Teaching Chemistry with Moodle demonstrates Moodle’s current facilities for building online and hybrid chemistry courses. It’s also intended to become a permanent place for chemistry instructors to exchange tips, learning objects, lessons, question banks, and entire courses.

Moodle is usually easy to install once you’ve got Apache/PHP 5/MySQL running.

But the installation script for Moodle 1.8 fails- hitting ‘Next’ after entering the database information gave me a blank screen.

The install works fine under XP. But the problem isn’t limited to Vista: John McGrath and others on moodle.org report a similar problem under XAMPP/Win2000. John manually built his configuration file to get Moodle running (http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=64692).

I was able to install Moodle 1.8 successfully under Vista following his approach.

1. Install the Apache webserver. I’m using Apache 2.2.4.
2. Install MySQL 5 (The most recent installer (5.0.41) works without a hitch under Vista. Don’t forget to unblock port 3306 in your firewall, and set sql-mode=”” in your my.ini file; Moodle doesn’t like strict mode).
3. Install PHP 5. I’m using version 5.2.3.
4. Download the latest stable build of 1.8+ from http://download.moodle.org/download.php/stable18/moodle-latest-18.zip.
5. Unzip the file into your Apache document root (c:\apache\htdocs, if you follow the instructions linked in step one). I renamed the directory c:\apache\htdocs\moodle18, so I could install multiple versions of moodle later for testing.
6. Create a directory for storing data that is outside the document root (I used c:\apache\htdata).
7. Create an empty database for Moodle 1.8. I used mysql:
   1. Get a command line (All Programs > Accessories > Command Line) and start up mysql:

      mysql -u root -p

   2. After giving mysql your root password, you should see a welcome message. At the mysql prompt, type:

       create database moodle18;
       grant select,insert,update,delete,create,drop,
          index,alter on moodle18.* to moodle@localhost
          identified by 'put-a-moodle-password-here';
       quit;
      

8. Double check your php.ini file. Moodle requires the following to be set somewhere in php.ini:

   session.auto_start = 0
   magic_quotes_gpc = On
   magic_quotes_runtime = Off
   register_globals = Off
   sql.safe_mode = Off
   file_uploads = On
   memory_limit = 128M
   upload_max_filesize = 64M
   post_max_size = 64M
   extension=php_gd2.dll
   

   Moodle won’t complain if you leave magic_quotes_gpc off, but Joomla will.

   64 megabytes is just a little larger than my largest course backups- if I set it any smaller, I won’t be able to upload them through Moodle.

9. Create a Notepad file in your Moodle directory and call it config.php (c:\Apache\htdocs\moodle18\config.php, for me):

   <?php /// Moodle Configuration File
   
   unset($CFG);
   
   $CFG->dbtype = 'mysql';
   $CFG->dbhost = 'localhost';
   $CFG->dbname = 'moodle18';
   $CFG->dbuser = 'moodle';
   $CFG->dbpass = 'put-a-moodle-password-here';
   $CFG->dbpersist = false;
   $CFG->prefix = 'mdl_';
   
   $CFG->wwwroot = 'http://localhost/moodle18';
   $CFG->dirroot = 'C:\Apache\htdocs\moodle18';
   $CFG->dataroot = 'C:\Apache\htdata';
   $CFG->admin = 'admin';
   
   $CFG->directorypermissions = 00777; // try 02777 on a server in Safe Mode
   
   $CFG->unicodedb = true; // Database is utf8
   
   require_once("$CFG->dirroot/lib/setup.php");
   // MAKE SURE WHEN YOU EDIT THIS FILE THAT THERE ARE NO SPACES, BLANK LINES,
   // RETURNS, OR ANYTHING ELSE AFTER THE TWO CHARACTERS ON THE NEXT LINE.
   ?>
   

   Put in your own paths and passwords.

10. Browse to your Moodle directory (http://localhost/moodle18, for me) and the install script should take it from there!