Hello , Dear friend .PHP files are a server side pages or scripts it needs a server to run on it or to be executed , so you will have to install something like apache server you will find a great application that enables your system to work as a localhost server

>> http://download.cnet.com/XAMPP/3000-10248_4-10703782.html

but HTML file can easily opened by any browser like Firefox or IE

also if you need to edit the content of their code you will have to obtain a code editor like Notebad++ >>http://download.cnet.com/Notepad/3000-2352_4-10327521.html

thanks for your time i wish i could helped you.

I can view .php files on the web. For example, I can view this one:

 http://www.php.net/sites.php

However, when I point my firefox to a local file:

 file:///home/evansl/prog_dev/itext/book/index.php

I get a dialogue window asking me what to do with the file. How can I get firefox to treat a local .php file like one loaded from a website?

TIA.

-Larry

Read the manpage on apache which hinted at trying:

 http://localhost/

I did and got some default webpage. Reading:

/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default

showed that page was from /var/www; so, tried copy index.php to this directory and then pointed firefox to:

 http://localhost/index.php

and that worked. However, since a non local php file can be viewed without the localhost, why can't a local php file be viewed without having to copy it to /var/www first and then prefixing with //local/host/?

-Larry