Setting up a quick start package on your local server - xampp (PC)

To start building a Joomla website you need a server environment to host the website:

You've got two options:

Use a live web hosting package using software like cpanel or Plesk. You would want to deny access to any casual browser till the site is finished.

Use a local hosting server environment on either your PC, Mac or linux – this could be WAMP (win), MAMP (mac), LAMP (linux), XAMPP (multi platform versions available) or separate installs of Apache, PHP and MYSQL.

Some people prefer to work in the local environment and then upload the finished site to a live server or others might simply prefer to work on a live server – all down to personal and client preferences.

XAMPP for PC

This short tutorial is focussing only on uploading quickstart packages to the XAMPP server on the PC (the extra P in XAMPP stands for Perl by the way but that doesn't matter here).

Check your XAMPP is running correctly

Check both Mysql and Apache are running correctly. You can check this be opening the XAMPP control panel via the Windows start menu item for XAMPP.

Software to extract the quickstart zip

You need to have a piece of software to extract the zip, which could be Winzip, Winrar, etc. There are many options available in both free and commercial software. I'm using Winrar here.

Create a folder in xampp/htdocs

You create a new folder in this directory, which is the folder name you will use to load the site in the browser later e.g. localhost/testsite.

Extract files to folder

Extract the the quickstart content to the new folder.

Run installation

Open your browser of choice and type localhost/foldername and the installation process will start.

Select language of choice

I've chosen to work in English (United Kingdom)

Pre-install check

This should all be green - in my case it is not, but I'm not concerned at this juncture with this particular error as I will alter the global configuration settings at a later date.

License Joomla

Once read, click next to continue the install process

Database configuration

11.1 The first two dropdown boxes are normally left unchanged.

11.2 The username on a XAMPP should be root and the password left empty or what you configured it to be when you installed the XAMPP server.

11.3 Enter a database name (if you decided to create the database in phpmyadmin first, you need to enter that name).

11.4 Accept the random prefix (a random prefix makes Joomla 1.7 a little bit more secure than the standard 1.5 jos prefix – although you could change this in 1.5 if you wanted to).

{jb_twelve}

FTP configuration

In most cases you will not need to enter anything here and you can safely skip this step.

{/jb_twelve} {jb_thirteen}

Install sample data

13.1 Click to install the sample data which will load the content of the demo site to your local version. All the text and downsampled images will now be populating the site – (photo licenses unfortunately forbid Bamboo from including high resolution images).

13.2 Enter the rest of the settings here for your site – these are editable inside the administrator side of the site. On the username we'd suggest anything other than admin or administrator

{/jb_thirteen} {jb_fourteen}

Remove installation folder

Simply delete the installation folder by clicking the "remove installation folder" button.

{/jb_fourteen} {jb_fifthteen}

Quickstart up and running

An uploaded quickstart version of the Hub template.

 {/jb_fifthteen}