Installing Hotaru CMS

Requirements

Hotaru CMS has been tested using PHP 5.2.5 ~ 5.3.2 and MySQL 5.0~.

First-time Installation

1. Download the latest version of Hotaru CMS.
2. Create a database called "hotaru" in cPanel->mySQLdatabases, phpMyAdmin or equivalent.
3. Upload the contents of the "hotaru" folder to your server.
4. Files should have permissions set to 644 and folders should be set to 755, except...
5. Set /cache and its sub-folders to 777
6. Open example.com/install/index.php in your browser and step through the five steps, following the instructions in each.
7. When finished, delete the install folder.

If the installation script has difficulty writing to your server it may prompt you to manually create a hotaru_settings.php file. If so you need to:

1. Rename /hotaru_settings_default.php to /hotaru_settings.php.
2. Open /hotaru_settings.php and edit the top section with your database details and path to Hotaru, e.g.http://example.com/

Note: This may not be necessary for most installations.

Setting up your site

1. Log into Admin* and go to Admin -> Settings
2. Change the settings as appropriate, but leave DB_CACHE as false for now.
3. Download plugins from the Plugin Downloads forum, unzip and upload them to the /content/plugins/ directory.
4. Go to Admin -> Plugin Management and install the plugins one by one. See Installing Your First Plugins.
5. Edit settings for each plugin listed in the sidebar under Plugin Settings.
6. Click the site title/banner to view your changes*.
7. When finished, return to Admin -> Settings and set DB_CACHE to true.

• You may need to do a hard refresh (CTRL + F5) and/or clear the language cache from Admin -> Maintenance.

Friendly URLS

If you want to use friendly urls, rename htaccess_default to .htaccess, and edit it according to the instructions within thehtaccess file. Then go to Admin -> Settings and change the "friendly urls" setting to true.

Hotaru CMS The Story

Hotaru CMS is an open source[1], plugin-powered content management system. Think of it as "Wordpress without blogging". If Wordpress didn't do blogging by itself, you'd need plugins to do it for you. And if you had to make plugins, you wouldn't be limited to just blogging. You could make plugins for any kind of site, whether a blog, a social network, an online shop, etc. That's Hotaru CMS, a framework for making websites customized to your needs. As an example, check out the demo. It showcases a Digg clone made with Hotaru plugins.

The core Hotaru package provides the absolute basics for a PHP-based website: A home page, an admin page, function libraries and a plugin management system. It comes with a straightforward installation script that installs some database tables and registers you as the administrator. And that's about it. You are then left to plug in the functionality you want your site to have.

If you wanted to, you could use that foundation to build a blog, a directory, a forum, or any other kind of website, but we decided to start with a collection of plugins that make a social bookmarking site when used together. Whereas Wordpress plugins or Pligg modules tend to be quite small, Hotaru plugins provide such key components as user systems and post publishing. That means you can completely change how your website works by editing, changing or developing your own plugins - leaving the main Hotaru core files free from modifications and easy to upgrade.

Hotaru offers four main areas for customization: main themes, admin themes, plugins and language packs. Themes are small and easy to customize, and the admin section is kept separate from the main theme so you can make or use different admin styles. Plugins use templates and language files that can be edited and saved without being overwritten when upgrading. Language packs are collections of raw text used in Hotaru that can be changed or translated into different languages.