Thanks for your reply. I don't doubt it is easier than the way I'm doing it.
But it doesn't help much if I can't even get through the first step toward installing it.
I checked their site. The documentation assumes a great more knowledge about servers than I possess. The user support forum has no posts in it more recent that Dec of last year.
I guess I'm stuck with what I've been doing unless someone here can:
a) suggest an alternative, or
b) give me some "idiot level" advice on installing it.
Maybe if I get more specific: (quotes are from phpmyadmin documentation)
Choose and download a distribution kit with the files having the extension (.php3 or .php) depending on the way your web/PHP server interprets those extensions.
What is a "distribution kit" and, having downloaded it, where do I put it?
Untar or unzip the distribution (be sure to unzip the subdirectories): tar xzvf phpMyAdmin_x.x.x.tar.gz in your webserver's document root.
What does the above mean?
If you don't have direct access to your document root, put the files in a directory on your local machine, and, after step 3, transfer the directory on your web server using, for example, ftp.
I've been using Windows for quite a few years and I have no idea how to "tar" a file on my local (Windows) machine.
Open the file config.inc.php3 in your favourite editor and change the values for host, user, password and authentication mode to fit your environment. Also insert the correct value for $cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri']. Have a look at Configuration section for an explanation of all values.
This part I could probably do, If I could ever get to this point.
Open the file <www.your-host.com>/<your-install-dir>/index.php3 in your browser. phpMyAdmin should now display a welcome screen and your databases, or a login dialog if using http or cookie authentication mode.
This is the first thing that I actually understood.