Having recently heard of the Agavi project from a web framework showdown at a PHP conference in the UK I have decided to trial it. My setup is a WinXP computer with a default install of the latest XAMPP which has thrown up some issues with installing and building Agavi. Please see my hints below to overcome these issues.

  1. Open a command prompt (type cmd in the run console)
  2. Navigate to your XAMMP PHP directory. Mine is C:\xampp-test\php
  3. Execute pear.bat channel-discover pear.agavi.org
  4. Execute pear.bat install agavi/agavi

Agavi is now installed! Now we just need a new default project to work from.

Agavi needs to be told where the phing batch file is stored.

  1. Edit the agavi.bat file in the XAMPP php directory. Mine is C:\\xampp-test\\php\\agavi.bat
  2. Change set PHING_COMMAND=phing to contain the full absolute path to phing.bat which is in the XAMPP php folder. Mine looks like this: set PHING\_COMMAND=C:\\xampp-test\\php\\phing.bat

Begin setting up your project directory.

  1. Create a new directory in your XAMPP directory. Mine is C:\\xampp-test\\htdocs\\simonholywell.com
  2. Create an empty text file called build.properties in the directory (this banishes a build error where phing fails if it cannot find the file)
  3. Open a command prompt and navigate to the new directory
  4. Execute agavi.bat project The agavi.bat file is stored in the XAMPP php folder. My command looked like this: C:\\xampp-test\\php\\agavi.bat project
  5. Follow the prompts the installer gives you (hitting enter will supply the installer with the [default] value)

Agavi should now be setup for your project. View it in your browser to verify.