Running a CakePHP project on Localhost - cakephp

Question

I have downloaded a CakePHP project from an online server and need to make it work locally, to do some changes.
I'm facing a problem similar to this one and have tried all possible solutions, with no luck.
Here's the situations:
Site home is in localhost/xpto (c:\xampp\htdocs\xpto) -> here, the site appears unformatted (no CSS) and too slow.
If I access localhost/xpto/something, I get the site with the CSS, but some links wont work.
I have mod_rewrite loaded (phpinfo()) together with the 3 .htaccess files, but still experience this problem.
Is there any known issue that I can explore to fix my site?
Please redirect me to any guides or tutorials that you may feel relevant to my issue

Answer 1

Use RewriteBase directive in .htaccess.
e.g my dev space is on my localhost, is located in /home/ati/public_html/cakerbs, under a subdir in my userdir. The rewriteBase looks like as follows in the root of the cake:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /~ati/cakerbs
RewriteRule ^$ app/webroot/ [L]
RewriteRule (.*) app/webroot/$1 [L]
</IfModule>
in the app directory .htacces:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /~ati/cakerbs
RewriteRule ^$ webroot/ [L]
RewriteRule (.*) webroot/$1 [L]
</IfModule>
in the webroot directory:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /~ati/cakerbs
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?url=$1 [QSA,L]
</IfModule>

Answer 2

Check your XAMPP apache settings, it's very likely your current config is blocking things like the .htaccess files (I know EasyPHP does this by default with Cake). What I do to get around this error is to add a VirtualHost to my config like such:
<VirtualHost *>
DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/xpto/"
ServerName xpto.dev
ServerAlias www.xpto.dev
ErrorLog "logs/xpto-error.log"
CustomLog "logs/xtpo-access.log" common
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order deny,allow
Allow from all
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
It may be better to update your whole config properly, but seeing as it's a dev environment for me, this does just fine. (Don't forget to add any hosts to your windows hosts file)
Then just open your favourite browser and go to http://xpto.dev/ and it should load up.
This may help your more: http://ailoo.net/2008/07/set-up-multiple-virtual-hosts-on-xampp-for-windows/