Before I invest.....

Hi, I have numerous questions, but I will try to minimize them.  I am totally new to dolphin, and after reading/skimming thru the forums, I realize there are a TON OF COMPLAINTS which is discouraging me from diving in, well, at least til D8 is here for evaluation/testing. But I'm willing to give D7 a chance because I do have "faith" in it.

I have no knowledge of how to run a site, coding/languages, configuring servers, just about anything web related other than surfing it. (stop laughing plz, lol)  However, Im not afraid to learn whatever is required to run this platform, but the most important thing is my resources/funds is EXTREMELY LIMITED. So here goes:

1) Can a person of NO experience (ultra newbie) run D7 adequately?

2) Can the default video player in dolphin be switched out for a 3rd party video player?

3) Can dolphin have a custom intro? maybe flash intro?

4) What is the primary language one must learn to work more efficiently with D7? create own mods, ect.?

5) Is the user database managed by dolphin or whoever is hosting dolphin? Dont know if Im asking this right, but how many users can dolphin support? 

6) Its to my understanding that License's are tied into a specific domain name.  How am I to purchase a license if I dont have a domain name? (hosting from home to get a good feel and to learn dolphin with a few friends in real time vs going to some demo site where Im the only member on at the time)

7) When I do purchase a license, does that license carry over to D8? Or will I have to purchase a separate license for that? (I initially thought that once a license is purchased, it comes with free upgrades, but after seeing others wonder the same thing, I then thought that it may be possible that the new D8 will not be considered an upgrade and just a NEW PLATFORM in its self, practically forcing ppl to UPGRADE to the NEW PLATFORM)

This is very important to me, because in all honesty, I'm a firm believer in "TRYING BEFORE BUYING", and to be more honest, because I believe in "try b4 buy", I feel awkward now because I feel kinda forced to invest 1st just to inquire about this product.  Had to spend $5 to upgrade to an advance acct just to ask questions/post in the forums about the product to decide whether or not I want to give it a shot (invest time/money into it)?  That is already outside of my religion, and I really do hate any indication that I may be getting ripped off, mainly because money is very scarce.

In case anybody is wondering why would i pay for a license when I have no domain name, esp. to use with friends for beta purposes.......well, simply put, to reserve privacy for starters, 2ndly, i do not mind supporting boonex (as long as I do not get the short end of the stick), and to contribute to D8 in advance, as I do not have money to give away.

Thanks in advance

I too have very little experience when I entered into the dolphin den..... and many times i have regretted the decission... and meany times i have loved the decission. Its a journey, and like all journeys, you will never know how it will turn out until you take it....

The thing to do is look at all the platforms you could use. Some like SocialGo are way to limited, and some like Dolphin can do great things, but that complexity comes at a price as far as time and effort are concerned.

With dolphin, and your lack of experience, you WILL need either deep pockets or friends that know how to do what you need. If you intend to code your own modules, not only will you need to learn PHP but you will need an indepth knowledge of dolphin and how it works. You can get custom work done to existing mods relatively cheaply howeaver.

If you wish to test dolphin you need to register your domain name and then install dolphin on a shared server - this can be less that $10 a month, and will aloow you to play around and test dolphin.

You can have intros and just about whatever you want with dolphin, but you will have to find an probably pay someone that knows how to do the things you want to do. It all depends on the complexity of your initial idea and your faith in it...

Hope this helps,

Nathan

1) Can a person of NO experience (ultra newbie) run D7 adequately? with all due respect, the answer here would be no. because you used the term adequately, as that is even elusive to those who have experience.

2) Can the default video player in dolphin be switched out for a 3rd party video player? the video player has been switched in the past with jwplayer and vimeo player. 

3) Can dolphin have a custom intro? maybe flash intro? most specifically yes, its referred to as a splash page, and if you purchase a template, you can seek out one that has a splash page, or you may be able to purchase just the splash portion. --> http://gorpus.com take a look at the templates there. you can also create blocks on your index page that are viewable only to guests, so that once a member logs in, they are seeing a different set of blocks. the problem IMHO with a splash page, is you are limiting your overall internet exposure. so consider this method carefully, and have an understanding of the limits you are placing on your sites SEO functionality. 

4) What is the primary language one must learn to work more efficiently with D7? create own mods, ect.?dolphin is not one-language specific, so to state that you need to learn php, or html, or any one specific entity, would be misleading. you need a decent grasp on all scripting languages to be able to at least keep your sanity when working with dolphin. php | mysql | css | json | xhtml | javascript | jquery | html | xml

5) Is the user database managed by dolphin or whoever is hosting dolphin? Dont know if Im asking this right, but how many users can dolphin support? the database can in most cases be where ever you want it to be. it has been stated here and there, the database has a better latency on a local environment. note i state local environment, meaning this can be on localhost, or on the machine next to your primary machine. you can run a remote database, however, you will in most cases see a performance depletion. 

