I came into Drupal at about what level of knowledge you describe... trust me, stick with it, it's worth it. I'll dialog with you here and get you set up.

First things first... are you going to develop with Drupal locally or on a hosted server? If you are developing locally on your own machine, do you have a webserver installed? What OS are you running?

Tony

I am doing this on my own machine so I guess the answer is locally. But if it's going to eventually be something that my church will use can it be added to them? I want to learn to use this for my own business but also develop a site for my church.

No, I don't think I have a web server installed. Is that what firezilla is? I contacted a twitter friend and he said make sure I have firezilla. Also, I may have blown it here because I didn't write in my previous post that I'm using a Mac OS Leopard.

Oh, and you are a blessing! Thanks!!!

Hey Alex,

I use an old Powerbook G4.

If anything I say contradicts what Tony says, then LISTEN to Tony! He has much more knowledge than I am!

I'm using MAMP I downloaded and installed the lite version. MAMP stands for Macintosh-Apache-MySQL-PHP.... It's simple and easy to download. It is a really cool and "easy" way of setting up "an Internet server thingy" on your computer. So it's a great thing being able to design and build a website without being connected to the Internet.

You will NEED an FTP program to transfer files (upload/download) to the Internet. But if you are just working on your local server, then you don't have to worry about FTP for right now.

Filezilla is a FTP program for Windows. File Transfer Protocal.

Cyberduck is a good FTP program for the Mac.

Either setup, you want to select SFTP.. The "S" being for Secure. I use Dreamhost for hosting my website on the Internet. I wasn't able to use SFTP, as it would always disconnect. So used FTP until I realized that you need to "allow" SFTP transfers in the Dreamhost control panel.

Sorry if I'm going into too much detail too soon.

I use Drupal. I was really impressed with the passion that Rob Feature and MF have for it. And I'm starting to "see the light" after using it.

I did play around with Joomla. But I had started messing with Drupal to the point that I was getting confused with Joomla. So I decided to stick with Drupal! And I'm happy I did.

Yes, you will have to eventually get your website from your computer to the actual live Internet. But maybe it is best to concentrate on setting your site on your computer first..So there is not too much info overload.

The good news is that this site IS, in my opinion, the best place to be for what you need!

Have a great day,
Shane

I'm a linux/windows guy, so I'll defer to houseofbean on programs for Mac, but right now, you just need to set up MAMP, like he said... worry about FTP (the FileZilla thingie) later.

After you set up MAMP, come back here, and I'll have more info up.

@houseofbean: Can you cover tarballs for her, and how to unpack them with Macs?

Tony

Right now I am hosting my own website with Go Daddy. I sometimes upload with FTP but most of the time I upload through dreamweaver. I currently use dreamweaver mixed with css and xhtml. And some flash. So do I still need an ftp program?

and thanks for all the info. Going to read ahead to see what's next:)

Right now I'm in the process of downloading MAMP. It says it still has 3 hours to go. Am I going to have any room left on my hard drive after this??? It must be a large file but I have 120 GB so I guess I'm okay.

I did already download drupal but it went to my downloads. I read the directions and I was supposed to move it to the library/webserver/site (or something like that) but was I supposed to move the whole folder? It didn't say which file to move there. Then when I was supposed to reconfigure the .php I just gave up.

After I finish downloading MAMP where do I put it? I'm almost sure it will not be self-exploratory as neither was drupal.

Thanks guys!

It now says it will take 5 hours to download. Is this normal?

Hi Alex,

please give us some feedback when you can, as to where you've got to. Unfortunately for us it's easy to give a massive amount of 'tech' information in just a few lines, without providing all the context. For what it's worth, I use MacOS Leopard too, and my wife is a non-tech web designer (but she's now picking it all up fast!), so maybe I can add a few basic points here. Forgive me if some things you already know.

Web Development Overview

All modern websites can be regarded as 'static' or 'dynamic'. 'Static' websites are the simplest, and are created only from HTML text files for the structure and text content, with design style provided by CSS, and the site enhanced by images, media files and so on. In this case, when a person types in the website url into the browser, the browser requests the page from the Internet server and the server simply sends all these components back to the browser as-is, over the network, to be pieced back together by the browser.

