I recently had an opportunity to play around with Wamp and Xampp. If you have never heard of them WAMP is short for - Windows - Apache - Mysql - Php

Xampp is a spin off of Wamp, I'm not sure how they came up with the name, but I like this program a lot.

You may have heard of LAMP to - Linux - Apache - Mysql - Php

Wamp
http://www.wampserver.com/en/

Xampp
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

So what is so special or great about these?

For starters they are FREE!!

One thing you can do after installing and configuring is run Dolphin on your home windows based PC, or any other php database driven script for that matter.

I don't mean to imply that you serve up and host your own site from your home PC. This is possible but there is a lot of security and additional setup for this.

What I am implying is you use wamp/xampp software to test Dolphin and/or any other php script of interest. Without this, you will not be able to test dolphin on your windows based PC.

Why would you want to do this?

Well maybe you have a new template or design you would like to try out or even build from scratch. Maybe you have a mod or you want to try editing some files.

Maybe you want to play with the database and phpmyadmin but you were afraid you might mess up or break your site.

With wamp the possibilities are almost endless. Use it to test everything out on your local PC, without breaking your live online site.


The easiest way to create a database/database user and such is to run the dolphin installer and when you get to that point let dolphin installer create it for you.

At the screen in the installer where you are prompted for the path to php, mogrify, etc. Leave these with whatever is in there. Don't try to change the paths there really is no need to as everything will work fine with the defaults. It will tell you the paths are not found just ignore them and continue.

For file permissions most likely all file and folder permissions will be 777 which we can just leave as is for testing purposes on our local PC. There really is no need to change these since everything is stored locally. This also makes for a super fast install too. This would be a bad idea on the internet, but on our own pc windows files and folders are write-able anyway.

The only thing I haven't got to or figured out yet is how to allow exec in wamp for ffmpeg.exe associated with the ray videouploads. This one I will continue playing around with. There is almost no documentation available about it on googleor anywhere else for that matter.

I really like XAMPP, but I think most people will find WAMP easier.

The following instructions will be how to install Dolphin on WAMP.

They also assume that you have already downloaded and installed WAMP.

You may need to do some tweaking and adjustments, but this is intended to get you up and running and install Dolphin

FAST!!


1. Start Wamp if it's not started already.

2. Click on the wamp icon in your task bar down by the time clock and find php...php settings. You will need to make sure you have "Short open tag" and "allow url include" checked as pictured.

 

 

 

3.Now find php...php extensions. Scroll down the list until you find "php_xsl" and check this as pictured.

 

 

 

 

4. Now find apache...apache modules and select the "rewrite_module".

(be careful that you don't accidentally check any php or apache modules and extensions that you don't need by accident.)

 

 

 

 

5. Now "Restart All Services" as pictured. And wait a few seconds for it to restart.

If you have a firewall of some kind and you get a pop-up telling you http is trying to access something, obviously you will have to allow it if you want to make this work.

 

 

 

 

6. Download and extract the latest free Dolphin version to your desktop. Then, rename it dolphin6 for testing purposes.

7. Now copy the extracted dolphin6 folder on your desktop to C:\wamp\www\
So it would be C:\wamp\www\dolphin6

8. Now lets access the wamp dashboard and setup a quick database. Simply open a web browser and type 127.0.0.1

 

 

 

 

9. You will see a screen similar to below, find the "Tools" area and click on phpmyadmin:

 

 

 

10. Now in phpmyadmin find the "Create new database" Area as pictured below and enter:
dolphin and select utf8_unicode_ci then click the create button.

 

 

 

 

Now we are done with phpmyadmin.

Let's go back to the wamp dashboard by entering 127.0.0.1 into our web browser again.

11. Now from the wamp dashboard find "dolphin6" link in the "Your Projects" area this is the dolphin folder we copied over earlier. Simply clicking on the link should take you to the installer.

 

 

 

12. Here is the normal dolphin install prompt just click "install"

 

 

Now some of this is going to be a little different from what you are used to with cpanel or linux related hosting. This is all on our own home windows computer now so do try to follow along and don't change anything unless you know what you are doing. Forget what you are used to and follow these steps carefully if you want to successfully install this.

