Symphony.

VirtualHostX is on sale today at MacUpdate Promo.

Anyone use this software? Do you like it? Is it worth $11?

Thanks for the input.

I switched from MAMP Pro to VirtualHostX because I needed to pay for one or the other and VHX was cheaper. I started using in version 1 and it worked brilliantly. Then they upgraded to VHX2. Suddenly my virtual machines (using MAMP) stopped working. They had worked minutes before.

I contacted support and was told I was using custom directories which meant I’d have to do some playing around in MAMP to make them work. “Nothing’s changed with how we work with MAMP.” Which is odd because I’d never had to do anything before.

To save myself the headache and at the advice of some of my more developer-y friends I went back to MAMP Pro until such a time as the issue is fixed.

Thanks for the feedback.

I didn’t notice this before, but the trial version is full-featured, but limits to 3 sites. Since I don’t work on more than that most of the time, it might be enough. It seems to work fine for me using MAMP. I had to adjust Symphony’s .htaccess file to get things going, but so far so good.

I use the free virtualhost script, together with macport LAMP, I couldn’t be bothered to hack MAMP into symphony compliance…

MAMPpro does has the cool DNS feature to serve your devsites live… but you can set this up with the above script too…

still in doubt macports VS hacked MAMP, which one is cooler?

I use it at home, no issues whatsoever, worth the money if you’re not going to fork out for MAMP Pro.

I’m using a hacked MAMP and it seems to work just fine. I used these instructions to get Zip Extension enabled.

I’m all manual, all the time. I set-up local Bonjour hostnames against 127.0.0.1, and then manually define my Apache virtual hosts via the standard Leopard install. All I’m missing is the Zip Extension (and time, I guess).

I don’t trust these new-fangled system fiddling things :P

@tonyarnold, so the default leopard apache and php has all thats needed to run symphony, also JIT is supported?
When using git, to go from local to live, do you even need zip?….

The default Leopard PHP installation is rather rudimentary. But you will find many references (even on the Apple website) to Marc Liyanage’s fully-fledged PHP package, which is very easy to install.

http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/php/

(The package can even be deactivated or removed rather simply, but you will never do this, probably.)

You will need MySQL then. The rest is fiddling around a bit with the hosts file and the virtual host setup.

I used this solution for a long time. The only reason for using MAMP at the moment was SSL support (which I needed for testing purposes).

@newnomad I made this video a while back showing how to setup mamp / apache on Mac OSX as well as how to use Virtualhost X.

well im ok with macports, but I wonder for ‘emergency’ backup, when needing to do a reinstall o a new mac, all other software can just be installed on a dmg at once, but then you need to start fiddling to resetup your hosting env. Would liek some one click system to recreate it… so maybe mamp is goo dfor that, because its an application..

I don’t find the default Leopard install of PHP rudimentary. For every Symphony site I’ve worked with so far, it’s been fine - everything except the Export Ensemble feature works as expected - I really don’t understand why people are so quick to install something like MacPorts or Marc’s php binaries when it’s basically unnecessary.

Maybe I’m missing something?

@newnomad - I just make sure I keep a copy of /etc/apache2/ from my mac handy (usually on my time machine drive) and my MySQL databases nearby. Aside from MySQL, everything else you need is already installed on every mac running Mac OS X 10.5 or later (although you’ll need to be prepared for a version bump when Snow Leopard is released).

so tony how do you export from local to life without ensembles?

Manually. Not ideal at all, but I generally like to verify my setups as I move to production - I also work out of a git repo that I just tag and clone for production as well.

I’m not saying Ensembles aren’t useful, just that I’m not sure it’s worth installing MacPorts for them.