The good thing about static sites is that you can create and run them on your Mac with nothing more than a text editor and (probably) an image editor, then open the homepage in your browser and voila - it's there. Then you use an FTP client (such as Filezilla, available for both Windows and Mac) to 'copy and paste' the site files to the Internet server when you're happy with the design.

Dynamic Sites

Drupal and Joomla are examples of 'dynamic' content management systems (CMSs). These are far more flexible than 'static' sites, since they can entirely change the look of the pages that the server sends back to the browser each time, depending on what the CMS developers (and you!) 'program' them to do. Dynamic sites usually depend on a database (MySQL for both Joomla and Drupal), where all the dynamic site information and content is stored, instead of in the 'static' html files themselves. They also usually have an online 'administrative interface' where you can upload, create, modify and delete site content (both text and images) in the browser, without always having to download, modify and upload the whole site as you might have to do with a static site.

However, dynamic sites do come at a 'cost' (even if they're free, such as both Drupal and Joomla are!). They are (clearly) not so easy to create or set up, and are entirely dependent on having an Internet server (usually Apache) and database (usually MySQL) available just in order to work.

Developing on a Dynamic CMS

There are a number of ways to design and develop with dynamic CMS systems - I will give you some examples here:

Easiest

The way many designers work on a new CMS site is that they upload all the CMS files via FTP (Filezilla!) to the Internet server, run the installation as according to instructions, then start working directly on the newly installed CMS site by typing or pasting in text content (articles), uploading a design template (html, css, images), and finally presenting the site to the client. This is the way my wife has usually worked for the last few years on Joomla sites. I used to do the installation for her, but she later learned how to do it herself (just filling in the right information into the right boxes ... there are lots of tutorials and help available for that). She creates the design template in Dreamweaver as html, css and images, and then uploads via DW / Filezilla to the CMS site, and then adds the final touches (menus, forms, etc.) again online in the admin interface.

Most flexible

Shane and Tony have explained a more flexible method of development, but more difficult to set up. That involves installing those required programs first (the Internet server program and the database (perhaps > 130MB altogether)). MAMP is the simplest way to do this, since it's one program that installs everything you need on your Mac. Once you have that installed, you can copy the Joomla / Drupal installation files to a folder on your machine, then run the CMS installation in a browser - all running on your computer (no Internet access required!). You would design and build the site in a similar way to the first method, but once you wanted it to work on the final Internet server you would need to upload all the site files (both CMS and your own added ones) in one go via FTP, then take a copy or 'backup' of your computer's database and 'paste' that into the Internet server's database.

Summary

Although there are many utilities and tutorials that can help you with the second method above, it will *always* be more complex to learn and setup at first, but it's more flexible (especially for programmers) since you don't have to worry about accidentally breaking an existing site on a 'live' Internet server during design work - you can test a new design or feature fully before moving it over to the 'live' server. This is the method I use, since I'm more a programmer than a designer.

Which method you use is up to you - but if you're starting updating an existing site with Drupal or Joomla for the first time, I would suggest that it's a lot easier to create a new folder on the Internet server, then install the CMS into that and learn that way. You can always move the files to the root directory when you need to (and update the CMS settings in the admin), when you're ready to go live. It's not as elegant as setting up MAMP etc, but at least you can focus on learning the CMS and the design before you bring other 'unknowns' into the equation.

If any of this isn't clear, feel free to ask for more information. That's why we're here!

Alan

PS - And just to set the record straight, my wife chose Joomla over Drupal and others because of its simplicity and ease of learning. Both are great, competent products. However, I would agree with Rob and Matt's opinion, where they say 'Stick with one system and get good at it'! If Drupal seems best for you (and there are more than enough people here who would recommend it and help you with it!), that's great! Just don't underestimate the amount of time and learning you'll need to invest before you can confidently build and maintain a site... and that applies to any system.

When I started, I didn't want to install a webserver on my laptop, or do any of that, cause I didn't know anything at all. So I learned by installing drupal directly on my website and playing around with the web interface for it.

So, if you get overwhelmed with the process, I'd suggest trying it that way. What is the hosting company for the site you are building? They may even have an automated way to install drupal on your site (not recommended, but if the plan is to play around and learn, then start over at some point in the future, it's fine).

