuration instructions at the bottom.
Linux Installation
Installation
Extract the contents of downloaded zipfile into a directory outside the document root of your web server. For example, you could extract FiForms to "/usr/share/fiforms". Symlink the "scripts" folder from the newly extracted FiForms directory into the document root of your web server.
unzip FiForms-0.9.4.zip -d /usr/share mv /usr/share/FiForms /usr/share/fiforms ln -s /usr/share/fiforms/scripts /var/www/scripts
Setting Permissions
If you want to use the FiForms online configuration/administration/installation functionality, your web server must be able to write to a few directories. Specifically, for configuration, the scripts directory must be writable and localconfig.php, if it exists, must be writable. For application installation, both the scrips/app/ directory and the top-level apps directory (under FiForms) must be writable by the webserver process.
Assuming that FiForms was extracted at /usr/share/fiforms and the scripts directory was moved or linked under /var/www/scripts/, use the following commands to set the appropriate permissions:
chgrp www-data /usr/share/fiforms/apps chmod g+w /usr/share/fiforms/apps chgrp www-data /var/www/scripts chmod g+w /var/www/scripts chgrp www-data /var/www/scripts/app chmod g+w /var/www/scripts/app
OS X Installation
Coming Soon...
Initial Configuration
Using your web browser, navigate to the URL of the directory you created in step 2, i.e. http://localhost/scripts/.
You should be redirected to the FiForms online configuration script, where you can enter an online administration password for future online configuration of FiForms. You may be prompted to enter the path where you installed FiForms. Enter the local path to FiForms, as
C:\xampp\FiForms
or
/usr/share/fiforms
Most of the options on the configuration screen will have reasonable default values. You will need to enter an Online Administration Password in order to use this screen to make any changes to the FiForms configuration later, or to install FiForms applications or import and export databases. Note that this password is not related to your MySQL login password, which is also required in order to connect to your database.
For a detailed explanation of all the configurable parameters on this screen, see the Configuration article.
Submit the configuration screen. This should create a new localconfig.php file in your scripts directory. Click the link to go to the main menu.
This will prompt you to login. You can login with any valid login to your MySQL Database, that is allowed in the configuration.
Install Applications (Optional)
An example application called Example Bookshelf Application is included with FiForms. In order to test this application, you will need to install the fiforms_sample database.
- Open the FiForms Applications menu at http://localhost/scripts/
- Open the Example Bookshelf Application
- Select Maintenance Menu
- Select Import Database File
- You may be prompted to login again. Login with your FiForms Online Administration password.
- In the box labeled ***Select a File*** choose fiforms_sample.sql
- Click Install Database
Create Applications
You should now be ready to start creating FiForms XML Applications. Have fun!
You can also use the FiForms Framework PHP classes and develop applications in PHP by including FiForms objects in your PHP scripts. Please see the included examples and API Documentation, as well as the page Creating Applications in PHP
Example Applications
Take a look at the example scripts included with this distribution. This will show you how you can make some simple FiForms. Before you can use the sample scripts, you will need to set up the MySQL database FiForms_sample.
