Dolphin 7.1 considerable changes which affect all modules

Dolphin 7.1 is pretty the same as 7.0, however there are some incompatibilities which may prevent your module to work with 7.1 version.

Also there are some improvements that can make your module better and more robust for future changes and different templates style.

If you know some additional changes which may affect code and look please report, I will add it to this document.

1. Critical changes:

1.1 Dolphin is now compatible with PHP 5.4, your code should run on this version of PHP without any changes most probably, but you need to check for sure. We have to change some code in Dolphin to make it compatible.

1.2 Dolphin now doesn't require short_open_tag PHP option to be enabled when running on PHP 5.4. Running Dolphin on PHP 5.3 and lower versions still require short_open_tag option to be turned on. So, test your module how it works on PHP 5.4 when short_open_tag is off. If you need to change many files in bulk I recommend to use the following script (we used it for Dolphin as well) - http://cs.sensiolabs.org/

1.3 Timeline(former Wall) and Spy handlers has changed, please have a look at existing implementations in BoonEx modules and make changes accordingly.

1.4 Displaying user titles procedure has changed. Admin can choose what info to show as user title. Every developer should distinguish user title and username very well.

• User Title - this is visible name of user, this can be changed by site admin, non unique, and can have any characters. Use getNickName() or $GLOBALS['oFunctions']->getUserTitle() for this purpose.
• Username - this is user login (NickName field from Profiles table), unique, this field should be used in URLs and some internal calls, but may not used to displayed directly to the browser, however admin can choose to show Username as User Title. Use getUsername() function for this purpose.

Also admin can choose what to shows as user short info, so to output user short info use $GLOBALS['oFunctions']->getUserInfo() method.

1.5 User thumbnail view was changed, now it displays user title on the right of avatar. If you need to display user thumbnail with username always use getMemberThumbnail(...) with $bGenProfLink = true.

2. Improvements:

2.1 We introduced default CSS classes for common purposes, like paddings, margins, font sizes, etc. It is highly recommend to update existing code to use these styles as much as possible: 

bx-def-padding*: for any paddings

bx-def-margin*: for any margins

bx-def-font*: for any font sizes, and colours

bx-def-bc*: for design box content padding, usually it is always bx-def-bc-padding, try to use it in all cases

bx-def-border*: for borders

bx-def-shadow: for default shadow behind images like avatars, thumbnails 

bx-def-round-corners: for default round corners for images like avatars, thumbnails

bx-def-round-corners-with-border: default style for inputs, but better to use forms

bx-def-hr: for divider line

2.2 Dolphin is using vector icons everywhere. We highly recommend to use vector icons as well. It will make the look consistent across the Dolphin site. It is easier to use those icons, they can scale indefinitely and it is easier to apply CSS styles to them. We used "Font Awesome" font for this purpose with great set of icon for any purpose - http://fortawesome.github.com/Font-Awesome/. Please have a look at existing BoonEx modules on how to use font icons in your module. 

2.3 New default page width is 1140px and columns are 28.1% and 71.9% with wide column on the left. If your modules add pages to page builder you need to change install script accordingly.