Re: Tomcat download pages

["Pier P. Fumagalli" <pi...@apache.org>]

I'm forwarding this to the Tomcat developers mailing list.

	Pier

Michael Muller wrote:
> 
> First of all, thanks for all the work on Tomcat.  The existence of a free
> JSP server that works with Apache makes for a formidable alternative to the
> use of ASP (and hence, Windows servers) for my client's web interfaces.
> 
> I have several comments on the download pages:
> 
> -  When downloading Tomcat, it wasn't clear to me that Ant was a
>    prerequisite until I unpacked the package and read through the readme.
>    I downloaded Ant 1.1 (because the download page said that this was the
>    latest release, and I assumed that it would work with the latest Tomcat)
>    but when I tried to build Tomcat, it complained about XML libraries
>    being missing.  I went back and downloaded the version of Ant that was
>    in the Tomcat download directory and everything worked fine.
> 
>    Much of this trial and error could have been avoided.  I suggest that you:
> 
>    -  Indicate that Ant is required by Tomcat on the download page, and
>       indicate the required version number.
>    -  Include the version number of each package as part of the package
>       filename (e.g. jakarta-ant-1.1.tar.gz).
> 
> -  The README file was quite adequate for getting the Tomcat server
>    started, but it didn't indicate which port to point my browser at to test
>    it.  I looked at the ports in use using "netstat", saw that 8007 was
>    being used, and tried that, but the server spat out an error.  I had
>    to peruse through the source code before I discovered that 8007 is
>    apparently used for internal connections within the server, and is not
>    an http port.  After that I figured out that I was supposed to be going
>    to port 8080, but a line like "Now point your browser at
>    http://your.host.name:8080/" would have been very helpful.
> 
> =============================================================================
> michaelMuller = mmuller@enduden.com | http://www.cloud9.net/~proteus
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