#1 Support installation on hosted webserver account/s

[Henrik Vĺglin]

(We already had the discussion, Brian, and also I know it
is somewhat in your plans for the future too, but I
thought wrapping up a Feature Request might help you
organize it better and me to keep track on when its
being implemented or not)

Currently PHP Web Toolkit has some requirements that is
oki for an developer that has system control and/or
server system admin possibilities. However in an hosted
enviroment not even developers are allowed to change
or request changes to the server setup. Even further (as
in the case of my project) end-users might not be
expected nor experienced enough to furfill those
requirements during installation/implementation.

What I'd like to see as soloution to this is that PHP Web
Toolkit provides alternatives to get around such
obsticles in an hosted/non-admin webserver enviroment.

That in combination with supporting several major
Webserver softwares and systems, will make the
flexability enough to fulfill the goal of being Accessible.

Personally I also find an webbased guided installation like
the one that comes with CMSes like PostNuke would at
least be a good alternative way to doing it all manually,
both for newbies and mass-installing admins. Automating
what can be automated with necessary questions, and
good easy to follow instructions over-all - especially
where manual work must be done. (Yes, I'm a GUI-freak,
but I do think there's values in it besides the simple fact
that it looks nice...)

regards
Henrik

[Brian Bisaillon]

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One of the critical success factors for this project is to
ensure that phpwebtk is portable. This means being able to
use phpwebtk in different PHP hosting environments (i.e.
multiple operating systems, multiple database servers,
multiple web servers).

I will have to conduct more testing with the current version
of phpwebtk to determine what configuration options can
cause problems in PHP hosting environments where developers
are not allowed to change or request changes to server
configurations. I may end up having to implement some
workarounds and push out a maintenance release.

I have also been thinking about writing up some installation
guides for Cygwin under Windows, Linux, etc. and it could
take some time. I usually spend Monday, Wednesday and Friday
nights working on phpwebtk. I could start thinking about a
web-based GUI for setting up phpwebtk. That sounds like a
good idea and I'll give it some thought.

Thanks for posting this tracker item. I will leave it open
and post updates on my progress here.

[Brian Bisaillon]

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This will be addressed somewhat during the testing phase of
the next release of phpwebtk.

We will be testing phpwebtk in Cygwin under Windows and
Linux under both normal and superuser accounts to see if
there are any restrictions preventing the proper operation
of phpwebtk. phpwebtk should use php.ini's default values if
it cannot override them due to access restrictions. I will
verify that this is indeed the case. If not, I will make the
necessary source code adjustments so that phpwebtk operates
propertly in a shared web hosting environment.

However, my testing can only go so far and I would greatly
appreciate it if you could test phpwebtk in your environment
and report back to me on any issues so that they can be
properly addressed in the next release of phpwebtk.

As far as a GUI for phpwebtk goes, I will be focusing on
that after the next release to evaluate what could be done
and how. I am beginning to see that there could be a lot of
value add to a GUI for the installation, configuration and
administration of phpwebtk. The reason I want to wait until
after the next release is because I am going to be adding a
lot of features in this release and I want to be able to
consider those for the GUI.