The most recent version of this tutorial has been completely re-written at WebDev Codex.

Learn how to Install PHP 5.3,

To view the latest version, Goto Screencast #1 : Installing Apache 2.2, PHP 5.3, MySQL 5.1 & PHPMyAdmin 3.2 for Windows 7/Vista

If you want to see the screencast of this tutorial, then goto
Screencast #1 : Installing Apache 2.2, PHP 5.3, MySQL 5.1 & PHPMyAdmin 3.2 for Windows 7/Vista

Not everyone would spend money online to buy webspace just so that they can test out how their latest application works, Well… Welcome to Vision Master Designs Blog. This tutorial will teach you to set up a developer environment for PHP/MySQL in your computer in no time.

Index :

• Page 1 : Introduction
• Page 2 : Create Directories & Install Apache
• Page 3 : Install PHP5 & Configure php.ini
• Page 4 : Configure Apache 2.2
• Page 5 : Installing & Configuring MySQL5
• Page 6 : Installing & Configuring PhpMyAdmin

If you are aware of the basics then Click Here to jump below, else read on.

Normally we can view HTML pages on our computer without the need of uploading them to the server, since HTML is a Client Side Language. You don`t need any extra software to view html files, just any browser will do the trick.
But if you want to make your pages dynamic using any Server Side Language (PHP,ASP,JSP) & want to the see the results then you must upload the file to the webserver which supports that language so it can execute the file & return the results on your browser

We can set up a developers environment from which you can create and execute PHP/MySQL scripts by installing the above mentioned applications.

Now, The Pre-Requisites :

1. Apache HTTP Server (2.2.11): The best open source webserver. You need this to turn your humble computer to a powerful webserver to execute your applications.
   Direct Download apache_2.2.11-win32-x86-no_ssl-r2.msi
   Apache Download Page – Please Download the Win32 Binary without crypto (no mod_ssl) (MSI Installer) – apache_2.2.11-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi~ 4.3MB
2. PHP (5.2.9) : One of the most powerful web programming languages.
   Direct Download PHP 5.2.9 -2 zip package
   PHP Download Page – Download the PHP 5.2.9 – 2 Zip package ~ 10MB
3. MySQL (5.1.34) : One of the best DBMS packages which is free.
   The latest version is 5.1.34 which is stable and used in production servers. Although MySQL 5.1 and MySQL 6 are also available as beta releases, they are not used in production servers as of now.
   MySQL Download Page – Please download Windows ZIP/Setup.EXE (x86) 5.1.34 ~ 35.2MB
4. PhpMyAdmin (3.1.4) : Used to manage your MySQL databases directly using your web browser.
   Direct Download phpMyAdmin-3.1.4-all-languages.zip
   PHPMyAdmin Download Page – Please download the latest release from the 3.x rooster.

The above downloads are compatible with Windows Vista/Vista SP1 (32 bit OS).

What is SVN ? Why is it required ? You might be wondering. While developing applications for the web or any other area, most of us would be trying and testing the code on our local machines, sometimes it happens, while in the flow of coding, we tend to do some drastic changes to the sourcecode (atleast I do) only to find out that the application is not executing anymore after that. It becomes difficult to backtrack and eventually, we end up wasting a lot of time and energy, this is where SVN comes to our rescue.

Definition according to Wikipedia :
Subversion (SVN) is a version control system initiated in 2000 by CollabNet Inc. It is used to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly-compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS).

Index :

• Page 1 : Introduction
• Page 2 : Unpack and Install Subversion
• Page 3 : Configure Apache
• Page 4 : Install TortoiseSVN & Usage

Now, The Pre-Requisites :

1. Apache Webserver and Localhost configuration set up. To know how to setup the webserver for local use, read Tutorial : Installing Apache, PHP 5, MySQL 5 & PhpMyAdmin 2.11 in Windows Vista/XP
2. Subversion : Subversion is an open source version control system. We will be needing this package for the Win32 binaries for Apache 2.2.9 or higher to get a SVN setup up and running on your localhost. We can do version control using this package alone, but it is completely command line based.

