Thread: Linux vs Windows for Dolphin Customizing and Design

Although I am an experienced web designer, I have no experience with Dolphin, but am very interested in building a site or two. My first question is basic. When I design a windows site, I design it on a PC using Front Page and or Flash, then import it to the server after it is done. QUESTION: Is this the normal procedure with Dolphin? Do all design work on a linux or PC computer, then import the finished site to a server? If so, what is the better operating system to do design work with: Linux or Windows? If linux is better, it means that I will have to first build a linux computer. Please also confirm that a Mac computer is completely useless for editing or designing a Dolphin site. Lastly, are there any issues with Dolphin sites being surfed or used by end users who have Macintosh computers? I tried to get answers to these questions on Boonex today, but got no return e-mails at all. Thanks DannyD

The only Linux vs Windows consideration is your web host. All files in Dolphin are standard php, html, and css which can be edited on any Windows PC. Notepad, wordpad, or other editors will do the job fine along with a good graphics editor. All that's necessary is to change the files to your liking, then upload them to your server.

Plus - the templates are dynamic - info comes from the result of php and mysql queries - so using an editor such as you mentioned has limited effect - it can help with your basic design - but you then need to take into account the output from the code running on the site.

As for work on our bigger clients - we almost always use Subversion (in place of FTP) ... and almost always do the actual editing and code work on Windows boxes.

You can setup a development site on a windows box - there is only one consideration... that mySQL on windows will lowercase table names - so when you code your stuff on windows - make sure you reference the table names properly (ie; profiles on windows but you need to reference as Profiles on linux... windows does not care (it is case-insensitive) but Linux does care (it is case-sensitive.)

Smoge