Within the WampServer menu, the Apache, PHP, and MySQL options allow us to configure the various services. We can install modules and add-ons to the different components, or we can edit the configuration files for them.
There are the two main features that we will want to be enabled:
GD for PHP
Rewrite_module for Apache
Tip
Configuration Files
The my.ini
, php.ini
, and httpd.conf
files are the configuration files for the three services, although we wouldn't need to edit these for our web site. However, it is important to know where they are, in case we do need to change them later, as they control how the software works. More information is available on their respective web sites.
PHP's GD2 module is a graphics library that allows PHP to easily manipulate and manage images, including resizing images, recreating images, adding watermarks to images and so on. Drupal has a number of image features which require an image module to be installed with PHP. By default, GD2 is installed with WampServer; but it is important for us to confirm that it is enabled, and that we know where the setting is.
PHP's modules are enabled and disabled by clicking the WampServer logo in the system tray selecting PHP and then the PHP Extensions.
From here, we can enable or disable the GD2 extension.
Apache has a module called rewrite which allows it to rewrite URLs, particularly to make them more friendly by rewriting URLs such as /home/about
to index.php?section=home&page=about
. Now, when a user types in the "clean URL" version, the web site interoperates this properly.
Drupal's Clean URL's module makes use of this feature if it is available; so let's enable it! It can be enabled from Apache modules within the Apache menu.