PHP attempt

[Dave Kovaleski]

I use dreamweaver for my web site making. I wanted to play around wiht building a php site for the first time. 1 minute into this and already have a question.

I created a php page and tried to preview it in IE 7 and all it does is ask me if I want to save the file or open the file, and nothing happens whne I try to open it.......whne I use a regular html page like this the pre view justs open up , it doesn't prompt me for anything. What gives?

[webmaster]

Sounds like your server is not set up to render the .php extension - do you even have PHP installed / enabled on your server?

Keep in mind, giving a filename a php extention only lets the browser / server that php may be included server side and to execute - There is really no such thing as a "php page" - php is a programming language - so you are writing php code

[BrandonSternfield]

Like webmaster said, most home pc's aren't setup to view a local php file through their browser. Some modifications you can find through google can help you fix that.

A good analogy would be trying to view a pdf without the browser plugin installed. Your browser will try to download the pdf, instead of view it.

[Dave Kovaleski]

I yield LOL, I was just looking at some php training videos.........way more than I can handle right now. My head hurts! Maybe its time for that phone call after all!

[lrodda]

Dave,
Obviously, before you can enable PHP you have to install it. While most servers from hosting services come preinstalled with PHP, it's possible that is not your case.

Anyhow, bookmark the PHP.net documentation link. It's invaluable for current documentation. Here is the installation link: http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.general.php

I run several Web sites that are a combination of HTML and PHP and I use Dreamweaver to manage both. Dreamweaver plays rather nicely with PHP.

Jump in. You'll like it. The power of PHP on the server side gives you endless possibilities.

LAR

[ERE]

You can download and install a pre-compiled binary of php on your windows machine from here:
http://www.php.net/downloads.php

Here is a very good tutorial for php beginners:
http://www.webmonkey.com/webmonkey/programming/php/

[yoyo]

You might also want to check out XAMP - http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

I installed XAMP so that I could tinker around with Wordpress on my PC. XAMP contains Apache, PHP, MySQL, and a bunch of other stuff. And it's easy to install.

[JeffC]

Agreed. XAMPP is the tops, as it's VERY easy to get running on your personal machine.

And, about the problem, 99.9% of the time it has to do with trying to open a php page without a server being installed on the local machine.

So, I concur... Not like you needed me to agree anyhow...

[thataway61]

I agree I used Xampp and had no knowledge of .php. When you have error messages google them, 9 times out of 10 you can find a forum question that mentions the error and find an answer to your problem.

I used it with Joomla and Mambo and learned a lot. I still don't know .php, but have been able to use it within those CMS's. It's nice to be able to use REW instead though, I am able to stay more focused than spending a day trying to troubleshoot something that is second nature to them.