Detailed Installation Procedure

This procedure describe every step in order to get phpGraphy running on your webserver

  1. Download the latest version of phpGraphy from the official phpGraphy website, there is currently 2 differents archives (.zip and .tar.gz), most of Windows users might prefeer the .zip format while *nix users might prefeer the tar.gz one.

  2. Unpack the archive using your favorite compression program (ie: Winzip for Windows users)

  3. Upload the archive content on your webserver using your favorite FTP Client

  4. Using your webbrowser, open the address of your website followed by the location of phpGraphy

    ie: http://www.mysite.com/phpgraphy/

  5. You should be automatically redirected to the installation process, if not add 'install.php' after phpGraphy directory (ie: http://www.mysite.com/phpgraphy/install.php)

  6. Follow the steps on your screen, it should be pretty straight forward but I'll list below those that might not be for everyone and also guide you to understand through the eventual(s) problem(s) you might encounter.

    Step 3, "Directories Permissions" - phpGraphy need to be able to write in some directories or files, on some configuration, the user used to run the webserver is not the same as the one you'll use to connect via FTP (called respectivly webuser and ftpuser) {FIXME: Include link to document that explain this}. In this particular case, you'll have to change the permissions of the files/directories to world-writable (also know as 777) using your FTP client. because every FTP client is different I won't be able to explain here how to do it exactly but search in the documentation or the menu for chmod (in command line FTP, you would have to type chmod +x or chmod 777 followed by the filename or the directory name).

    Step 4, "Image Tools Configuration" - My advice on this step is if you don't understand, just click on "Next Step" ! Basically, phpGraphy does the job for you, it detects the best choices and if it doesn't, it's very likely that the option is not available. The image rotation is only available through external tools (exiftran/jpegtran) which require the use of exec() and this function is very often restricted on shared servers.

    Step 5, "Database configuration" - Again, if you're unsure, just click on "Next Step". For those interested to understand, the use of "Flat files" is a good choice unless you're planning to put a huge number of pictures (more than 5000). So now, you can guess that MySQL is recommended when you've a lot of pictures as it's gonna be more efficient. The real advantage of the flat file is that you don't have anything to configure, it's just working. Also you can backup (replicate) your site more easily.

  7. Once you've setup your administrator account, you'll be able to access your site and you'll see some guideline to test it. Simply follow them.

  8. To finish, the last step is to check the security of your site by reading the instructions to check that your installation is secure.