My hope is that someone can tell me if the directions are missing a (few) step(s)or if I just missed something obvious.

Thanks for your help!



Installing PROPS
----------------


1.  Unpack the PROPS distribution tarball outside your web tree:

        tar xvzf props-x.x.tar.gz

    The uncompressed distribution creates a props/ directory containing
    the following files and subdirectories:

        CHANGELOG.TXT
        INSTALL.TXT
        LICENSE.TXT
        README.TXT
        UPGRADING.TXT
        cache/
        includes/
        lib/
        modules/
        public_html/
        sql/
        templates/

    The public_html directory is your "web root" directory, and is the only
    directory which should be accessible to browsers via HTTP. All other
    directories contain support files, libraries, etc. and *should not* be
    accessible on the web.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I took this to mean that the public_html folder was the only folder that
should be in the publically accessible area and that all of the other files
should be in the non-public area.

==============================================================================
==============================================================================


2.  Create a database for use by the PROPS system. This database may already
    be in place if you are using a virtual hosting service.

    At the Unix shell prompt:

        >$ mysqladmin create props

3.  Create a database user with limited permissions, for use by PROPS. Again,
    this may already be in place if you're using a virtual hosting provider.

    At the Unix shell prompt:

        >$ mysql databasename

    Once inside the MySQL command line tool:

        mysql> GRANT select, update, insert, delete, alter, create, drop
            ON databasename.* TO
            username@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
        mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
        mysql> QUIT

    (replace databasename, username and password with the appropriate values)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I assumed that items 2 and 3 were meant as instruction to someone who had to
manually create a database.  I just went into CPanel and created a database and
user with password and privileges.

===============================================================================
===============================================================================

4.  Populate the database with tables and data from the props-mysql.sql file:

    At the Unix shell prompt:

        mysql databasename < sql/props-mysql.sql

        (replace 'databasename' with the name of the database you created
         in step 2)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Again, I assumed that this was just if you had to do it manually.  I went into
PhpMyAdmin and loaded the tables into the database I created in the previous step.

===============================================================================
===============================================================================

5.  Copy public_html/config.default.php to your "props root" or "web root" directory
    and rename it to config.php. This is the main configuration file for the
    PROPS system. At a minimum, set the following variables:

        Publication Name
        Default Copyright
        DB Name
        DB Host
        DB User
        DB Pass

    There are other parameters in the config file - you can edit them now or
    later. The ones listed above are enough to get you started.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I had three problems with this item.

1.) This clearly states that the config.php file should be in the web root directory,
but the comments at the top of the page in the config.php file state that the file
should go in the non-public directory.  I tried both ways but had no luck
getting access to anything from the browser.

2.) It lists six items that need to have vaiables set.  As I said, I have no
experience coding PHP, but these items seemed pretty straight forward.  I
simply replaced the "filler" text on these lines with the real information.

3.) Once you are in the config.php file each line of code has a comment explaining
what and how the code needs to be changed to point to the user's url, database, etc...
Based on the install.txt instructions I did not initially change anything except the six
items listed above.  Most of the php was supposed to autodetect and I am not
familiar with php so I figured that this would work. It didn't work, so I ended up
going in and setting the full path for each item.  That didn't work either.

This was it for the basic installation instructions.  The next line of instructions
says that the user should now be able to pull up the administration screens in their
web browser and starts going into how to update admin privileges, add users,
change passwords, etc... The problem is that I haven't been able to access the admin
screen.  I'm not even sure I am trying to access it correctly.  I tried www.mysite.com/admin.php
and www.mysite.com/props.  I've also tried using the complete path to the the admin.php
file.

So I guess my question is did I, before I went back in and started making
independent changes to the config.php file,  read and implement the instructions
correctly?  Am I missing something really obvious?  This was supposed to be the
easy to install cms, how much more difficult are all the others?

Thank you for taking the time to help me with this.