Instead of the program creating a blank config file and aborting, that would be a good opportunity to run a little wizard questionnaire to set up the program:
The plan is actually to tell the user to fire up a web browser and have PhoenixWeb run the first-time setup wizard. The only trouble is that PhoenixWeb still needs a lot of work before it's ready to be included in the standard Phoenix download. (Right now it only has enough there for a "real" web developer to pick it up and work on it...)