Resolution for trouble installing FCK Editor for Joomla 1.5

After installing FCK Editor 2.639b for Joomla 1.5, I was getting this error when attempting to edit an article:

“[path]/plugins/editors/fckstyles_template.xml was not found on this server.”

Naturally, it was a permissions issue related to the hosting environment. Full description of the known issue is here:

http://www.joomlafckeditor.com/forum?func=view&id=1544&catid=8#1544
(registration required)

Crunchy bits follow…

Re:server didn’t send back a proper XML response?
Apache web servers configured to use PHP suEXEC or suPHP will deny the execute permission on all files and folders that are world writable – 0777 and 0666. Which means your PHP scripts won’t run for any user in which the files are Chmod to 0666 or 0777. That is why it is recommended to use the values, 755 and 0644 for folders and files respectively. In most cases this will work; as the user, Apache will be running under will be the owner of the files and folders for your Joomla installation.
If you are not using suPHP or neither running PHP as CGI then Apache will be running under the ‘Nobody’ account or some other equivalent. That means your files will have to be set to 0666(‘rw-rw- rw-‘), and in the case of using PHP to create new files in a directory, the folder will have to be set to 0777(‘rwxrwxrwx’).

I set the following directories to 777:

• /plugins/editors
• /plugins/editors/fckeditor

and the following files to 666:

• /plugins/editors/fckeditor.class.php
• /plugins/editors/fckeditor.legacy.php
• /plugins/editors/fckeditor.php
• /plugins/editors/fckeditor.xml

Voila! =)