   Click Here to goto Download Page.
   Please download the Subversion Win32 binaries for Apache 2.2.x (2.2.9 or higher is required within the 2.2.x series)

   For a direct link -> svn-win32-1.5.2.zip
   The latest release of Subversion is 1.5.2.

3. TortoiseSVN : TortoiseSVN is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows. It is based on Subversion, and has all the features of Subversion. It is GUI based, making our lives simpler.

   Click Here to goto Download Page.
   The latest release of TortoiseSVN is 1.5.3.

Introduction

I have given a jist of what SVN is, we can use SVN to keep track of web-pages, documents, source code and their versions. If we want to retrieve the previous version, we can always retrieve using SVN, Subversion was recognized as the sole leader in the Standalone Software Configuration Management (SCM) category and a strong performer in the Software Configuration and Change Management (SCCM) category.

There are 2 ways on how you can set up a SVN server on your system i.e use Subversion’s own server or integrate it with Apache. I am going to show you, how to integrate it with Apache. Once the SVN server is setup, we can use TortoiseSVN to perform all the operations, since it gets integrated into the windows shell.

Imagine this, You have a dynamic site powered by PHP/MySQL, its doing ok, you have submitted your website URL to all the known search engines, but still your site doesn’t seem to get much traffic from the search engines…ever wondered why ?

Well firstly, search engines have billions of pages to search. Imagine your link to be something like www.yourdomain.com/index.php?page=aboutme, its tough for any search engine to comprehend any keywords from the link.
But how about www.yourdomain.com/page/about-me.html ? These links are static Links, SEO Friendly Links, “Pretty Links”.

So today we are going to learn how to convert your ugly links into pretty links.

Index

1. Step 1 : Enable mod_rewrite in httpd.conf
2. Step 2 : Create A Simple PHP file
3. Step 3 : .htaccess file
   Method 1 – For only a single Variable
   Method 2 – For 1 and more than 1 Variable(s)
4. Conclusion

Ugly URLs
http://www.visionmasterdesigns.com/demo/seo/test.php?page=page1
http://www.visionmasterdesigns.com/demo/seo/test.php?page=page1&var=foo

Pretty URLs
http://www.visionmasterdesigns.com/demo/seo/page1.html
http://www.visionmasterdesigns.com/demo/seo/page1/foo.html

Click Here to download the script files.

Step 1 : Enable mod_rewrite in httpd.conf

Normally webservers already have mod_rewrite enabled. If it is not enabled, then you can request your host to enable it.

If you are going to try this tutorial in your local machine. Do check whether mod_rewrite module has been enabled in Apache. Do the following.

1. Navigate to your apache folder and open httpd.conf
2. Search for

   #LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

3. Remove the commenting character i.e #, then save the file.
4. Restart the Server

About the .htaccess file

You must have seen or heard about .htaccess file somewhere.

Quote from wikipedia :
In the Apache web server, .htaccess (hypertext access) is the default name of directory-level configuration files. A .htaccess file is placed in a particular directory, and the directives in the .htaccess file apply to that directory, and all subdirectories thereof. It provides the ability to customize configuration for requests to the particular directory.

Normally the .htaccess file must be present in the directory where your script is stored.
For Example : If my script is
myserver.dev/prettyurl/test.php
then my .htaccess file will be saved in
C:\server\www\myserver.dev\public_html\prettyurl\.htaccess *

*This is applicable if you have followed –
Tutorial : Installing Apache, PHP 5, MySQL 5 & PhpMyAdmin 2.11 in Windows Vista/XP

Step 2 : Create A Simple PHP file

Lets create a simple PHP file. PHP allows us to retrieve values from the URL iself using $_GET function.