Tony

Hey Alex,

@ Tony: Tarballs? I actually know what those are. I just double-click and they unpack. But I'm working on learning the command line in Terminal. Let me know if I'm missing something :-o

@ Alex:
Yes, I would still say you need an FTP program. Even though most, I think, web-hosting companies provide a "web-based ftp", it's nice to have a separate FTP.

I only have a 60GB hard drive. So you are fine.

What kind of connection to you have to the Internet?? I looked at the MAMP website and it shows the file to be around only 130 megabytes. If you have a SLOW connection (like phone dialup), then it could take that long. But if you have a fast connection (like cable), it could download in less than 30 minutes. OR your Internet connection could just be constipated. Or if you have HORRIBLE Internet, like we do at the ywam base in Hurlach, then you can go on vacation and hope the download is done when you get back! :-o

Drupal is ok in your downloads folder for now. It won't work at all until you install MAMP. I kept trying to double-click "install.php" from the Drupal director before installing mamp.

Where to put MAMP?? Well, that's a good question! I wasn't sure myself. I just put the MAMP folder directly in my Applications folder. And the "Drupal" directory will go inside of a folder called "htdocs" which is inside the the "MAMP" folder. There is also a MAMP widget, but I have not played with it.

But once you have download MAMP to the applications, just double click on " MAMP " icon/program then it all "automatically" starts and a web page will pop up. It might ask for your Mac's username and password to start the mamp server.

Don't worry about the mysql and myphpadmin for now... Well, at least worry about that after you get mamp downloaded. Well, you have to create a database in myphpadmin before you install Drupal...But let's get stuff downloaded before exploding your brain ;-)

I've also learned that sometimes, just go to bed instead of trying to stay up really late trying to figure something out. I've almost went crazy on something really HARD late at night. So I gave up and went to bed. Upon waking the next day, I find out that the problem was a really SIMPLE.

That was the thing that got me: How potentially confusing and HARD things can be BEFORE you can even think of, "Should I use Drupal or Joomla?". Ha ha. I laugh about it now. So it's not really that bad.

I actually felt like a pro until I crashed my test site last week! ha ha ha ha.

Keep you chin up, and you'll be fine.

Shane-

Thanks. I think I followed about 75% of what you said. Towards the end I'm not quite sure but I think with people talking me through step by step I will get to that point.

As it is, I'm still downloading MAMP. I just got this computer and I think the previous owner must have tweaked the airport some because now that I'm hooked up directly to the cable it is only taking about a half hour to download. Then it's off to the next step!

Hello again, Alex.

Anything that Tony, Alan, or anyone else says overrides what I say! ha ha.

I had to setup drupal on MAMP simply because I just didn't have a website. So I couldn't have site unless I tried the MAMP thing. Of course, once I got "the hang of it", I just had to get a site! And I did!

So, now that I think about it, if you have site already, that might be less of a "hassle" for the moment. Especially if you don't want to take forever downloading MAMP.

@shane Okay. Once I get MAMP downloaded I guess I move it to the applications folder and then re-read your note and move the drupal folder where you say. at the drupal site they say to go to library/webserver/site and put it there but it's easier to follow you guys.

Now about uploading it directly to my host(is that what you meant?) I'm not sure how to do that. I host my own site with go Daddy and I do have an ftp protocol with them but I mostly upload with dreamweaver. So I really have no idea what you guys are talking about installing drupal on my computer or on my host or webserver or...whatever. Are they the same thing? I'm just a designer! Have me come up with some graphics in photoshop and illustrator, animation in flash, and then put it in a nice xhtml css container and I can do it. But I have no idea what you guys are talking about here. And yet this is supposed to be easy?

@houseofbean well, it's too late now because I already downloaded drupal and MAMP is almost finished. I guess it's going to be even more complicated once I learn this and then have to upload it all to my site. Will I have to install drupal and MAMP on my hosting site too?

Hi Alex

Just to explain - if you're following the MAMP method, you need to install Drupal first in MAMP (i.e. on your computer), then eventually you'll install your now modified, beautified Drupal again on your GoDaddy server. So first you install Drupal on your computer to allow you to work on it, then you install the 'finished product' on GoDaddy. MAMP is just making Drupal think it's running on a normal Internet server, if you want to think of it that way, to enable you to work on your Drupal site directly on your Mac.

I'll leave the exact Drupal installation steps to the other guys here...

Alan.

