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WordPress Local WordPress Development Local WordPress Development Installing WordPress Locally

Debby Beachy
PLUS
Debby Beachy
Courses Plus Student 2,096 Points

Using XAMPP not Mamp

This is very confusing and the video tutorials do not follow through with each other. I'm using a PC not a Mac one video tells how to install XAMPP for PC users and Mamp for Mac users, but the next video cuts PC users completely off and uses Mac with Mamp only. One video tells us to put our files into our site folder, but there wasn't any tutorial on creating this folder, the video simply picks up at this point.

I have no idea how to use the interface of XAMPP I will have to do my own independent research and study (which takes a lot of time) outside of this course, to stay with this course...Hummmmm?

4 Answers

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points

I use XAMPP on PC and MAMP on mac myself. They are basically the same. Both will have an htdocs folder, which is where the project(s) will live.

Short of starting the program, and starting Apache and MySQL with one click of the button, there is nothing else left to interface with. They function the same.

I know it's confusing right now. It'll make sense soon. Do you have XAMPP successfully installed?

Debby Beachy
Debby Beachy
Courses Plus Student 2,096 Points

Hi Kevin, Yes XAMPP is is installed correctly I put my WP files in htdocs>localwp.com Also in htdocs is a folder I created called testSite.com per last video.

Now I have to figure out how to use the interface of XAMPP the next video is for people using Mamp. The inside of XAMPP control panel is much different shown in the tutorial for Mamp control panel.

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points

Okay, so your website files should be inside of those folders you created, inside of the htdocs folder.

When MAMP or XAMPP is running, typing in localhost into the URL box on your browser will hit the htdocs folder by default.

When you put a folder inside the htdocs like localwp.com, and than put all of your WP files inside of that, and you navigate to localhost/localwp.com you should get your Wordpress site.

The XAMPP is interface should be simple.

Does your XAMPP interface look like mine below?

XAMPP interface

Debby Beachy
Debby Beachy
Courses Plus Student 2,096 Points

Yes it looks like yours, but I have FlieZilla, Mercury, and Tomcat active, which I guess I can stop.

So after clicking around in XAMPP system, I found if you click on: MySQL > Admin you will have the same setup page as the tutorial so you can follow along. Just in case anyone else has the same problem.

I know have my wordpress hosted on my local server! Yea! There's a lot more to XAMPP, but one step at at time! Moving forward!

Thanks Kevin!

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points

Yay! Awesome. Truth be told, I haven't used Filezilla, Mercury, or Tomcat on XAMPP. I do use Filezilla but as a standalone.

The 3 buttons I every only press on XAMPP is the Apache Start button, MySQL Start button, and MySQL Admin button which you found out will take you to phpymadmin.

Have fun!

Andrew McCormick
Andrew McCormick
17,730 Points

Debby, sorry you're getting frustrated with this. If you're still looking for the root folder, Zac does mention where the root folder for the sites will be at at the 1:42 mark of the XAMPP setup video: http://teamtreehouse.com/library/local-wordpress-development/local-wordpress-development/installing-a-local-web-server-on-a-pc

Other than starting the services like he does around the 1:10 mark of the same video, you shouldn't have to do too much. Let us know if you have any more questions.

Debby Beachy
Debby Beachy
Courses Plus Student 2,096 Points

Hi Andrew, Yes, and I followed the tutorial just mine, but in the next video he starts out by talking about the "site" folder we setup in your last video which we did not. I just put my folders in where the root folder is, and did nothing about the "site" folder that he talks about.
However he drops off when it comes to people with PCs. with XAMPP / Mamp he stays with Mamp for Mac users. This is where it gets confusing for us PC users. There should have been another video to follow through where he dropped off with PC's

Debby - thanks for asking the question (and answering it yourself). I ran into the same issue and your MySQL -> admin solution was just what I needed.

Debby Beachy
Debby Beachy
Courses Plus Student 2,096 Points

Great Ben, What I love about Treehouse is you can ask question while going through the lessons it's a vital part of learning. Cheers Debby

melissa brown
melissa brown
4,670 Points

1) i cant push the admin button on my xxamp. i can only push the apache admin button??

Some more info to my problem 2) i install xxamp and have mike local server up and running and did the 'mikes tshirt test site' and it works fine. But when i try to load my wordpress site it doesnt work. i just get this error msg "Fatal error: Call to undefined function get_header() in C:\xampp\htdocs\treehouse-portfolio\index.php on line 1" i am currently doing the wordpress theme development course. the thing is i get this msg whether i am loading the final project files treehouse-portfolio (which is not my code) or if i load my own code. i install xxamp and have mike local server up and running and did the 'mikes tshirt test site' and it works fine. But when i try to load my wordpress site it doesnt work. i just get this error msg "Fatal error: Call to undefined function get_header() in C:\xampp\htdocs\treehouse-portfolio\index.php on line 1" i am currently doing the wordpress theme development course. the thing is i get this msg whether i am loading the final project files treehouse-portfolio (which is not my code) or if i load my own code.

3) I bought the student hosting account and domain name as recommended on the videos. think this is the root of some of my problems and the confusion. so im not sure how to get around this i want to use the domain name that i bought and the hosting might come in handy when the site goes live no? So how do i just develop locally because going through cyberduck is to much of a hassle each time if i cant view my code in the browser through sublime. is there a way to set up the mysql admin through xxamp. Should i maybe somehow uninstall wordpress from cpanel?