Your problem is most likely server permissions. If you have shell access to your own VPS/dedicated server, use the lines below. If you’re using a shared hosting setup, try option #4 below, or contact your administrator for help.

Option #1: chmod 777

Sure, you could CHMOD 777 your whole site. That would technically work, but it’s switching permissions whenever you need to update is inconvenient. And, leaving permissions this way leaves you open to a whole host of security issues.

chmod -R 777 <path-to-wordpress-dir> (Not Secure!)

Option #2: apache file permission

This gives apache full permissions. This works, but if you use FTP, users no longer have permissions to write files. No good! I want my FTP access intact.

chown -R apache:apache <path-to-wordpress-dir> (No FTP!)

Option #3: apache /w group permissions

I created a “wordpress” group and added my FTP users to it and gave the wp-content directory group write permissions. It’s a bit of a compromise, but it worked for me.

groupadd wordpress
useradd -G wordpress <your-username>
chmod -R 775 <path-to-wordpress-dir>/wp-content/
chown -R apache:wordpress <path-to-wordpress-dir>

Option #4: wp-config constants

Another option for those who are unable to change file permissions, and/or have a relatively new version of WordPress, is to bypass entering FTP information by defining your FTP info in your wp-config.php file. More information can be found in the WordPress codex.

define('FS_METHOD', 'ftpext');
define('FTP_BASE', '/path/to/wordpress/');
define('FTP_CONTENT_DIR', '/path/to/wordpress/wp-content/');
define('FTP_PLUGIN_DIR ', '/path/to/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/');
define('FTP_USER', 'username'); 
define('FTP_PASS', 'password');
define('FTP_HOST', 'ftp.example.org');

The Zen theme is the natural first step when theming Drupal. It reduces Drupal down to the essentials, allowing for a solid foundation to build up from. The alternative? Copying files from the core themes is messy, and starting from scratch is time-consuming.

Download the Zen Theme. Included is the base zen theme and sub-theme template, STARTERKIT.

Copy everything into sites/all/themes/zen on your web server. Move the STARTERKIT folder up a level into sites/all/themes. Separating the base theme makes upgrading zen the simple matter of overwriting the zen folder with the newer version. Files within the zen folder will remain unaltered. All configuration is done within the STARTERKIT sub-theme.

Installing/enabling the sub-theme

Rename the folder “STARTERKIT” and “STARTERKIT.info.txt” file to match your new theme and remove “.txt” extension. For example, “yourtheme” and “yourtheme.info”. Open that info file and change the following lines:

name = yourtheme
description = A Zen sub-theme

Login to your drupal install, Admin>Appearance and enable yourtheme sub-theme and the zen base theme. Set your sub-theme as default.

Template files

Many of the page templates are included in the Zen package and can be found in sites/all/zen/templates folder. Copy all needed templates to your sub-theme folder (sites/all/yourtheme/templates) folder.

Important note

Remember to deselect “Rebuild theme registry on every page.” in Admin>Appearance>Settings(sub-theme)

Have you used Zen as a starter theme for Drupal 7? Please share your tips and/or experience with the Zen theme in the comments below.

MAMP is great. It’s an easy way to host your PHP/MySQL site locally for testing and development. But, if you want to take advantage of Snow Leopard’s built in web server capabilities, OS X makes it easy. Go into System Preferences > Sharing, and check the “Web Sharing” box.

That’s it. You can now setup an HTML-only website locally. Where do you put the files? The default folder is /Library/WebServer/Documents/. While we’re at it, let’s setup PHP and MySQL to work locally, as well.

Test it. http://localhost. No need for a port as it will use apache’s default port 80.

PHP and MySQL will now need to be setup for a full functioning local host.

Setting up PHP

Open up Terminal (Applications->Utilities->Terminal) and type:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Go to this line

#LoadModule php5_module        libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

and uncomment the line by removing the hash character

LoadModule php5_module        libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

After saving the file (Control+O) and exiting (Control+X). Restart Apache.

sudo apachectl restart

Configuring PHP

cd /etc
sudo cp php.ini.default php.ini
sudo chmod 666 php.ini
sudo nano php.ini

Find this line and remove the semi-colon

;date.timezone = 

and add your own timezone. A list of timezones can be found here (http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php)

date.timezone = America/Halifax

You’re halfway there. PHP 5 is now running on your local server.

Setting up MySQL

Download the MySQL package for Mac OS X.5 (32 or 64 bits depending on your machine)
Install everything in the package in this order:

• mysql
• the startup item
• the preference pane.

Now, open /etc/php.ini, find these three lines

pdo_mysql.default_socket=/var/mysql/mysql.sock
mysql.default_socket = /var/mysql/mysql.sock
mysqli.default_socket = /var/mysql/mysql.sock

and replace /var/mysql/ with /tmp/

pdo_mysql.default_socket=/tmp/mysql.sock
mysql.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
mysqli.default_socket = /tmp/mysql.sock

After installed, you can start MySQL in the system preferences. To access your database from the Terminal

/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql -u root

Change your Home Directory

Want your local server’s files to be located somewhere other than the default /Library/WebServer/Documents/? Open /etc/apache2/httpd.conf, and change the next two lines to reflect your new home directory.

DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/Documents"
...
<Directory "/Library/WebServer/Documents">

Drupal Problems?

If you’re getting errors during Drupal installation try linking the MySQL sock file like below

cd /
sudo mkdir /var/mysql
sudo ln -s /tmp/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock

Drupal’s Clean Urls

Having problems enabling Clean Urls? Find all instances of the following line in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

AllowOverride None

and change None to All…

AllowOverride All