@alan Thanks Alan. I just finished downloading MAMP and am now going to re-read what I do next. But you guys are writing faster than I can keep up:) Not complaining! Now I know for sure why drupal is better than joomla. Look at all the support I get, haha!

... but don't forget your post is on an 'All About Joomla' forum, that's why I saw it in the first place... ;-)
If for any reason you did need more help with Joomla, send another mail to this forum and we can help with that too. Joomla also runs on MAMP.

God bless you with wisdom and patience!

Alan.

Hey Alex,

I tend to talk a little too much. So please excuse me. I am humbled by the knowledge of everyone on this site!

With the Macintosh, It actually has it's own Apache web server thingy, but it's turned off by default. And you can manually install PHP and MySQL. But decided to leave all that alone and just download and install MAMP.

You said that GoDaddy is the host for your current site. Then you can say that the MAMP program is your "host" for your Drupal/Joomla site which will be on your computer.

Yep, the Drupal folder goes inside the "htdocs" folder, which is inside the MAMP folder. For me, it was hard trying to "visualize" instructions from a computer screen.

Drupal.org is GREAT! But it can be confusing.

If you currently have a "live, working site on the Internet", then I would be careful with trying to upload something that you are not familiar with. I just say that so you don't harm your live, working site. I think that would be frustrating trying to fix your current site WHILE trying to learn Drupal or Joomla :-o

http://www.houseofbean.net is my personal site.
http://proba1.houseofbean.net is my "test site" for stuff. As you can see, It's messed up because I crashed it!

PLEASE don't judge Drupal because of my site! Ha ha ha. Once I get all the "insides" figured out, then I'll worry about the look and feel of the site.

Sorry, if I'm giving you too much info too fast.

It can be a little too easy to overload someone with this stuff. ha ha

Yes, it probably is harder, and crazier, to setup a "internet server thingy" with MAMP on your Mac. But if you crash your "local site" then it's no big deal. Frustrating, yes. But, at least, you won't have your friends calling to say, "Hey, your website is not working". But if you start uploading stuff on your live site, which is on the Internet. Then it is possible to "crash something" or delete a file that causes something to not work right.

Okay. I've downloaded MAMP and installed it in my applications folder. Then I moved the drupal folder into the htdocs folder from the MAMP folder. Just to see what happens, I double clicked the install.php folder but it was going to open in goLive and when I was trying to follow the online instructions where it told me to change some configuration on line (93 was it?) of the code, goLive doesn't have line numbers. Dreamweaver does but it was opening automatically in goLive. So I will just wait for further instructions.

I didn't realize I posted this on an all about joomla forum. Can I just finish here or do I need to switch to the right forum?

Alex - I would suggest you finish today's work on this forum, i.e. installation of Drupal on MAMP. The same principles apply to Joomla, so it'll still be useful.

By the way, I just looked at your site - really impressive! I look forward to what you will do with a 'dynamic' system!

Alan.

Hey Alex,

I did the same thing. I double-clicked install.php and wound up with my web browser popping up with a LONG error message.

Make sure MAMP is running.
A web browser page should open up with some kind of:

"Welcome to Mamp"

Of course the MAMP window thingy will pop up too.
It should have something like:
"MAMP manages your website locally"

And

Apache Server & MySQL Server should have the green circle instead of red.

And on the right of that should be:
"stop servers"
"open start page"
"preferences"
"quit"

But EVEN with MAMP running, double-clicking on install.php still still you a crazy text error thingy.

what is the name of the drupal folder that you just put inside "htdocs"
I ask because that will be part of your "address" It doesn't matter if it says Drupal 6.10 or peewee. Well, i don't think it matters because I have changed the folder name out of curiosity to see what it did.. and nothing happened

So let's just say that your drupal folder says, "drupal"
In the area, of the web browser, that you normally type stuff ( like www.yahoo.com ) type:

http://localhost:8888/MAMP/drupal/install.php

the "http://" part may or may not be needed. Now by doing that, you are accessing install.php from "inside" of your MAMP "hosting". And it should pop up with the Drupal install page.

It's possible that "8888" is not working for your Mac. So go to that MAMP window and click on "preferences". " /MAMP/ " should be listed as your start page url...
Click on "ports" at the top. Mine shows the Apache port to be 8888, so that is why those numbers are in that address. If it's a different number then use that instead of 8888. Don't worry about the MySQL port number.