13. File permissions should all be green already. Click "Next"

 

 

 

 

14. Do not change anything in the paths and/or locations on this next screen!!
Do not worry about any of these. Leave them exactly as they are. I repeat do not change these. Do not worry about the "not found" Just click "next"

 

 

 

15. In the "Database name Description" area enter: dolphin and in the "Database user Description" area enter root. We created the database dolphin earlier using phpmyadmin.

 

 

 

 

16. Now I have named it something unique "Dolphin Test" and I created the admin user-name: admin and password: dolphin (admin/dolphin) for the admin panel.

 

 

 

17. Cron Jobs you most likely won't be able to do too much with. You can search google for how to use the windows task
scheduler or manually enter them into your web browser. They are not too important for a test setup. And this is a
quick install. You might want to copy them to notepad and save them to your PC somewhere for future reference or if
you want to mess with them later.

 

 

 

 

 

18. Because windows does file permissions different from linux, and because this is on your local PC you can just
click skip and leave the permissions as write-able.

 

 

 

19. Now we have seen this one before. We can remove the install directory, or just rename it to install1 for this local install.

 

 

 

 

 

Simply Re-name Install install1 works well.

 

 

 

 

20. Now refresh the page and boom there is dolphin!! Notice the 127.0.0.1 address, pretty cool hey!!

 

 

 

 

21. Click on the Forums link and let's make sure we compiled php earlier with xsl for orca. If all is well you should see orca here.

 

 

 

 

 

22. Now click on the "Blog" in the Navigation Menu. If you properly enabled apache "mod_rewrite" earlier this link should work. If you get an error or not found page. Then, you most likely didn't enable apache mod_rewrite or you forgot to restart apache after enabling it.

 

 

23. Now let's check the admin panel, http://127.0.0.1/dolphin6/admin and enter our admin/dolphin password we setup up during the install.

 

 

 

 

24. Just choose "Continue using unregistered Dolphin" here.

 

 

 

 

25. And there we go the Admin Dashboard on our local PC!!

 

 

Now that you know how to do this and it works, you might consider deleting the database and re-installing this with
different login/passwords. Maybe even use a database name other than dolphin.

Do some reading up on wamp regarding security.

Do not use this to serve up and host your own Dolphin live site unless you really know what you are doing, and have
looked into how to make things more secure.

Good Luck and have Fun!!











Some Notes regarding the above:
There are a few small things you will have to enable for dolphin after installing either of these:

For Wamp
Php
-Enable short tags
-xsl (for orca)
-url include (should be enabled by default but make sure)

Apache
-mod rewrite

**After changing anything be sure to restart services or restart apache for sure.

***DO NOT enable/compile anything unless you really need to and/or really know what you are doing***


XAMPP

Php
-xsl
-url include

Apache
-mod rewrite.


Path to xamp php ini
C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR-PC-Name\Desktop\xamp\xampp\apache\bin\php.ini

;extension=php_xsl.dll

Change to:

extension=php_xsl.dll

From:
allow_url_include = Off
To:
allow_url_include = On

Apache conf:
C:\Documents and Settings\Jay\Desktop\xamp\xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf

Find:
#LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

Change to:
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

After making changes to these files stop apache...restart apache for the changes to take place.





<Sample locations for files>
For XAMPP web documents/files go in xampp path\htdocs\web files or folders here

For Wamp C:\wamp\www\web files or folders here.

After apache and mysql are up and running you just enter 127.0.0.1 into your web browser or localhost

Whether you choose 127.0.0.1 or localhost you should try to use the same every time so you don't mess up a dolphin

install by using one address one time and the other the next time.

Examples:
http://127.0.0.1/index.html
XAMPP index.html would be at:
-xampp path\htdocs\index.html

Wamp index.html would be at:
-wamp C:\wamp\www\index.html




http://127.0.0.1/dolphin/index.php
XAMPP /dolphin/index.php would be at:
-xampp path\htdocs\dolphin\index.php

Wamp /dolphin/index.php would be at:
-wamp C:\wamp\www\dolphin\index.php




http://127.0.0.1/test/dolphin/install
XAMPP /test/dolphin/install/index.php
-xampp path\htdocs\test\dolphin\install\index.php

Wamp /test/dolphin/install/index.php
-wamp C:\wamp\www\test\dolphin\install\index.php
<end sample locations>