6) Its to my understanding that License's are tied into a specific domain name.  How am I to purchase a license if I dont have a domain name? (hosting from home to get a good feel and to learn dolphin with a few friends in real time vs going to some demo site where Im the only member on at the time) if you do not have a domain, go spend $1.99 on a .us or .info, point the A record to your ISP's IP, if you are on a router, open it and configure for listening on port 80 and 8080. you do not need a license to run dolphin, you need a license to remove the footer adverts. dolphin can run from an IP based solution, though, i have seen situations arise where there are issues from that methodology. also, if you are on a dynamic IP, which most are unless you have a business line, you will need to work out something with your dynamic DNS. i have used no-ip back in the day, not even sure if they are still functioning today. so to sum this up, you do not need a domain name, nor a license to test drive dolphin. if you have installed wamp of some flavor, or have dual booted, or have a throwdown that you have installed some flavor of *nix on, then that should suffice for a test drive. alternatively, i think it was mentioned here, is that you can get yourself a $2.00 hosting account, for a test drive. dont be mislead there, and dont attempt to build your empire there on a hosting account that costs $2.00/month. but if you just want to get something on the net, (domain required), you can find some cheap hosting. again, cheap hosting is not for performance based results, it is for testing and development. 

7) When I do purchase a license, does that license carry over to D8? Or will I have to purchase a separate license for that? (I initially thought that once a license is purchased, it comes with free upgrades, but after seeing others wonder the same thing, I then thought that it may be possible that the new D8 will not be considered an upgrade and just a NEW PLATFORM in its self, practically forcing ppl to UPGRADE to the NEW PLATFORM) AFAIK, and has been since Dolphin v-5, once you purchase a license, the license carries through. so if you purchase a dolphin license now for dolphin 7, then it will be valid for dolphin 8. upgrades, the source is freely provided, the upgrade path is freely provided. the upgrade from boonex and most any other provider on the market, will cost you some cha chings. if you wish to venture out and upgrade it yourself, good luck on that. 

well hopefully this clears up a few missing links for you. dolphin is a solid foundation to which you build upon. if you have no tools to build, then you remain standing on the foundation, else, you employ knowledgeable resources, who have the required skills necessary to build your world. 

Nathan and DosDawg answered all your questions, so all that's left for me is to throw in my humble opinion about #1.

To be successful with Dolphin you need ONE  of these three things:

1. A working knowledge of PHP, HTML, Mysql, the control panel and server software of your choice.

2. A HIGH level of patience, a thirst for knowledge and the ability to learn new things (like the things in #1)

3. The money to pay someone to do everything for you.

If you come into this with #1 you are way ahead of most people and you can do everything yourself. It will take you a while to find your way around Dolphin but then you'll be fine.

If you start out at #2 it will take you a little longer to get settled in and you will have to ask a lot of questions on the forum. I think experience is the best teacher and if you'll never learn to walk if you don't fall down a few times.

If you start at #3 that's fine too.. just know that when I say money I mean a LOT of money. Programmers don't come cheap and Dolphin breaks down frequently. Plus anything you want changed you're going to have to buy a mod for it. I would strongly suggest NOT starting a website if your final goal isn't learning how to do all this yourself. The time span before you start seeing profits is a little too long if you're having to constantly pay someone to do everything for you. The bottom line is if you have that much money why are you going with a cookie cutter piece of software and not paying a team of programmers to make a custom solution for you??

Ok, just my opinion... you can have a go at it without any of the three things but if you don't at least have one of them your going to pull most of your hair out.

 Nathan, thanks for your input.  Everything that you have said is what I pretty much was already guessing. I have looked at other platforms, but I do like the look & feel of dolphin, and its capabilities, so its my first choice right now.

As far as testing dolphin, I think Im going to just use wamp with a some friends, then go from there to a vps if I COMMIT to it (terabyte more than likely since dos already is very familiar with dolphin). I will use wamp to shave off the $10 bucks of hosting on a shared server, besides, I have a 50mb connection which is already costly, might as well make use of it.

"It all depends on the complexity of your idea".....well, it wont be too complex out of fear of breaking my test site, lol.

 1) That is very true.  So I take it that I most certainly will not (til I have a grasp on several other languages) be able to run dolphin.  Yikes.  Yes, I omitted "adequately" on purpose, and I didnt mean to use it when I first did.

6) If its a task that I may can do, I prefer to save a few bucks.  I have wamp installed (on a 3ghz quad-core, 4gigs of ram) 50mb down/7 mb up connection.  Im hoping maybe to have 100 friends to help me out with testing.  Im aware dolphin is free to use, but after I spend "x" amount of hours digging thru it, setting it up the way that i want, hosting it for friends to connect, i certainly dont want them using my idea and running with it. So privacy is very important, which is why the links/logos/branding needs to be removed, which i will happily shell out the $100 for, to protect my ideas.

And yes, no-ip is still around, and port 8080 is already forwarded, so I have done some homework already.  Best case for now is probably hosting my domain from home (for good testing) After that phase is up, more than likely I will jump straight to vps from you!

It is quite shocking to hear you say that dolphin is a good foundation (after reading some of your posts) but its also a good thing to hear from you as well. I do value your input about dolphin tremendously! Thanks for your time to answer those questions as you have cleared several things up.