But when that Drupal install page pops up:
That's when you celebrate and say, "I finally did it!!!!! It says something about Drupal!!!!" But then you say, " Database?? Don't tell me that, after all this, I have to install a database?"

Hello again Alex,

Oops. I just noticed too that this is the Joomla forum. Sorry guys!

But I have the latest Joomla on my MAMP too ;-)

I just checked out your site. Nice site!

I'm 7 hours ahead of Texas time. So it's just past 11pm in Southern Germany. So I might be asleep and not able to answer your next question.

But go ahead and post it in the Drupal forums. I'll check the forums in the morning for any unanswered questions you might have. And I'm sure others will too.

Have a good day

Hey Alexandra, I started a new thread for you over on the All-About-Drupal forum:

http://geeksandgod.com/forums/dynamic-website-foru...

You should post any other questions over there.

Blessings,
Tony

I moved this over to the drupal forum, please continue your posting here...

I've moved my htdocs folder, with the web files, for MAMP so it is outside the MAMP folder. I did this, because once when I upgraded MAMP I just copied over it like I do with other applications: there went the websites I had there. I have the htdocs folder in my user folder now. One can set the location in the preferences window of MAMP. Once you've told it where you've put the folder everything works the same.

Hey Alex,

I just noticed that I gave you some bad info!! Sorry

The only reason I noticed the error is because I couldn't access any of my local sites.

I've got a Joomla site, a couple of drupal 6 sites, and I'm playing with Drupal7

So when accessing your drupal site, leave out the MAMP part

localhost:8888/MAMP/Drupal7 kept giving me errors
localhost:8888/Drupal7 got me to my Drupal 7 site.. It's crashed too, but I got there.

Amazed me how I haven't make that mistake in a LONG time.

Sorry for sending you the mistake,

houseofbean

Hey, thanks for the complement on my site. And all the help!

Thanks for moving this to drupal forum because I thought I would have to start over with my original question. I already have a headache and don't know how much I will be able to do on this today.

The name of my drupal folder is drupal-6.10
MAMP is running fine and all the dots are green.
I double clicked on install.php and goLive opened up again. I just immediately canceled it since it doesn't have line numbers. Also, I don't know where I saw what line to change the configeration to, what. I can't remember and so I dont' know what to if I can open the folder up.

The rest of what you said, I don't follow. I only opened MAMP. Nothing has come up in my browser where it says something like www.yahoo.com. It's just a folder in my finder window. It has nothing to do with my browser so how would I type http://localhost:8888/MAMP/dru... ? And actually since I'm not following you even this far I can't even understand any further what you wrote. I appreciate your patience though. I didn't even know MAMP was a program that you would even open. I thought it was some kind of code.

Thanks for your patience and all your help.

I'm kind of sick today so I may not be able to check as often as I did yesterday but I will try to do the next steps when someone posts.

Alex

Thanks. Once I even get there this info will be helpful. I honestly feel like I'm learning something that is uncomprehending to me like JavaScript :/

MAMP is a webserver... it just needs to be running. The installation of your drupal site will happen in your browser, that's where it comes into play. This isn't a program like photoshop. install.php is a webpage like index.html. You need to open it in your browser, not double click on it. Think of it as a web page on your local computer, not a program.

First, double click on the drupal-6.10.tar.gz folder. This is an archive, like a .zip folder. It needs to be unpacked, not just moved. It's just like you downloaded a bunch of graphics in a .zip folder. It's useless till you unzip it. So, double click on the folder. It should open a folder showing another folder named drupal-6.10. Drag this folder into your web-root, which according to the previous post is that httdocs folder.

Second, I would rename the drupal-6.10 folder to something else, and easier to type, like drupaltest, or testsite. Make sure it's one word. This is now a website on your local computer.

Next, you're going to open that website in your browser, either safari or firefox, probably. You're going to access the site just like any other website, by typing http://. In this case, since it's on your local server, and not the www, you'll type http://localhost:8888/drupaltest, on linux. the localhost:8888 tells the browser to look for the site on your computer, rather than on the web at large. The drupaltest tells it to open a folder named drupaltest in your local web server. This should be whatever you renamed the drupal-6.10 folder to.

At this point, the drupal installation page should pop up, if you installed MAMP correctly. Once again, remember, you're not installing a program named drupal, you're configuring a website run by a php script called drupal. This is nothing like dreamweaver, or frontpage, or anything like that.

