If I could only get it installed!

OK, I am trying to setup Revolution on my desktop, but the installation isn’t going well.

Here is my config:
Windows Vista with XAMPP
Apache/2.2.12
PHP/5.3.0 (memory_limit = 128M)
MySQL 5.1.37
Installing in root of a virtual host (revo.my)

Tried both http://svn.modxcms.com/svn/tattoo/tattoo/branches/2.0/
and http://svn.modxcms.com/svn/tattoo/tattoo/branches/revolution/
and get the same result...

When I click install, it goes to http://revo.my/setup/index.php?action=install and nothing appears to happen. The database is populated, but nothing else. Same in FF 3.5 and Chrome, but Chrome shows a download of connector.php a few times during the process, the last one appears to contain this info:

{"message":"No processor specified!","fields":[],"type":"error","object":[],"success":false}

Aside from the blank screen, I get a 500 error for the site until I delete the config.inc.php

So what should I try next?

I should add that I have installed MODx 1.0 on the same setup without any problems.

It’s because you are trying to install the svn version.

I didn’t do it myself, but as i have understand it, you have to do several step before launching the install process.

Here is what i found on the doc:

If you get a blank screen, verify these steps:

1. Make sure the directories "/[root]", "/core/packages","/core/cache", and "/core/export" are writable. (root will be the actual directory you are installing to.)
2. Make sure "/manager", "/connectors" are writable. If installing advanced, this is unnecessary.
3. Make sure your php.ini setting sets memory_limit to 128M, and max_execution_time to 120
4. Create a blank file "/core/config/config.inc.php" and make it writable.
5. Try downloading the regular Revolution download instead of the advanced.
6. Post a message in the Revolution forum regarding your issue. State your server setup and installation info, and we’ll try and help you find a solution.

Or you can just download the beta-3 from here.

edit:

This page should be more useful for svn

Thanks for the tip. The instructions at http://svn.modxcms.com/docs/display/revolution/Development+and+Testing+Notes were what I needed. I actually have done this before with the alpha version, but that was about 10 months ago and it was the alpha. On the MODx page encouraging people to "get the source" there was no warning...so I assumed everything would go fine.

So, form my experience, here are my recommendations. If you want people to install Revo from SVN, make it as clear as possible how to do so! I wasted well over an hour just because an important note was omitted from an important page.

RECOMMENDATIONS

On this page:
http://modxcms.com/develop/source.html
There needs to be a note telling people they need to do a build before installing from svn, and a link to this page:
http://svn.modxcms.com/docs/display/revolution/Development+and+Testing+Notes

On that second page, I might add a note about making the build on a Windows machine with XAMPP ("If you are running XAMPP on Windows, try typing a command something like this: c:\xampp\php\php-cli.exe transport.core.php")

On install, I recommend NOT auto filling the database name. If you have to fill it in, you have to think. If is is pre-filled many people assume that it has the right value, and might accidentally overwrite another site (even with a warning it is possible to make that mistake).

I get the same error message ("Could not connect to the database") if I have the wrong mysql server setting, wrong username, wrong password, or a non-existent database. I think this error should be more specific to help people know where they made a mistake (database does not exist yet, server not found, wrong login or password...)

At the end, if you click toggle warnings, it should say ’No warnings’ instead of doing nothing. If it does nothing it feels like it is broken.

Hope that helps!