To All Windows Users - Install fixes

Thursday 22 September 2005 7:57:42 pm

It's absolutely astounding to me that the install for eZ is SO difficult. I have now just spent an entire day installing it on my development system for a project we are doing.....there are HUGE holes in your installation documentation and even seasoned techies have to dig through the forums to find workarounds or non-documented installation proceedures for a simple Windows install. Shameful!

For others installing on Windows; make sure you do the following prior to beginning the web-UI wizard:

1). Use the old-passwords variable in your settings/site.ini file, OR, if you have used a db password longer than 6 chars, reset the passwords:

enter the following in your MySQLAdmin commad line:

mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET Password = OLD_PASSWORD('newpwd')
-> WHERE Host = 'some_host' AND User = 'some_user';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

-after you run these commands, "newpwd" will be the root password for your db. -You can choose something other than 'newpwd' if you so want, but keep it 6 chars or less.

2). Set "DebugOutput=enabled" in your settings/site.ini file. this will enable the debugging output at the bottom of your eZ pages so you can actually SEE what's going on. Also set "SQLOutput=enabled" in that same file. This will allow you to see what errors do you have in the "Database configuration" step. Also, in that step, you don't really need to specify a port unless you're using something other than the default of 3306.

3). In your C:/Windows/php.ini file, set the following: max_execution_time = 120

-this will allow eZ to compile the pages the first time through without timing-out. -I found that the default time of 30 seconds was never enough and I kept getting "timed-out" errors the first time I tried to open the pages after install.

4). Add the following to your Apache2 httpd.conf file: AcceptPathInfo On

(This really doesn't seem to work...after you add this to your Apache2 conf file, eZ will still say you haven't - add it anyway and disregard the message in the web-wizard. I also added it to the .htaccess file after the install was complete, but I'm not sure this had any effect.)

5). Add this to your C:/Windows/php.ini file: cgi.fix_pathinfo=1

I'm not saying doing these things will fix every Windows installation problem, but each one of them fixed a specific problem I had. -And I'm serious about how shamefull it is that these things aren't covered in an obvious/prominant place anywhere in the EZ documentation or haven't been addressed as bug-fixes. -Primarily because, if you don't do these things, the installation fails every time.

-As a side-note; I installed Mambo on a machine the other day and it took about 3-minutes...Ez took over 8-hours just to get the paths working.

c'mon you guys at eZ, if you want people to use your system, make it easy to install the damn thing!

Friday 23 September 2005 3:46:34 am

I've also never had a problem with installing eZ Publish on windows; all my dev environments are windows. If the environment is set up properly with the correct php/mysql/apache versions then it is a doddle.

I would just like to elaborate on the mambo versus ez publish comments. I have used mambo also, and granted it is easier at first, but if you want to do any customisation thereafter it is hell. They have html tags outputting within their core php classes and it is next to impossible to get the desired look and functionality. Mambo is good if you are happy with what you get out of the box - quite rare.

eZ Publish's templating mechanism on the other hand and the ability to create custom content classes leaves mambo dead in the water i'm afraid - there is simply no comparison.

for example: with mambo you cannot create a content hierarchy of your choice. It is always section-->category-->item. With ez publish you can create your structure as you wish thanks to the simplistic folder item (another content class itself). Another difference is that in mambo you cannot create custom content items - they are all the same and include title, intro, text. What if I want another content item called 'event' for instance? I would want start date, description, and end date amongsth others and would want it unpublished when the event finishes. With ez publish this takes a few minutes of configuration and a few easy templates to render it. Unpublishing content is as easy as using the workflow engine within the administration. With mambo however you cannot do this out of the box but would probably have to code a module.

These are just a few examples by the way - there are too many to mention. Persevere, and you shall be suitably impressed. I am just more and more amazed by the day with this product - it is simply outstanding in my book; from the way its been structurally coded to the amount of powerful configuration features you get out of the box.

So comparing it to mambo is simply unfair for the sterling product the ez boys have created IMHO!!

www.jegodesigns.com
www.jegodesigns.eu