Ok, if you get this far, and the installation page pops up, don't do anything else, just come back here and say success! or failure!

The next step will be to create the database drupal will save everything in your website to, but lets make sure the webserver and php are running correctly before we try that.

Blessings,
Tony

P.S. - If you're getting frustrated, please be patient and don't give up. This isn't hard per se, it's just completely different from anything you've ever done before, and your brain is trying to fill in the blanks with static website concepts that just don't apply. Believe it or not, this would be easier if you had NO experience with webdesign whatsoever. Just stick with it, you are absolutely going to succeed at this!

Alex,
I started with a long dissertation explaining how MAMP & Drupal work.. but then realized if you could just get up and running, that would be the best learning experience of all.

Here is a good getting started "Installing Drupal On A Localhost" screencast: http://learnbythedrop.com/drop/95
It uses WAMP instead of MAMP, but the differences should be minimal.

Guess what???? I'm there!!!! I am just so excited that I even got this far!!! Okay, what's next?

Thanks a lot. But I think I can get it more being talked through it and then troubleshooting when it doesn't work. I'm going to see if I can find something step-by-step that is written. I hate video tutorials because I can't keep up. But I also may have trouble finding instructions for a mac. Otherwise I guess I will have to wait for a reply here.

Thanks again.

The next thing to set up is your database. A very small amount of theory stuff, so you understand what you're doing: Drupal doesn't create and save "web pages," the way Dreamweaver does... when you create content with Drupal, it stores that content in a database, rather than an html document. A user visiting your site requests a particular "page" by clicking on a link, and Drupal assembles/creates that page "on the fly" as it were, by drawing the information from your database and sticking it where your theme tells it to. So, if you created a page named "About Us" (fairly typical), you're not ACTUALLY creating an html document entitled About Us... you're creating a database entry that holds the information. Make sense?

So, you need to create a new database. When you installed MAMP, you installed what is called a "Technology Stack." You installed the following "programs":

M - Mac OSX (Obviously this was already installed.)
A - Apache2 (This is the web server)
M - MySQL 5 (This is the database)
P - PHP5 (This is the php scripting language that Drupal is written in)

Side Note: A bunch of other stuff was also installed with MAMP to make these 4 things "play nice" with each other.

Anyway, at this point, everything is successfully installed, so you need to create a MySQL database. There are lots of ways to do this, but you're going to use a script called phpmyadmin to create the database. I've never actually used that, so someone else needs to pitch in here, I'm not sure what the url address is on a mac to bring it up. So, someone please post that here....

Here's a great link on how to do that:

http://www.gmpdc.org/tech-help/index.php/Creating_...

I think you just need to click this link to access phpmyadmin... but I'm not sure. http://localhost:8888/phpMyaAdmin

Let me know if this works!

Tony

I clicked on the first link and it looks like something you need to go to a four year college to know what it's all about. I think I'm ready to quit. I am clueless as to what I'm looking at on that link. I don't even know where all those files, folders, or just stuff is on my computer. Instead of this getting easier it is just getting more confusing. If there is someone that lives in the daytona beach area that knows how to use a mac and would be willing to help me set this up I would really love it. But at this point I don't know what to do, tony. I have no idea what I'm looking at and I'm supposed to be getting more work tomorrow or Thursday. Not to mention school work. I'm pretty frustrated because I really wanted to learn this.

Oh, and the second link is broken. Thanks for trying to help me.

PS, you have done a great job at explaining things so far, including what they mean and are. I never heard of MAMP let alone knew what it was and what it does. Thanks!

Just found out that the Acquia Drupal distribution is now available as “full stack” installer that includes the database software. Downloads for Mac OS X Leopard and Windows. May be of interest for those exploring Drupal …

Alex - Jaharmi's suggestion is great (thanks Jaharmi). I have tried this myself, and in 5 minutes (after download) I had a fully working Drupal site. Remember - I'm a Joomla guy, so this was my first time doing anything with Drupal for a long time.

Basically, you just need to go through the same steps that you did with MAMP, but using the Acquia program you will end up with a complete, working Drupal site with everything already set up, ready for use! It's very cool.

