Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

jmort

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 10, 2005
52
0
Southern CA
I'm a designer, and just starting to work with PHP. I want to be able to preview my work without uploading it to my site first, as this is very time consuming after a while. I know I have to setup some sort of server on my mac, but I have no idea how, where, what kind, etc. I'm not a programmer at all.

Anybody know a real simple tutorial or got any advice on how to do this?

Thanks
jmort
 
It's not too difficult to do. First thing you need to know is turn on Personal Web Sharing in System Prefs -> Sharing.

Where to put the files? Library/Webserver/Documents

How to enable PHP? This is the tricky one.. Open terminal and type the following commands (ignore stuff in parenthesis):


cd /etc/httpd
sudo cp httpd.conf httpd.conf.bak (creates a backup of httpd.conf if you hose the original)
sudo vi httpd.conf (opens the vi text editor and opens the file you need to edit)
---scroll down until you see this section:

Code:
# Note: The order in which modules are loaded is important.  Don't change
# the order below without expert advice.
#
# Example:
# LoadModule foo_module libexec/mod_foo.so
#LoadModule vhost_alias_module libexec/httpd/mod_vhost_alias.so
#LoadModule env_module         libexec/httpd/mod_env.so
LoadModule config_log_module  libexec/httpd/mod_log_config.so
etc.....

type i (this will switch to insert mode)

---remove the # in front of this line:

Code:
LoadModule php4_module        libexec/httpd/libphp4.so


---Do the same for this line in the next section:

Code:
AddModule mod_php4.c


type ESC
type :wq! (hit enter this will force a Write then quit)


---Restart apache:

sudo apachectl graceful


---That should do it. It might look a bit daunting, but it will do what you asked. There may be a simpler way, but I don't know of one. Good luck.
 
yan can also use Pico, it's a much more frienldier (but less powerful) text editot in Terminal:

Code:
sudo cp /etc/httpd/httpd.conf /etc/httpd.httpd.conf.bak
sudo pico /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
And use arrows to scroll to where needed. Ctrl+O to write file and Ctrl+X to exit

Note: you need to have root user activated to do this (Applications->Netinfo Manager->Security->Activate root). Always be careful when user root, this is how you can really screw things up ;)
 
Thanks for the advice guys.

I tried Poeben's advice first and it worked. This is much nicer than uploading every time I want to preview my work.

Thanks again
jmort
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.