Join me for a first look at the new Trongate Setup Wizard. I’m testing it out for the first time, and the simplicity of the setup process is impressive. If you’re looking for the most beginner-friendly way to get started with PHP, Trongate just raised the bar.

YouTube video link: https://youtu.be/P_NHd0-aESI
Enjoy!

Well presented, Balazs.

I was hoping to take it a step further by having the setup wizard handle everything automatically - updating `config.php`, `database.php`, setting the `DEFAULT_MODULE`, and then removing itself once the installation is complete. The goal is to avoid having to jump in and out of an editor during setup and keep the whole process streamlined.

If there’s interest, I’d be happy to put something like this together. Keen to hear any thoughts or feedback.

Looks great, well presented Balazs.
I can definitely see how actual server provisioning and continuous delivery with zero downtime via symlinks could be nicely tied it.

It might be a little work to support more than one target platform - nothing a collection of recipes or adapters can’t easily support tho :)

Hello Balazs,

Excellent Video,

Dan

Hi Everyone,

I really appreciate the positive feedback! Producing these videos takes a significant amount of time, as I'm constantly researching and refining my skills to get them right. That said, I truly enjoy the process and believe it's a great way to support Trongate and the community.

The new Setup Wizard is a huge step forward. While many of you are more than capable of building your own versions, I think our energy is best spent contributing to the official tool. If we submit our ideas and automations via pull requests, we can build one world-class tool together instead of fragmenting our efforts. What do you think?

Thanks for the incentive koolmees but my intention was not to branch out and build something completely different to DC's setup wizard. It was more to tweak it so you had the option to automate things more (like DC and Balazs are hinting at with their posts above). I had already done so a while back via an intercepter. Where on a first time run of a fresh install of v2, it modified all setup files, created a db and off you went. I could look at that again with the new setup wizard when time allows.

@DC, I did notice the setup wizard had issues at the create admin stage when a db already existed, might need to look into that.

I tested the Setup Wizard on a fresh Trongate install with the following scenarios:

✅ Fresh install: Let the wizard create the DB -> Admin login successful.
✅ Existing install (Existing DB): Admin login successful.
✅ Existing install (Existing admin account): Admin record was overwritten -> Login successful.
✅ Force-run: Triggered the Setup Wizard twice -> Everything works as expected.

I couldn't reproduce any issues during these tests. I suspect DC might be correct; the culprit is likely a specific column or table that isn't aligned with the new login module.

Thanks for testing, Balazs. DC is correct when there is an existing db with a `trongate_administrators` table without the new columns, like so:
At the setup wizard `create admin account` - the form loops with a red cross.
If I then manually remove the `trongate_administrators` table from the db and try again, the setup wizard continues without error.

Thank you for clearing that up, Simon. 👍🏻

Just edited `setup.sql` to drop the `trongate_administrators`, like so, and it works now without error.
Wondering now if there might be a more graceful approach - maybe warn the user of an existing table/ column mismatch because there is potential for more of the same 'red cross' looping, and the user wouldn't know why.