2 niner niner 2

There are a number of WAMP (Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP) packages available and I have used most of them: WAMPServer, XAMPP, JSAS and Ravenswood. I have come to prefer The Uniform Server for a number of reasons:

• the most compatible with third-party extensions for Joomla! that I have found
• completely self-contained; no registry “dust”;  you can run it from a USB stick
• fast and stable

What gets a lot of Joomla! beginners is why on earth does one need such a thing to work with Joomla! on your own computer. Isn’t Joomla! just like MS-Word or MS-Excel? Can't you just “run it” ? The answer is that Joomla! is not an application, plain and simple; there is no “exe”. What it is, is a framework that allows for the creation of dynamic, database-driven web sites. This really confuses a lot of first-timers (me too), especially those coming from a traditional, static web site development background using tools such as Dreamweaver to create sites with HTML and CSS. So why do we need all this to run Joomla! ?:

• Apache – this is the actual web server software, and one of the most widely used ones on the internet; chances are, your own web host is running it; installing it locally duplicates your web host environment on your own computer
• MySQL – the database; as Joomla! is a database-driven web environment, you need a database to hold all the information and MySQL is one of the most popular ones around; plus, Joomla! was written to use MySQL exclusively
• PHP – the is the scripting language that powers Joomla! and a whole lot of other Content Management Systems (CMS), notably WordPress (yes, WordPress) and Drupal

Let's get started

There are two items that need to be downloaded to the computer where the local installation will be installed, and those are:

• the current version of Joomla! – Full Package ZIP for this guide – get it here (1.5.14 Full Package ZIP)
• the OLDER (4.3 "Mona") version of The Uniform Server – exe for this guide – get it here (UniServer4_3.exe)
• there are PHP compatibility issues with the latest version, not only with The Uniform Server but with all the other popular ones, such as WAMPServer and XAMPP

For the purpose of this guide, the local server will be setup on the desktop. This is where I save all my downloads, so that is where I setup my own as I find that it’s a handy place to get to without a lot of extra folder navigation. You can set yours up wherever you like as The Uniform Server is a self-contained entity and not really an “installed program” in the usual Windows sense. No registry entries to worry about.

• double click The Uniform Server exe to start the installation; accept all the default values
• when the installation is complete, this is what you will now see on your desktop:

So lets go see what all got installed and how to get your local web server started. Double click the folder.

Doesn’t look like a lot, but believe me, there is – under the hood. There are a couple ways to start and stop your local server, which, by the way HAS to be started and running in order to work with Joomla! locally or for any other locally installed system such as WordPress or Drupal.

1. double click the UniContoller.exe

Method 1 - double click the UniContoller.exe

This is what you should get. On some installations, there may be some conflicts with this mini-application starting all the services and that is where Method 2 comes into play. Go ahead and click the Start All button. This is what should show shortly:

If you get an error at this stage while attempting to Start All, then use Method 2. If this screen is what you get, then you can now go ahead and click the ‘minus’ sign in the upper right to minimize the application to your System Tray (lower right of your screen). That’s it, that’s all for The Uniform Server for now. Easy! The only time one would normally return to the UniController is to access the phpMyAdmin database administration page and to Stop All services.

To verify that all is well, start your default browser and then enter localhost into the address bar. You should soon see The Uniform Server home page, as shown below.

Let’s now have a quick look at Method 2, just in case.

Method 2 - double click the Server_Start.bat

Doing so will bring up a popup window that looks remarkably like DOS; as it should - this is a Batch file being run.

This window will go through a few steps and then automatically close. Shortly after it does, one of two things will happen:

• if you have no browser currently running, your default browser will be started and with The Uniform Server home page being displayed
• if your default browser is already running (open or minimized) it will be shown and in a new tab, The Uniform Server home page will be displayed

When you see The Uniform Server home page, you know that The Uniform Server has been successfully started and is running correctly. Under normal circumstances, the only reason to visit here is to start phpMyAdmin (an alternative method, instead of using the UniServer application as noted above) in order to administer your local MySQL databases. Any time you need to do so, just enter localhost/apanel in your web browser.

To access the phpMyAdmin, click on the phpMyAdmin link in the left column. If you have a smaller monitor, you may have to scroll down a bit.

OK. That is pretty much it for the local server for the time being. Let’s now go ahead and install Joomla! The fun begins!