I got through the security settings fine and set passwords for XAMPP pages, MySQL, and FTP. That's all I was prompted for in Terminal. Then opened XAMPP start page (http://localhost)
At the XAMPP start page, I clicked on phpmyadmin and new window gave me this message - a pop-up menu for Language: set to English (en-iso-8859-1). A "GO" button and beneath that this message: "Error. The configuration file now needs a secret passphrase (blowfish_secret)."
What's odd is I am not prompted for a password. I just get this window. I can, however, open phpmyadmin Lite.
I'm sorry to say, clicking on the link for manual brings me to http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-macosx.html - no manual in sight.
I appreciate the work that went into this package - what a great idea! I hope someone has an answer to my problem. Thanks!