Here are the steps you should take, based on my experience just now:

Installation

1. Uninstall MAMP (yes, it was a lot of work, but you've learned from the experience). If you can't, never mind, but for the sake of cleanliness it's a good idea.
2. Go to this page in your browser, which gives you the simple list of steps you have to go through (don't worry, I'll take you through it too): http://acquia.com/documentation/acquia-drupal-stack/installation
3. According to their instructions, go to the downloads page at http://acquia.com/downloads and make sure you download the 'Mac OSX 10.5' application on the right hand side. It's about 21MB, so it may take a while :-/
4. Once downloaded, double-click on this file to start the installer.
5. After accepting the license etc., you will begin to be asked some questions, reply as follows:
   • "Choose Install Locations" - leave as-is and click 'next'
   • "Port Settings" - leave as-is and click 'next'
   • "Database Settings" - type 'drupal' (without the quotes) in all three empty boxes
   • "Drupal Settings" - change the site name to anything you like (it will appear on the website like this, e.g. 'Alexandra Design Online' without the quotes). Then enter a username and password that you will remember, since this will be used for admin access to your site, and provide a valid email address. Click 'next'.
   • "Review Your Information" - click 'next'
   • "Ready To Install" - click 'next'. The installation will take a few minutes.
6. Once you get the 'Congratulations' screen, ensure that the checkbox is checked and click the 'Finish' button. The control panel should appear (if not, see if it's hidden behind some other windows; its icon looks like a big light blue raindrop with yellow in the centre).
7. In the control panel, ensure that both 'lights' are green, showing that the site is running, then click the 'Go To My Site' button. Your main web browser should open up with a page welcoming you to your new site. You've done it!

Administration

1. Next step - go into the admin section. Type the admin login user/password that you created into the login section on the left-hand side of the screen. If you login successfully, you should see an 'Administer' link on the left. Click it to enter admin mode.
2. You should now see more links on the left, and a lot more information! At the top there is a yellow 'Please enter your Acquia Network subscription keys' message - ignore this for now (see tip below).
3. Drupal is now fully installed and running on your computer. When you have finished a Drupal session, go back and close the Acquia control panel program and any browser pages you had open for it. Conversely, to work on your Drupal site again, find and double-click the 'AcquiaDrupalControlPanel.app' in the 'acquia-drupal' folder in your Applications folder. Click on the 'Go to my site' button to launch the site in your browser. The 'Stop' / 'Start' button in the control panel simply pauses the site - useful if you temporarily need the extra Mac system resources for something else.
4. Next steps... find a good Drupal tutorial (or book) to learn how to administer and modify Drupal. I'm pretty much in the same boat as you here, but the simplicity of this install makes me think I might have another look at Drupal, now that this new version 6 is out.

Tip: How to get rid of the annoying Acquia 'network subscription keys' messages (useful only for very large professional sites):

1. On the 'Administer' screen when logged in as admin, click the 'modules' link on the right side in the 'Site Building' section
2. Uncheck the checkbox next to 'Acquia Site Information' and click the 'Save Configuration' button at the bottom of the page
3. Similarly, uncheck the checkbox next to 'Acquia Agent' and again click the 'Save Configuration' button (note that the above must have been done first to allow you to uncheck this one)
4. Click the 'Administer' link on the left hand menu to return to the admin home page, and that annoying yellow message is gone for good!

Notes

• On the control panel, the 'Settings' button allows you to change any of the settings you entered during installation, should you need to.
• I received a confirmation email after installation asking me to confirm my login. However, my admin login worked fine without clicking the confirmation link in the email, so I don't know if the confirmation is necessary in this case.
• All the site files are installed by default into your 'Sites' folder, in the sub-folder acquia-drupal-site/Acquia Drupal
• Acquia Drupal is a version of Drupal 6 that includes a lot of the most popular modules and extensions, so you don't need to install them yourself. There should be no other difference to the 'standard' Drupal 6.
• Obviously, this has installed Drupal on your Mac. Should you then want to copy your site to your GoDaddy Internet server, you will need to copy the files and database there in some way. I'm not sure of exactly what options Drupal offers to do this, and anyway it's out of the scope of this post. Shout out if you need help!
• To uninstall this Acquia Drupal installation, use the uninstaller in the acquia-drupal folder in your Applications directory. Note that uninstallation will remove the entire Drupal site from your computer (not from the Internet, if you've copied it there), including the Mac-based database and web server it uses.

