Many thanks Crafter.
The ‘double’ php is showing up on my systems if I use the ‘long tags’ option under Code Options.
Am testing this on two systems, both local: 1 is a XAMPP install using PHP4 on a WinTel box. The other is a local Ubuntu based Linux box running Apache and PHP4 that I use for development testing. Same results on both systems.
No luck yet in getting the Layout class to load properly. Thanks for the directory map, but that seems to be what I’m using. I’m more than willing to believe that the problem exists between the keyboard and the chair, but I can’t sort it out just yet. 
Will post more after the next series of tests with a fresh install.
UPDATE:
No joy. Similar issues.
Tried viewing http://localhost/hgo/appmain where ‘hgo’ is the app path. Got an interesting result:
Left side display’s text:
* location <== this is one of my table names.
* Browse
* Add New
* Find (not yet)
(edit: all three of the above links result in the layout class not loading error.)
Right side displayes error:
A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Notice
Message: Undefined variable: page_contents
Filename: site/main.php
Line Number: 7
Commented out the layout defaults as you suggested.This produces a page where the table field names are displayed and a single “Add” button appears in the top right corner. Clicking the “Add” button generates a new page with the same old ‘layout class’ error.
J.