Installing grav

First, its mentioned that the easiest way to install Grav is manually, so I did. But how do I make use of GPM? Now I'm trying to install the admin plugins, since this is a CMS after all. Documentation is all over the place since i have to install manually. When I finally figure out all the steps needed, and I try to go to localhost/grav/, I'm automatically redirected to localhost/grav/admin - which results in a 404 error? Is there a simpler way?

If I were to use the command line, can you clarify the specific requirements needed to use a command line with grav. The current documentation is way too heavy.

Additionally, using the search function of documentation does not work. Widget should respond, even if no results were found,

After following instructions here, https://learn.getgrav.org/admin-panel/faq#manual-installation-of-admin, I get 404 errors when going to localhost/grav, and localhost/grav/admin. I am unable to install Admin via GPM because 'bin/gpm is not a recognized command. Please help me install the Admin section.

For the 404's, you'll need to check out this section of the docs. As for GPM, it is an interface ran via PHP, and on many systems you would need to prefix the command with php, so for example I have to run (on Windows): php bin/gpm install admin from Grav's root folder (often public_html).

However, as you are redirected to /localhost/grav/admin the Admin-plugin appears to be installed. So you should first of all read the page on 404-errors to resolve any issues there.

The root of the issue is that 'bin' is not a recognized command on Windows. Can you please update your installation instructions to include correct, unambiguous instructions? Can you please note that installing manually will make installing everything else that much harder?

The answer to my inquiry is that I need to prefix all my bin commands with php. Its very frustrating to know this isn't more widely documented

That particular point is documented under CLI/Intro/Windows. It details prependingphp and adding PHP to environment paths for Windows.