For Example :
http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/test.php?page=mypagename.
$_GET['page'] would give the value of page in the above url.

http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/test.php?page=mypagename&var=secondvar.
We can have retrieve quite a lot of data from the URLs by using multiple $_GET functions. In the above URL we can have $_GET['page'] and $_GET['var']

<?php

//test.php
//storing the retrieved val from URL into a variable
$p = $_GET['page'];
$q = $_GET['var'];

switch($p) {
    case 'page1':
    // if $p = page1 i.e url was something like test.php?page=page1
  		switch($q) {
		case 'boo':
		//if $p=boo then url is somehting like test.php?page=page1&amp;amp;var=boo
		echo "<h2>This is page1 And BOO</h2><br />";
		break;
		case 'foo':
		echo "<h2>This is page1 And FOO</h2><br />";
		break;
		default:
		// if $p = page1 i.e url was something like test.php?page=page1
		echo "<h2>This is page1</h2>";
		break;
		}
    break;
    case 'page2':
    // if $p = page2 i.e url was something like test.php?page=page2
    echo "<h2>This is page2</h2>";
    break;
    case 'page3':
    // if $p = page3 i.e url was something like test.php?page=page3
    echo "<h2>This is page3</h2>";
    break;
    case 'page4':
    // if $p = page4 i.e url was something like test.php?page=page4
    echo "<h2>This is page4</h2>";
    break;
    default:
    // if page != any of the above, then default is executed
    echo "<h2>This is the Default Page</h2>";
	break;
}
?>

Save the file as test.php.

Test out the script, if we access
http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/test.php?page=page1
the result will be ‘This is page1′.
Similarly http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/test.php?page=page2
will show the output ‘This is page2′ and so on.

If we access
http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/test.php?page=page1&var=foo
the output will be ‘This is page1 And foo’

This sample code in PHP is to just show you how a general linking system works. It shows how $_GET works and how we can add data in the URL’s using ‘&’ operator.

Step 3 : .htaccess file

There are different methods to create “Pretty URLS”. I`ll just discuss the most common and the most optimized ones.

Ok ! Firstly our local server won`t have a .htaccess file, so we will have to create one. Fire up notepad, then type the following code.
Save the file as .htaccess. Place it in the directory where you have saved your test.php script.

Method 1 – For only a single Variable

Consider our dynamic URL to be
http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/test.php?page=page2
and we want our pretty url to look something like
http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/page2.html

#.htaccess code
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ test.php?page=$1 [L]

Let me explain what every line does.

• RewriteEngine On
  This tells to start the Rewrite Engine.
• RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ test.php?page=$1 [L]
  The basic syntax of
  RewriteRule pattern target_url [flag,flag,flag,…]
  1. pattern is ^(.*)\.html$
     () – Parentheses allow you to group several characters as a unit and also to capture the results of a match for later use. The ability to treat several characters as a unit is extremely useful in pattern matching.

     (.*) – Matches anything.
     Eg: http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/page1.html where (.*)\.html matches page1.html

  2. target_url is test.php?page=$1
     $1 is a variable where $1 = (.*) from the pattern.
  3. flag is [L].
     There are various flags. [L] means, If there is a match with a particular rewrite rule, It has to be the last rewrite rule to be executed.

Now lets test run our script. If the dynamic link is like
http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/test.php?page=page1
then your pretty link will be
http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/page1.html
Similarly for page=page2 the link will be page2.html ,page=page3 the link will be page3.html.

Phew ! That took a lot of time. If you are able to see the same output for both the ugly links and the pretty links, then you Rewrite rules are working perfectly.

Method 2 – For 1 and more than 1 Variable(s)

Now what if your dynamic URL was like
http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/test.php?page=page1&var=foo.
For the above dynamic URL we want our static URL to look something like
http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/page1/foo.html.
We want the first variable to act as a directory, while the second one should be the file name.

