How to handle Windows vs other OSes?

[morosebose]

Since Windows doesn't have country flag emojis, we have these solutions currently in the code:

In CountryCardWindow() :

• .png image for both Mac and Windows users

In LanguageDisplayWindow():

• flag emoji for Mac/Linux users
• bullet point for Windows users

But creating and storing the .png noticeably slows down backend.py. We could go one of three ways:

• Not worry about it
• Create and distribute the database along with the source code, and run backend.py only when the database gets deleted or needs updating
  • Front end would need to have if statements to determine program behavior based on user OS
  • Do we want to implement PNG flags in LanguageDisplayWindow() for Windows? If so, just for Windows or also for Mac?
• Have separate Windows and non-Windows versions of the source code, with the latter using the flag emoji so that only Windows users see a slowdown
  • We would need to decide whether to maintain separate code for backend, frontend, or both

This is a discussion we need to have at some point after we implement our current identified priorities, issues #4 and #15 .