httpd.conf Warning With Mavericks and Above

[Isymm]

Can someone create a sticky or some sort of warning letting Mac users know that if you edit your conf using texteditor unless you choose to disable the feature in the texteditor settings certain characters are converted to non ASCII characters and the configuration will cause the server to fail at start.

ie, Changing the httpdocs directory. The quotation marks encapsulating the string are converted to some different standard and cause the config to fail.

Annoying problem with texteditor in OSX Mavericks or newer and is hardly documented online.

[Altrea]

It should be clear that you have to use a plain text editor and not a rich text editor to edit config files.
This is not a TextEdit or Mac OS X problem, this is base knowledge.

You can use TextEdit in plain text too (there is a format mode for it and you can even config that mode as default), but i would prefer to use a better plain text editor like Sublime Text or Coda.

[Isymm]

Like I said unless you choose to disable rich formatting it's going to default to it. It's pretty easy to say "Oh it's so obvious, duuuuhhh" when you know the answer to the problem but if you weren't aware that texteditor is rtf then you are going to be left scratching your head when the error log you receive is that your file paths are incorrect and you're preeeetttttyyy sure that they aren't. I never use texteditor I either use sublime or occasionally some console editor like vim or nano, so when I click config in xampp and texteditor pops up I'm going to assume everything is all hunky D.

Now I can completely understand why you would tell me I should know better if I'm going to go digging through config files, but for the sake of those that don't know better perhaps a little bit of a heads up would be nice? Let's face it I'm lazy that's why I'm using XAMPP but there are tons of users out there that just want to run a local copy of wordpress and maybe that want to keep their original file directory. They don't want to setup a server and have to compile their own php so they use XAMPP, these guys are going to be wtfing and crying sweet tears not knowing what's wrong.

I've only recently made the switch from mamp because xampp packages openssl 1.0.2XX and I can't be bothered trying to recompile php to get it running in mamp, this little pain in the arse error cost me two hours of my time and I'm not new to this so maybe, just maybe some others might find it "helpful" if you let them know, rather than assuming everyone should know better.

[Altrea]

I unerstand what you want to say. The problem is, that there is so much base knowledge of the same level we might provide.
For example, we might describe that each config setting needs to be placed in it's own line, or that you have to use english ASCII letters and not cyrillic or chinese ones. We might describe that you can only use already configured known config settings and not simply create your own ones.

The problem is where to start and where to end. It is so much to know that really nobody would read and get a benefit of this.
So we choose to not describe it. XAMPP tries to preconfigure everything and we assume that only users with that base knowledge are trying to change anything in the configs theirself.

For everything else there are manuals of the specific components, like for the Apache config files: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/e ... uring.html

And at the very end this forum here exists where users (if they are willing) can find your thread or creating their own support thread.

[Nobbie]

but if you weren't aware that texteditor is rtf then you are going to be left scratching your head when the error log you receive is that your file paths are incorrect and you're preeeetttttyyy sure that they aren't.

Anyway - what is the part of Xampp in this matter?? This is a pure OSX / texteditor issue and has NOTHING to do with Xampp. This is simply the wrong place for a discussion about basic OSX skills. This is the Xampp forum (i.e. Xampp for OSX), not a plain OSX forum.

[Isymm]

but if you weren't aware that texteditor is rtf then you are going to be left scratching your head when the error log you receive is that your file paths are incorrect and you're preeeetttttyyy sure that they aren't.

Anyway - what is the part of Xampp in this matter?? This is a pure OSX / texteditor issue and has NOTHING to do with Xampp. This is simply the wrong place for a discussion about basic OSX skills. This is the Xampp forum (i.e. Xampp for OSX), not a plain OSX forum.

Well had I not solved my problem I probably would have posted in these very forums claiming I had a problem with XAMPP, it was the XAMPP configuration that was failing due to my oversight after all and the error log doesn't wholly indicate what the problem is. It's obvious now that it's not XAMPP's fault but not everyone that makes my mistake is going to realise this. At the very least if people had a quick referral guide for setting up a document folder outside of htdocs folder that was succinct and had some FAQ then people like me wouldn't be here polluting your forums. So to answer your question in my mind this is very related to XAMPP.

Just looking through the MAC forums for XAMPP here, it's comical as to how many basic configuration or setups problems people are having. Do they all meet such bitter resistance to what in my mind is a pretty reasonable question. Sometimes users are scared or just simply don't want to go digging through technical documentation to find an answer to their question. You could probably cut down on a ton of the basic bullshit questions if you had a decent XAMPP noob guide.

Altrea, brings up a good point where do you start with offering a support guide to people out there without going all the way to the beginning of "This is computer, here is the on button" etc..

That's not a question for me to answer though, its up to the developers but I don't think it would hurt to introduce a guide for FAQ it requries X amount of knowledge on the following topics. Or here is a guide on some common problems we have with XAMPP and how to fix them and how other users have fixed these problems. If this guide exists then my bad, but it sure as hell ain't easy to find.

[Nobbie]

So to answer your question in my mind this is very related to XAMPP.

That means in fact, that you are willing to put the same problem into all forums of the internet, which deals with text configuration files (nearly every tool on linux and osx is configured by a text configuration file), as the problem as always the same, "texteditor" does not produce plain text but rtf instead. So you want to put this problem into hundreds and thousands of forums, instead of putting it into the only right place, a forum about OSX and about texteditor, not to use texteditor for plain text configurations in rtf mode?! Wow!

Do you really believe, that this is the right way to handle this general problem of "texteditor"?

Just looking through the MAC forums for XAMPP here, it's comical as to how many basic configuration or setups problems people are having. Do they all meet such bitter resistance to what in my mind is a pretty reasonable question.

This is probably due to a completely different problem, as many MAC users behave as "Apple Fans" and they all believed into the bad ly, that everything is easy with Apple and everything is running out of the box with Apple and OSX of course is by far the best Operating System with no problems at all bla bla bla bla. But the the truth is different and you now have a clue, what the truth is: of course all that is a ly from Apple, they simply want to sell their stuff, but their fans did not expect to have any problems with any software. But when things are getting more difficult (like Webservers), MAC Users are at least the most helpless and clueless users of all three kinds OS (Windows, Linux, OSX). It is for sure, that MAC Users have by far the biggest problems to understand the concepts of their OS (including such things as text file formats, rights management, user management etc.).