From TomatoCart Wiki

There are supposed to be some images to go along with this guide, but I'm having issues getting them uploaded. Once that gets resolved the images will be included.

The preferred (and easiest) way to set up a TomatoCart installation is to purchase hosting from a hosting provider such as Arvixe Web Hosting, or TMD Hosting who provide automatic installation of TomatoCart. See our list of hosting partners for other recommended hosting providers.

Besides being the easiest method, you're also supporting continued TomatoCart development when you choose to use hosting by one of these providers. Be sure to click on the provider link from within tomatocart.com instead of googling it or going directly to the hosting site if you want to help support TomatoCart via our affiliate relationship with those providers.

However - most likely you are here because you want to set up a TomatoCart installation yourself. I'm going to go through a specific example in this guide and will leave it to you to use other tools that are more familiar to you or that fit your particular situation if needed. In my case I'm using windows and I am partial to The Uniform Server. You can also do this with XAMPP or any number of other WAMP stacks that are freely available online. The great thing about The Uniform Server is that it leaves ZERO footprint in your system and there is no installation. Just unzip and put it into whatever directory location tickles your fancy and then start it up by double clicking "start.exe". I'm going to leave you to your own devices to figure out how to use whatever WAMP stack that you decide to use.

Numbered lists have always been helpful to me, so that's the format I'm going to use here.

1. Download the most recent version of TomatoCart. (currently version 1.1.5 for the stable branch)

2. Extract the downloaded zip file into the apache web directory within your WAMP directory structure. (usually www or public_html)

This is the directory structure for The Uniform Server in a Windows environment

3. Create a database to connect the TomatoCart installation to. Most WAMP distributions include phpMyAdmin which provides a GUI method for you to do this. You also might want to write down the name that you've choosen for your database for reference when you go through the TomatoCart installation wizard later.

It's best in most cases to choose "utf8_general_ci" for the collation type for the database. You can name the database as you wish.

4. Click on your newly created database in the left-hand column

5. Click on "Privileges" toward the upper-right side of the top navigation menu.

6. Click on "Add a new User"

7. Provide the requested information. See the screenshot for an example of what your settings might be. At this point you might want to write down the user name that you choose. Leave everything at default settings (at least that's how it was for me), then click "Go" at the bottom-right corner.

8. Now you're ready to run the TomatoCart installation wizard. Go to "http://localhost/tomatocart" unless you choose to structure your installation differently. You should be greeted with the following screen:

9. Go ahead and step through the first two steps and then you'll be at the Database Setup setup. If you have issues with the 2nd step then that's beyond the scope of this guide and you'll need to do some detective work to see what needs to be changed about your hosting environment. If you're using The Uniform Server it should just work. "Works for me" but your mileage may vary.

The default value for the Database Table Prefix is "toc_". I prefer "tc_", so I changed it to that. "Toc" makes me think of "Table of Contents".

10. In the next step you'll need to change the default "Work Directory" for security purposes. TomatoCart defaults to putting it exactly where it tells you it should not be, so be sure not to leave it at the default setting. If you choose a folder that does not already exist you will need to create that folder first before continuing on with this step. If you leave the rest of the default path (as I did) then you will need to create each folder in that structure. The install wizard does not create the folders for you.

See the screen shot for the location I choose.

11. For the "Online Store Settings" choose whatever makes sense for you. All completely up to you. No right or wrong answers here.

12. Congratulations, you finished! Now you can click on the button for "Administration Tool" and start playing with your next generation shopping cart!