WAMP - how to set it up to run Dolphin.

The word "WAMP" stand for "Windows + Apache + MySQL + PHP". This is a very handy package for Windows which already includes PHP, MySQL and Apache so you won't have to install these packages separately. WAMP can be obtained from here

Its installation is pretty user-friendly and doesn't need any deep inspection. What I want to tell you about is how to set up this package after you have installed it.

After installing WAMP start it and you will see its icon in the taskbar. Using this icon, you can change any settings and enable/disable any modules in PHP or Apache. Just left-click this icon and proceed to "Apache -> Apache modules" or "PHP -> PHP settings" or "PHP -> PHP extensions". Using these menus, you can enable such modules, like "rewrite_module" in Apache, such extensions like "php_mbstring" and make such settings like "enable short open tag".

After every change you make, all services will get restarted.

The first problem which is encountered by those who install Dolphin on WAMP is a garbled home page after installation. This is caused by disabled "short_open_tag" which is set so by default. Dolphin mostly encloses PHP commands into tags like "<? ?>" instead of the full notation "<?php ?>", that is why you need to enable "short_open_tag" in the first place:
"WAMP icon -> PHP -> PHP settings -> short open tag".

It's also necessary to enable the setting "allow url fopen" and the extensions "php_gd2", "php_mbstring" and "php_xsl". In Apache it's necessary to enable "rewrite_module".

You should also have some SMTP server installed on your Windows machine. To make Dolphin work properly with this server, you will have to open the file "php.ini":
"WAMP icon -> PHP -> php.ini"
and uncomment (remove semicolons) and edit the following lines:
;SMTP = your_domain_name
;sendmail_from = your_admin_email

so they look like

SMTP = mysite.com
sendmail_from = admin@mysite.com

Wishing you success installing Dolphin on WAMP.