From CMStr.com there's a new tutorial showing you how to set up Joomla manually just in case something happens with the install and you need to change things yourself.

Why would I want to do a manual install when my web host has this Fantastico thingy that will install Joomla for me? Good question. [...] If you are building websites for a living, and or plan on using Joomla a lot, then you really need to start doing your own installs. [...] If you are an experienced parachute jumper, you would pack your own chute right? This is no different.

Screenshots are included to help make the process easier as they walk you through setting up the basics like language settings and database information. They also touch on the FTP setting (off for security) and removing the admin user's information to help make things a bit more secure. It's not a comprehensive list of the things you'd need to do to get it 100% configured for just what you need, but it's a start.

In another of his "Solar Shorts" Richard Thomas talks about the road to Solar 1.0 as broken down into three points that will lead up to the framework's 1.0 release.

If you haven't taken a look at the Solar Framework in the past now is the time to do so as the three biggest complaints about Solar are on the road to be resolved.

Some of the things that might have made you skip over the framework in the past are being worked on right now:

• Solar has been in perpetual alpha/beta forever..
• Documentation, all the cool Frameworks have cool docs.
• Examples, sometimes the easiest way to learn is to study a working application

For more information about the Solar framework, head over to SolarPHP.com and grab the latest copy.

The Zend Framework has updated their documentation site with a very handy feature for those that may not be working with the latest version of the framework - the ability to select a version of the framework to view the documentation for.

As of the time of this post, they have versions 1.10 back through the original 1.0 of the documentation as well as having them in six different languages. The site's search can also be limited to a certain version as well, making it super simple to find just what you're looking for.

Check out their updated documentation site to see these new features in action.

Hannes Magnusson has a new post today about an interesting feature of the PHP documentation some might not have known existed - manual pages (man) for PHP functions/methods for unix systems.

For a while I had vim configured to run reflection when I hit "K", but after the PHP documentation team released unix manual pages for PHP I now get the manual page in all its glory; function description, parameter descriptions, return values, examples, notes, see also and everything you are used to see from the online manual. Its awesome.

These manual pages aren't installed by default, so you'll have to grab the download from the PEAR channel for the PHP documentation (doc.php.net/pman). If you're wanting to use it in VIM, you'll also need to change the keywordprg setting to "pman".

In this new post to his blog Adam Harvey shares his opinion on unmoderated notes dropped directly into the PHP manual - "they're bad, mkay?"

I've had a couple of whinges on IRC lately about why I'm not thrilled with having user notes in their current form in the PHP manual; we get entirely too many questions in ##php from people who've copied code out of a note and are then annoyed when it turns out the code is wrong, broken, horrible, or all of the above.

His gives an example (one of many currently in the manual) that shows a round-about way of getting a date string that could be done better in a single "format()" function call on a DateTime object.

I don't know what the answer is - moderation has its own problems to do with workload, as PEAR can attest - but a system that's letting that go up as recommended practice (and stay up for a month) has to be looked at.

If you're a fan of the CodeIgniter framework and have spotted a place in its manual that things maybe could be explained better (or that there's an error), you'll need to go through the process of getting it updated. In this new post to his blog Derek Allard (of EllisLabs) looks at the best way to do it.

What I'd like to focus on here is how to go about improving the docs, and one approach to giving your suggestion the best possible chance of getting included. The first thing to understand about our docs is that currently they are not editable by the community. This means all doc changes need to go through a staff member. There are advantages and drawbacks to this, but for now that is the way it works.

You'll need to contact him or another staffer at EllisLabs to submit the change. Derek suggests a few ways to make sure your submission is considered like being polite, save time by formatting it ahead of time and keep the items requested to a minimum. To submit your updates, you can submit them here.

As Chris Jones mentions on his blog today, the "Underground PHP & Oracle Manual" has gotten a bit of a facelift:

Thanks to the Oracle Technology Network design team our very popular, free Underground PHP & Oracle Manual has had a makeover and gained a snazzy new front cover. Farewell to the photo of the underground car park door that used to greet me each night on the way out of the office.

The book not only has a new cover but it also has a new page where you can download the latest copy. (The contents of the book haven't changed since the end of last year, though.)

Jaisen Mathai has a helpful hint for those that do any offline work with PHP on their own development systems - how to mirror the PHP manual on a local web server.

In addition to [a local copy of your source] being faster to develop, it lets you work without needing to be connected to the Internet. But what about the tools you use while developing? If you're a PHP developer then the manual at php.net is an invaluable tool. It only make sense to have it available for when you're not online.

His example follows the official mirroring part of the PHP.net website and uses a slightly modified rsync command to fetch the manual information from the php.net site and drops it in a location locally. He throws in an Apache configuration too for a simple VirtualHost to get it up and running.

Chris Jones has announced the release of the latest version of the Undergroupnd PHP & Oracle Manual.

A hot-off-the-press, free, 290 page, updated version of the Underground PHP & Oracle Manual is available for download from http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/php/pdf/underground-php-oracle-manual.pdf. [...] The previous edition was released way back in May 2007. Since then, Oracle Database 11g and the OCI8 1.3 extension have been released, there have been various changes in PHP community, and I've simply just gathered more notes, examples and have more information to share.

The manual has doubled in size and includes tons of new content reflecting the updates since the previous release. Chris thanks those who helped in creating the content, helped get it out to the community and his co-author Alison Holloway.

Knut Urdalen has passed along the announcement about the 1.0 release of the Yii framework for PHP being released (by Qiang Xue).

The Yii Framework builds upon learnings and findings from over 5 years of development of PRADO. If you already know PRADO you'll get the hold of Yii quite fast. The framework is already documented quite well in The Definitive Guide to Yii (a good place to start for beginners), in addition to complete class reference and an active forum where you can meet other developers.

There is also an extension repository and a few benchmarks to help you compare it to some of the other popular frameworks out there.