When I first saw CakePHP’s file system, I wondered if I could be able to install the framework on my own. Although I was able to read the installation procedures from the manual, I didn’t bother setting up Cake then. Part of it was fear I might mess up the installation and the other part is it’s not yet that important to set it up locally.

Just a few days back, I found myself scanning the installation instructions once again. Due to lack of tasks to do, I made up my mind to set up, finally, the Cake framework. I downloaded the zip package and unpacked in my machine. Afterwards, I was able to view already the cake default page. Confused, thinking, “Is that it? It’s set up already?”, I can’t believe it’s that easy! Also, I noticed something unusual in the page, the images and the CSS were missing. And the database was not yet configured.

So, I searched again from the manual and found another set of instructions from the section The Cake Blog Tutorial. I successfully configured the database but still having errors on the CSS and images. From the tutorial, I found out that the error could be due to mod_rewrite issues. So I updated my configs for mod_rewrite, but I still can’t make the page display as it should.

The workaround for mod_rewrite issues? Access the pages through index.php, that is, http://somedomain/index.php/controllername/actionname/param, as stated from the tutorial itself. Then, I was able to view the correct page and the tests scripts I made to make sure my installation is working.

Now, that I have set up a working CakePHP on my local machine, what’s next? “Uh, what about baking?” Came a suggestion from the back of my mind. Ohh, well, actually! What more else? Unless I don’t want to make use of the framework I just installed? Hahah!