Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 2 – Installation

*** UPDATED AUGUST 5, 2009: Recovered screenshots. Found them on my computer ***

This is part of the osDate 7 part blog series. Scroll down to the bottom of this post for links to the other parts.

Now that you’ve decided you want to create an osDate site after reading Part 1, here are instructions on how to install it on your web server. I’m assuming that you have basic knowledge of uploading files to your web host, logging onto cpanel, and accessing your mysql databases.

1. Download the latest osDate version here.

2. Unzip the files into a folder on your computer. You should see a folder titled “osDate_v214” and inside it, there is a public_html folder, and 2 text files.

3. Upload all the contents inside the public_html folder to your web server via FTP (I currently use Filezilla). You can upload it to your root directory, or a subdirectory (for example – http://www.yoursite.com/dating). It’s up to you. If you already have a site, and want to offer existing visitors an online dating experience, you could upload it into a subdirectory.

4. Open your browser and go to: http://www.yoursite.com/install.php. If you uploaded osDate into a subdirectory, then you would have to browse to: http://www.yoursite.com/some-subdirectory/install.php

5. You should now see this:

If you see some No’s, refer to Tufat’s instruction page here. Scroll down to Step 2 – Installer. You may need to change the write permissions for some of your folders.

6. After clicking continue, it’ll ask you to specify your MySQL database login settings. You will need to create a database on your web server first.

• Login to your web host’s cpanel and click on “MySQL databases“
• Enter a new database name. I recommend “osdate” (without the quotes). Click “Create Database.”
• Go down to “add a new user.” For the username, I recommend “osdate.” To protect your database, choose a password carefully. Click “Create User.“
• Scroll down to “Add User to Database.” Select the osdate user that you created, and then select the osdate database. Click “Add.”

8. The next step is optional. You can always change the mail settings later. By default, if you skip this step, osDate will use the PHP mail() function, which usually uses sendmail. This will work on most web servers.

9. You’re done installing! The next screen should tell you to remove the “install.php” file and the “install_files” folder for security reasons. Click on “reload osdate” after you’re done.

10. Now login to the admin panel at http://www.yoursite.com/admin/ or if you installed it into a subdirectory – http://www.yoursite.com/some_directory/admin/.  I don’t remember if it asks for your admin login or not during the installation process, but if it doesn’t, the default username is “admin” and the default password is “pass.”

After logging into admin, you may be overwhelmed by all the options in the menu. Here is a great guide to understanding what each menu item is for. I suggest you take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with it.

In Part 3, I’ll tell you what are the optimal admin settings that I use. Note that these settings are for version 2.0.8. They should be similar to the newest version. Create Your Own Online Dating Site Using osDate – Part 3 – Admin Settings