Fusion News Tutorial and Installation How To

This tutorial describes how to use the Fusion News weblog software with your NEXCESS.NET web hosting account. NEXCESS.NET specializes in hosting Fusion News software and this tutorial is meant to help you quickly setup your site with our web hosting service.

Fusion News is open source, meaning that you can use and distribute it as you'd like as long as you don't change it.

For the sake of this tutorial we'll assume that you own the domain 'johnsmith.com' and are setting up Fusion News at http://johnsmith.com/fusionnews/.

Follow these steps to complete the tutorial:

1. Download the latest version of Fusion News from the Fusion News website and unzip the contents of the zip file to your desktop using http://winzip.com.

   You should now have a bunch of files and folders on your desktop. Rename the 'upload' folder to 'fusionnews'.

2. Upload the 'fusionnews' folder to your web hosting account. You can do this using an FTP program. If you don't know how to do this, check out the FTP tutorials on our tutorials page.

   Once the Fusion News files and folders are finished uploading, you can access the 'installer.php'. For this example, we'll point to 'http://www.johnsmith.com/fusionnews/installer.php'. You should now be on the first page of the installer. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Now you can either CHMOD the files and folders manually, or you can click the button to let the script try and CHMOD the files for you. For this example, we'll click on the button to see if the script can CHMOD the files for us. Click the 'Try to CHMOD' button to continue. The script will now try to CHMOD the files. Most likely, the test will fail. Your screen should look like this:

   

   This means that now you'll have to CHMOD the files yourself. You can do this using the CHMOD command in your FTP program. If you don't know how to do this, check out the FTP tutorials on our tutorials page. For this example, you need to CHMOD the files and folders as follows:

   • CHMOD the 'fusionnews' folder to 777
   • CHMOD the 'img' folder to 777
   • CHMOD the 'news' folder to 777
   • CHMOD the files in the 'news' folder to 777
   • CHMOD the 'plugins' folder to 777
   • CHMOD the 'smillies' folder to 777
   • CHMOD the 'templates' folder to 777
   • CHMOD the 'uploads' folder to 777
   • CHMOD all the files in the 'fusionnews' folder to 666
   • CHMOD all the files in the 'templates' folder to 777

   Once you've set all the correct permissions, refresh the installer page. All the tests should pass now and you should see a button at the bottom of the page. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Create config/login file' button to continue.
3. You should now be on the settings page. Fill out all the required settings. For this example, we'll fill out the form as follows:
   • url to your site: http://johnsmith.com - Stays the same
   • url to the fusion folder: http://johnsmith.com/fusionnews
   • path to the fusion folder: /home/johnsmith.com/html/fusionnews/ - Stays the same

   For the 'Admin Info' section, create your admin account how you see fit, entering your own username and password. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'save settings' button to continue. The Fusion News script will now check to make sure that you entered valid information. If you recieve any errors, go back and make sure you entered the correct path information. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click on the 'here' link to access the login page. Enter the information for the admin account you created. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'login' button to access the admin control panel. You should now be on the main page of the admin control panel. From here you can manage and customize your Fusion News how you see fit. The Fusion News tutorial is now complete. Your screen should look like this:

   

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