Hope this helps...

Alan.

Hello Alex and Hello everyone,

Forgive me for being gone. But it looks like you were in much more capable hands. The Internet is TERRIBLE here and the "network guy" likes to keep changing things and not telling anyone... Well, it also would be nice if he really knew what he was doing.

But keep up updated on how things work.

And yes, it's nice to have a "walk-through" as just reading instructions can be a bit confusing.

Okay, Alan. I am ready to give it a try again. I keep thinking of the benefits if I can learn this because I think it may even be good for ecommerce sites. Is that right? I think learning that on drupal would be easier than plain code.

In any case, I have to do some work first so I haven't read through what you wrote yet. I think I need to read it step by step and not get too far ahead so that I dont get overwhelmed. I'm wondering if I'm supposed to uninstall (or drag to the trash) something I have already done so that I can start fresh. I may find out once I read the whole thing but if you let that part out can you let me know if I need to trash something first and start over?

Thanks.

@houseofbean thanks for your input and encouragement as well.

Can I run the Acquia Stack with other websites (static HTML and otherwise) and a drupal multi-site install? I'd like to see an alternative to MAMP, but don't want to lose that capability.

Yes, Alex, you should uninstall MAMP first, before you try this, but if it gets too hard, you can probably get away with not uninstalling MAMP first.

Sorry I wasn't more help with the set up process, but I've only done it on Linux, and apparently things are different enough that i didn't know everything I needed to to talk you through it!

Blessings,
Tony

I've re-read my steps several times, and I'm hoping that this covers everything. As Tony says, you do need to drag MAMP to the trash first, if you can (i.e. uninstall it). That represents all that hard work you did yesterday :-/ After that I've tried to describe every further step in detail, but give us a shout if something isn't clear.

And yes - a system like Drupal will allow you to create e-commerce sites, blogs, forums - just about anything you can imagine, once you learn how to use it. There are many extensions (most free) which you can add to Drupal, generally called 'modules', as far as I know.

The Acquia Drupal program you will download and install will set up the latest version of Drupal with a lot of useful modules, so you shouldn't have to worry about installing anything else to have a complete dynamic website. If you later want to add e-commerce functionality, then you will need to find out about the extra module(s) you'll need to install.

@Josiah - check out the Acquia website; they have a specific FAQ and help page for dealing with multiple installations etc - info on this page: http://acquia.com/documentation/acquia-drupal-stack/faq

Alan.

R U kidding, Tony? You have been very helpful. My mind just isn't wired to understand such concepts. I'm more of the artist designer person and it's hard for me to comprehend this stuff.

As it goes, I have been spending the entire morning with photoshop issues and now airport card issues so I haven't even gotten to try the steps outlined above, nor have I gotten to do work yet. But as soon as everything is fixed I will try to follow the next steps. Thanks everyone!

Okay, I can't get photoshop to work so I'm going to give this a try before I go to bible study at church. Now to be clear, if I trash MAMP that means I trash drupal as well since I was to move drupal into one of the folders in MAMP. Instead of waiting for a reply I'm going to trust that that's what you mean. Okay, here goes nothing!!!

I got as far as logging onto my site but it asked for me to enter my "Acquia subscription identifier" and "Acquia subscription key:" It says in samll print I can copy it from my subscriptions overview on the Acquia network. I guess I have to join that?

So far this was a lot easier, though I don't know what I am joining. But it does say Alexandra Design at the top of the page when I logged in. But is Acquia Drupal the same as drupal? I guess when I get back from church I need to figure out this next stuff. I hate to join something else that I don't need. so will I ever go to the drupal site or will I work from here? Also, when I double click on that tear drop it opens in Safari. I never use Safari. Am I able to access this from firefox?

Thanks.

sorry. I just saw your ignore subscription message. Okay.

Okay, I wish I could just add to the previous post. Anyway, is this really the same as drupal because everything says acquia drupal and when I click on all the administrator priveleges on the left and look at themes and such it's all acquia stuff which makes me think I may need to purchase a subscription in order to use it. If I go to the drupal site and look at their tutorials will I be able to follow them on this acquia thing?

I'm sorry if I'm asking something that is pretty general. I really do appreciate all your help and I hope this is really the same thing and I can learn it.

Thanks.
Alex