User guide

Installation, Upgrading and Requirements August 08th, 2008

Category: FAQ, Installation & Upgrade, User Guide

NOTE: We do not support and do not recommend installations or upgrading done with helper scripts like SimpleScripts or similar some providers make available. If you have any problems after using these please contact your provider.

  1. Installation
  2. Upgrading
  3. Requirements

Installation

  1. Download the latest version of Zenphoto.
  2. Extract the files and upload them to your web directory via FTP.
  3. Create a MySQL database if you haven’t already one.
  4. Navigate to your gallery. EXAMPLE: www.yoursite.org/zenphoto/zp-core/setup.php. Setup will run automatically the first time you visit the gallery. Make sure everything checks out then click GO!
  5. ENJOY!
Moving existing installations

Please read: http://www.zenphoto.org/2009/03/troubleshooting-zenphoto/#40

Upgrading

With anything after ZenPhoto 1.1.3, upgrading is super easy!

Important notes:

  • Each new version of Zenphoto provides new capabilities. We try to provide forward migration, but we do not test arbitrary upgrades steps. The only sequence we can guarantee to work is upgrading from the previous release. You should check the support forum for upgrade issues if you are skipping any significant number of releases.
  • In 1.1 and later, the /zen directory has been renamed
    to /zp-core. Also with 1.2.6 the zp-config.php files is now stored in the zp-data folder. Keep that in mind if upgrading from older versions.
  1. Backup your MySQL database.
  2. Be sure to backup customized themes or plugins or any other customized file before replacing anything!
  3. Remove the following files and folders:
    • The zen or zp-core folder
    • The theme folders within the themes folder that were distributed with Zenphoto
    • The files in the home dir (index.php, rss.php etc.) that came with the distribution

    (If you are upgrading from a Zenphoto version prior to the instantiation of the zp-core folder, take note of the database credentials in your zp-config.php file in the zp-data folder, you will need it in step 4.)

  4. Download the latest version and upload it to your server. Do not replace your albums or cache folder!
  5. Make sure the .htaccess file is writeable. (If you do not have a .htaccess file, you will be given the opportunity to create one during setup.)
  6. Once the files are uploaded, go to www.yoursite.org/zenphoto/ (if you have installed Zenphoto within the folder zenphoto). <tt>Setup.php</tt> will run. (If it somehow does not, please navigate directly to www.yoursite.org/zenphoto/zp-core/setup.php.)
  7. Make sure everything checks out, and click go!
  8. Follow the instructions.
  9. You’re done! Enjoy.

NOTE: If you are upgrading to a nightly build or svn version to help testing, always upload the complete package, never just indiviual files, unless you have been told to by the developers.

Requirements

Server requirements

To operate Zenphoto efficiently, you need (our setup script will also tell you about possible problems):

  • A web server with at least 15Mb of free space (plus free space for images and cache files)
  • Apache*(it may work without problems on other server systems like IIS or lighttpd but we have not tested these.
  • PHP 5.2+* — It may work with older PHP versions but we have not tested with them.
  • It is recommend that you have the following PHP extensions and settings:
    • One of these graphics libaries for image resizing:
      • GD graphics library (usually built in on servers)
      • Imagick graphics libary 6.3.8/Imagick 2.1.0 (requires PHP 5+)
    • safe mode off (recommended)
    • magic_quotes off (recommended)
    • gettext extension (required if you plan to use Zenphoto’s translation/multilingual capabilites)
    • mbstring extension ( recommended if you are using a none English language with lots of special characters)
  • MySQL 5+* — It may work with MySQL 4 versions but we have not tested with them.
    • Appropriate user account rights. (Setup will note if you do not have sufficient rights.)
    • UTF-8 table and field collations

*Zenphoto is developed and tested on this environment.

Browser requirements

To use certain AJAX/JavaScript driven features in the admin backend like album and image sorting and the on-the-fly inline editing we recommend to use one of the following browsers:

  • Firefox 2 or newer
  • Internet Explorer 7 or newer
  • Safari 3 or newer
  • Google Chrome

It might work with older or other browsers as well but has not been tested.

Please also visit the Troubleshooting Zenphoto guide