Note that previously page=page1 had become ‘page1.html’ since there was just one variable. But now we have 2 variables (page=page1&var=foo) so we the structure should be like ‘page1/foo.html’

We have to write a new RewriteRule to support 2 variables.
Remember : As your variables increase, the new Rewrite rules come before the previous ones.

We are basically extending Method 1 by adding another RewriteRule to support 2 variables as input.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ([^/]+)/(.*)\.html$ test.php?page=$1&var=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.html$ test.php?page=$1 [L]

Let me Explain what the new line does.
RewriteRule ([^/]+)/(.*)\.html$ test.php?page=$1&var=$2 [L]

1. pattern is ([^/]+)/(.*)\.html$
   ([^/]+) – Which has the effect of matching any characters up to a slash or the end of the string, whichever comes first.
   (.*) – Matches anything

   ([^/]+)/(.*)\.html$ – characters up to slash ‘/’ any characters ‘.html’
   Eg: page1/foo.html where ([^/]+) matches page1 and (.*)\.html matches foo.html

2. target_url is test.php?page=$1&var=$2
   Every variable i.e $1 and $2 matches with the unit inside the paranthesis.
   $1 = ([^/]+)
   $2 = (.*)
3. flag is [L].
   There are various flags. [L] means, If there is a match with a particular rewrite rule, It has to be the last rewrite rule to be executed.

You can test it out
For all dynamic links like
http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/test.php?page=page1&var=foo
will have static URL’s like
http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/page1/foo.html

Conclusion

(Method 1   Method 2)
Thus for all dynamic links like

http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/test.php?page=pagex

will have static URL’s like

http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/pagex.html

(Method 2)
For all dynamic links like

http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/test.php?page=pagex&var=foo

will have static URL’s like

http://myserver.dev/prettyurl/pagex/foo.html

This was quite a basic tutorial. It is tough to understand the string matching patterns initially. But the logic is very simple. I hope the tutorial wasn’t tough to understand. If you guys have any doubts, feel free to comment here, I`ll try to solve them. Cya

Click Here to download the files.

Greetings,

Most of you must have heard of “Ruby on Rails (RoR)”. It being touted as the next best thing (apart from php ). Well lemme give you a lowdown of what Ruby on Rails is…

I`ll try to explain the power of RoR in the simplest of words,

If PHP can do something after typing 75 lines of code, RoR can do the same thing in typing mearly 3 lines of code !!!!
Thats as simple is it gets ! But then again, there is a catch to it, RoR is equally complex. So Today, I`ll just give you the basic idea of what Ruby on Rails is, and how to set up a developer environment for RoR, So next time we can directly start creating applications. woohoo !

But Firstly the basics.
If you are aware of the basics then Click Here to jump below, else read on.

“Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby was initially developed and designed by Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto.”

• Ruby is very similar to our native object-oriented programming languages (eg: C++,Java).
• You can define variables using ‘@’ symbol.
• You can define functions, more commonly known as methods using

  def method_name
  ....
  end

“Ruby on Rails is framework developed particularly for web applications. The framework is coded using Ruby. It basically makes our lives easier by generating code automatically on execution of a single piece of code.

• It uses the MVC Architecture. (Model-View-Controller, I`ll be explainin this in the next tutorial, which will be ‘Creating Your First RoR Application’)

I like to tell you that, its not easy deploying a RoR application (Thats right, its an application, not a script or a piece of code, but a combination of lots of directories & files).
Its not anything like the php scripts we upload to the server and run the script by pointing to the right address, there are various modes on how a RoR application is executed (Eg. developer, test, production).

Enough of the technical mumbo-jumbo, lets get down business.

Pre-Requisites :

1. Webserver + MySQL installed
2. Ruby (1.8.6) : We need to install the basic ruby binaries and extensions to execute RoR applications.
   Download ruby186-26.exe

Basically you must have a normal php/mysql developer environment already installed, if not, you can refer to my earlier tutorial i.e
Tutorial : Installing Apache, PHP5, MySQL5, PhpMyAdmin 2.11 in Windows Vista/XP