Local design of web page – how do I do this?

Howdy,

The easiest way to do a “local install” is to use one of the many “pre-packaged” local server “stacks” (Apache, MySQL, PHP)

The most popular ones are:
Windows: XAMPP, WAMPServer, The Uniform Server (my personal fave)

Mac: MAMP (my fave there), XAMPP

Google will show you were to get them; install and follow the instruction from the respective site; also search the Docs here as there are step-by-step instructions for most of them ??

Cheers!
Lyle

Since you do not have host account and you want to work with wordpress then only way is install a server locally like wamp and install wordpress

Thanks for the info. I’ve now downloaded The Uniform Server, I’ll see if I can make things work later.

I’m now having trouble with The Uniform Server – it appears to run, but I can’t get it to actually do anything without chucking error messages. Support query now up on their forum…

So much for the ten-minute install! It’s only ten minutes if you actually understand what’s going on sadly.

it’s meant to be installed on web servers, so it’s five minutes or less if you already have all the components installed and working.

you might want to try WAMP, I don’t use it myself, but it seems like a popular choice on these forums.

@cheekbones3 – what are the errors that it is “chucking”?
Are the errors appearing when you try to start the Uniform Server?
If so, the primary culprit for this is that you have spaces in the path to where it is located … for example if you put it in My Documents … see the problem? ?? this is why I always put it on the desktop or in the Downloads folder … try moving it there if this is the case.

WAMP is OK, but I find the Uniform Server to perform faster and as mentioned, it doesn’t “install” anything. And I have used most of them ??

JSAS, Ravenswood, EasyPHP, XAMPP, WAMPServer, Uniform Server

XAMPP, MAMP, MAMP Pro for the Mac

You also say that it “appears to run” … this is odd, because it really doesn’t! LOL! ?? The one sure-fire way you know it’s up and running is that when you:

– double click the Start.exe
– click the OK in the “UniTray created in System Tray …” dialog
– click the blue square with the white 1 icon in the system tray and…
– click the top most menu item “Start UniServer (Apache MySQL)”

… the UniServer Start Page appears in your default browser ?? THEN you know it’s running.

Did you have a look at the instructions on their site as well as here for how to install WP locally? ??

If not, here’s a quickie version (once you have the server running as noted above)

– within the UniServer folder is the www folder; this is the root of your local web server
– for utter simplicity, just copy the WP zip to this www folder
– extract (unZIP) file (if you do not know how to do this … well … there is the “big G” ??
– once that is done, you should now have a folder in the www folder named wordpress and within that are all the files and folders for a WP install

Before you begin the install, you have to create a new, empty database:

– enter https://localhost/apanel/phpMyAdmin/ into your browser address bar and press Enter/Return
– in the right pane, click Databases (top left)
– in Create new database enter wordpress, then click the Create button
– when the “Database wordpress has been created” appears, you can close the tab

… then …

– to start the installation, enter localhost/wordpress into the address bar of your browser and press Enter/Return
– at the Database Details page, enter the following FOR THE UNIFORM SERVER (other servers will have different values for the password)

Hostname: localhost
User: root
Password: root
Database name: wordpress

NOTE: THIS IS FOR THE DATABASE CONNECTION and has NOTHING TO DO with logging into your WP site! Also there are NO OPTIONS HERE!!! The User and Password are TOTALLY DEPENDENT UPON WHICH SERVER YOU ARE USING!!!

YOUR options come when you get to the Site Details page and you enter the Admin name and Admin password ??

Once you get through the install, to access the “front end” of your site, enter localhost/wordpress and to get to the admin login, enter localhost/wordpress/wp-admin

REMEMBER! Any time you want to access the site or the admin, the servers HAVE TO BE RUNNING!

To 2ninerniner2: thanks for the detailed instructions – they seem to have disappeared however!

For your info, after you gave me the https://localhost/apanel/phpMyAdmin/ URL, this worked, thereby indicating that UniServer is unable to launch a browser for some reason.

Ignoring this issue for the moment, it all seems to have got going okay now, so as long as I know how to access things via the browser manually I should be fine.

Next, I need to work out how to use WordPress!

And fonglh, you’re right now I’m past this impasse. I hope everything else is as simple!

I’m simply wanting to use WordPress to design a template for a website.

WordPress is not a web-design tool. I’m afraid you are doing all this and you’ll be disappointed at the end. WordPress is a web publishing platform, meaning that you use it not to design web-pages but to publish them.

If you want to test different themes, then you are doing it right, but those themes are already made by other people. If you want to make a theme of your own, that’s a whole other animal.

That’s unfortunate, I was recommended WordPress from two or three different sources as being excellent for web design.

I don’t mind if I have to use someone else’s theme, it just depends how much adaptation is possible, although if the format is simply tied to a blog format, then maybe it’s not what I’m after.

I don’t mind if I have to use someone else’s theme, it just depends how much adaptation is possible, although if the format is simply tied to a blog format, then maybe it’s not what I’m after.

Well the best web-design tool is a simple notepad. Whether you’re writing scripts, markup or text, it does everything to perfection as long as the coder does it the same way ??

As far as modifying WP themes, the possibilities are endless. Again, as long as you know what you are looking at, you can modify anything you like. Don’t get discouraged by WordPress, it’s an amazing piece of software that can make your life a lot easier. Smart web designers use WordPress, not because they are lazy, the reason is that there are 1000’s of templates out there to start the project with and then you can modify it to your taste.

My recommendation is to start learning at least html and php language. They are very similar and super easy. Then WordPress makes a lot more sense.

Once up and running, here’s more tips to make your site better.

Cheers,

Chris

Edited out this post due to doublepost.

@cheekbones3
If you are using windows the absolute simplest way to test WordPress locally is with https://www.instantwp.com/why-use-instant-wordpress/
I wish i had this tool when i was a beginner.
Try it out and say what you think.