Running EE locally as in the screencasts?

[ Dave Thomas suggested I promote this to be its own topic here ]

It would be very helpful if Ryan could describe how he configured his MacOS machine to be an EE server in this screencast scenario. Not all of us are very knowledgeable about this aspect of configuring our machines, and your advice would be very helpful!

I for one am also using MacOS with TextMate, so I would like to create a configuration that is identical to the one you use in the screencasts (even down to the MissingDrawer plug-in!) :-) In particular, I would like to continue developing in EE even when I am not connected to the internet.

My thanks in advance for describing how you do this.

Tony.

Hi Anthony.

Sorry I didn’t have a chance yet to respond to your previous thread but I’ll do so here.

On OS X you can run EE using the built-in Apache and PHP, but for simplicity and ease of use, I run MAMP. It’s a client application that lets you run websites and web apps locally, in a sandbox.

MAMP (Mac Apache MySQL PHP) includes PHP, MySQL and Apache and you can set it up so you can develop using EE even while offline.

You can have your EE site live anywhere on your computer (I keep all of my projects in /Users/ryan/projects) and it’s just a matter if pointing MAMP to that project and creating a database (through PHPMyAdmin, which comes along with MAMP).

MAMP is simply an OS X application that creates a self-contained environment for you to develop in. It doesn’t touch any of your system settings.

This should get you started, but I’d be glad to answer any questions as you are getting set up.

Anthony,

In case you haven’t seen it, I want to point you to a short write-up I did on how to set up local development using MAMP or WAMP, two applications that make it easy.

http://www.eescreencasts.com/blog/view/developing-an-ee-site-locally

Hopefully, you find this helpful.

Many thanks for the response, the new article, and the links. I had MAMP running in short order and it seems like a very simple approach. I like the fact that I can have multiple instances of EE, one for each project.

Ryan: I am getting stuck defining the server path for the template files.

I have created a folder called “template_files” in system/templates.

I then turned on “Allow Templates to be Saved as Files?” and entered the server path thusly:

/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/ExpressionEngine1.6.4/system/templates/template_files/

I can only guess that the server path that EE needs does not need to be referenced as far “back” as Applications, but I have not found a path that works, and when I click “Update” after creating or editing a template in the local copy of EE, I get an error saying,

“Unable to save your template as a text file”

and the file does not appear in the file hierarchy (of course!)

If you can see where I’m going astray, I’d appreciate a pointer!

Tony.

This is most likely a permissions issue. I usually store my site files outside of the Application directory and somewhere under my home directory. However, to fix this you might need to alter the permissions on the template_files directory.

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the command line, so I’ll explain how to do it using the Finder. Select the template_files and right-click, choosing “Get Info.” At the bottom will be a “Sharing & Permissions” section. Make sure the privilege is Read & Write.

If that doesn’t work, try placing your EE files in your home directory. Let me know how it goes.

Thanks, Ryan for all the guidance.

Today, I successfully set up two of my projects to run locally, using MAMP Pro’s multiple hosts feature.

Here’s a quick guide for others using MAMP Pro, and optionally Transmit and TextMate to set up locally-served EE projects:

1. Create a new EE root folder inside Home/Sites for your projects, and create a new folder inside it for your project.

2. In MAMP Pro, add a new host, and set the Disk Location to the above project folder.

3. Unzip a fresh copy of EE into the above project folder.

4. Set the following files to 666 using Transmit:

path.php
system/config.php
system/config_bak.php

5. Set the following directories to 777 using Transmit:

system/cache/
images/captchas/
images/member_photos/
images/pm_attachments/
images/signature_attachments/
images/uploads/
images/avatars/uploads/

6. In MAMP Pro, open PHPAdmin and create a new database (e.g., projectNameDb) and make a note of it.

7. In MAMP Pro, verify the MySQL root account (e.g., user = root; pw = dbadmin).

8. Change the name of EE’s system folder and make note of the modified name.

9. Restart MAMP Pro and access EE’s install.php page; install EE (enter the renamed EE system folder from step 8 above).

10. Enter parameters for the MySQL database you gathered in steps 6 and 7.

11. After successful EE installation, remove the “install.php” file from EE’s folder.

12. In Transmit, create a template_files folder inside system/templates and set it to 777 using Transmit.

13. Log into the EE control panel for your project, select Templates tab > Global Template Prefs, turn on save as files, and set server paths:

For locally hosted files:

/Users/antonygravett/Sites/EE/projectName/renamedSystemFolder/templates/template_files/

For remote (e.g., Enginehosting) accounts:

/www/ehxxxx/public_html/renamedSystemFolder/templates/template_files/

14. Test that templates save as files, both locally and remotely.

15. In TextMate, create a new project and drag in the project folder you created in step 1.

16. (Optional) Save the TextMate project file loose in the root EE folder for easy access.

Great! Thanks for posting your steps. I’m sure others will find this helpful!