Setting up the Master Computer

Transcription

1 Setting up the Master Computer for gofish the O FISH-AL Sales Program Be forwarned, non-technical translation for what is to come: blah, blah, doze off and blah-blah. Last updated March 12, 2016 I appologize that this is a little technical. gofish the O FISH-AL Sales Program is intended to run on a windows personal computer, but actually can run from any computer which is set up as a web page server. This document provides one example of setting up a windows PC as the master computer for this program. Once the master computer is set up, then other companion computers, ipads, smart phones and tablets can be given access to use the program at the same time. The master computer has the web server software, the database and the php programming language interpreter. The companion computers use a web browser such as Google-Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc. They get to the program using the network address of the master computer followed by /gofish. example: /gofish On the master computer you get to the program using localhost/gofish INSTALL WEB PAGE SERVER using Bitnami INSTALL WEB PAGES for gofish CONFIGURE DATABASE for gofish

2 Installing the Webpage Server for gofish the O FISH-AL Sales Program The following pages have been written to guide you through setting this all up and getting Bitnami WAMP Stack running on your master computer. Keep in mind that this in not the only solution. It has been chosen because it is a very good working solution for a windows PC. This solution provides much more that is needed but it includes everything which our program requires; Apache Web Server, MySQL database, PHP programing language interpreter, and phpmyadmin interface to the database. Remember the picture on the right. It is the Bitnami Control panel and you will be using it. This is what you will be doing to get the webpage server (Bitnami) on your pc. DOWNLOAD the Bitnami Software INSTALL the Bitnami Software Verify that Bitnami is running.

3 Download the Web Server software called Bitnami Go to this website and download the Bitnami WAMP Stack for Windows. The website will look something like shown to the right. You will see the words LOCAL INSTALL and DOWNLOAD WAMP STACK INSTALLER. Click on the bitnami-wamp-stack link to start the download. There will be a pop up to ask you to login. This is optional. Click on the No thanks, just link As with any download, your browser will ask you to SAVE the file.

4 Install the Web Server software called Bitnami After saving, the browser will ask you to RUN the file you downloaded. It will also ask about anti-virus. Just keep your anti-virus on and choose YES The install wizard for Bitnami will come up. Click on NEXT twice. Take DEFAULT values.

5 When it asks for a password use all upper case letters. Then press NEXT. It is important for us to use this as the password. MYADMIN Take the default value of 3306 for the MySQL Server port and press NEXT. For Windows 10 you many need to stop the World Wide Web Publishing services to use port 80. This is done from settings and searching for services. Un-check the learn more and press NEXT and then press NEXT again. The installation will take some time to complete. Checkmark the launch option and press FINISH when the install is done.

6 Verify that Bitnami Web Server software is running. When you see the window shown on the right you will know Bitnami is installed and running. This is the Bitnami Manager Control Panel. This is the Welcome tab and is where you go to set up the database for gofish. (Open phpmyadmin) It is also where you go to install the web pages for gofish. (Open Application Folder) Click on the Manage Servers tab and confirm both MySQL Database and Apache Web Server are running. If they are not then start them. If they won t start look at the Server Events tab to see if there is an error. It always seems to start OK. Unless you have another Apache server running or another MySQL database running. If you happen to have that situation, then use Windows control panel Services to stop those other ones. Come back here and try starting these again. Click on the WELCOME tab again and leave this running. You will be coming back to this BITNAMI control panel soon.

7 Sometimes you will need to open the Bitnami Manager Control Panel.Click on the Open Application Button and the Bitnami folder will open. Right click on the manager-windows.exe application and select Pin to Taskbar or Pin to Start Menu. This will make it easier to find the Bitnami Manager Control Panel again. Verify that the Web server is running correctly by opening a browser. Type localhost in the address field. localhost Note you might see instead. This is the IP address for localhost. The page shown will appear and this completes the verification. You can leave the browser open or close it. You are done with it for now.

8 Installing the web pages for gofish the O FISH-AL Sales Program You will receive the gofish zip file in your . There are more ways to do this than I have time to enumerate. So here is one way. If you have a different way you prefer then use that. The first objective is to get the zip file out of your and into a folder where it can be opened. The final objective is to get the folder out of the zip file and copied to a folder in Bitnami. To do this, select the Open Application Folder button on Bitnami. Open the apache2 folder. Open the htdocs folder.

9 Open the zip file then drag and drop the gofish folder from the zip file into the htdocs folder. Test this out by opening your favorite browser and typing localhost/gofish You are almost done. Only one more step before the program is fully functional. You now need to create the database to store the information for the sale.

10 Create the database for gofish the O FISH-AL Sales Program The database is where all the information about the sale is saved when you run the gofish program. This may seem like a lengthy explanation. Since perception is everything, lets try to simplify it a bit. What we will do here is create a database which is like a folder. Then we will create the tables in the database. The tables are like a file in a folder. To accomplish this we need to use the phpmyadmin program which comes with Bitnami. The following steps illustrate: 1) How to run phpmyadmin 2) How to create a database 3) How to read in the information needed to create the tables. From Bitnami click on the Open phpmyadmin button. From phpmyadmin login using root as the username and MYADMIN as the password. You should have specified MYADMIN as the password for MySQL when you installed Bitnami. phpmyadmin is used to manage the data you store with the software MySQL. MySQL is installed with Bitnami too. After you have entered the username and password press the GO button

11 At this point you only have databases defined for the software MySQL to function. You need to add a new database named gofish for our program to function. Even if you can figure out how to do it, do not delete the databases which are present when you install Bitnami. Click on the word New on the left hand side of phpmyadmin. The display will change and you will be able to type in gofish as the name of a new database. Type gofish under Create database and press the Create button. The gofish database is created and ready to fill.

12 Click on the word gofish to have it highlighted and to change the display so you see a tab called Import. You will see a button labeled Choose File Navigate to the gofish folder in the htdocs folder under Bitnami. It will be something like this: C:\Bitnami\wampstack \apache2\htdocs\gofish Find the file whose name starts with Dump and ends with sql. Highlight that dump file and select the Open button. Scroll down a bit and you will see the Go button. Click on Go and the tables we need will be created in the gofish database.

13 Now you are ready to test this out. Use your browse and type in the following as the webpage. localhost/gofish Then click on MASTER OPTIONS Then click on INITIAL SETUP If you see the club sponsoring this event as NEW HAMPSHIRE AQUARIUM SOCIETY, then you are all set. You can now run the gofish progam, make changes and save them. Congratulations! You made it through the install.

14 To use gofish from another computer, you will need to set up a wi-fi router and connect the master computer and all the companion devices to that router. The router should not be connected to the internet. It will be used as a private local network isolated from everyone else. Connecting to this wi-fi network should require a password. If not then anyone will be able to connect and that won t be good. Once the master computer is connected, double click on the displayip.bat windows batch file in the gofish folder. This will display the address your other companion devices will need to use to run gofish. This address can change each time your master computer connects. In the browser on each companion device type in the address numbers followed by /gofish For example: /gofish