Ghost town...

I guess everyone is waiting on 7.1.0, the activity here is like population 10..

Either everyone's sites are working good, they are out partying or just have gotten bored here.

hmm

No kidding. Activity has been declining for some time now.

It seems like it is only getting worse.

Been trying to wait patiently for 7.1, but it is tough. Getting one of my production sites ready to migrate from 7.0.6 to 7.1.0 as soon as the stable release is out.

I know I'm going to need help getting profiles etc ported over.

There is not going to be and "upgrade" patch I'm sure.

I dread it and am also glad to see the release.

I'm tired of redoing sites every six months because of so many changes and non compatibility with other paid for modules.

I have the same plan, and made it a little more painful on myself by adding a number of custom profile fields. 

Also made the determination that a lot of the custom modules I'm using will likely be dropped. I had a bad case of module creep/sprawl when I first launched. Was like a kid with ADHD hitting the buy it now & install buttons lol. 

While they might make some type of auto-migration available, I don't think the end result will be very clean. 

Side note - when you guys are creating your templates, do you have issues with their recommended method of allowing it to inherit from the base CSS files & only over-writing what you need to within your template files? Whenever I do this & turn on compression/cachining, the site blows up on me. 

& as of the latest SVN, I still can't populate columns within custom pages. @#$%!^%*!

LMAO, me too..

Was like a kid with ADHD hitting the buy it now & install buttons

 I was going to do that today, I got sidetracked, now I'm glad I didn't up yet..

What about the "Send copy to such and such" in the send message? Are those "click-able" yet?

well i started a dolphin 7.0.9 site just to hear that dolphin 8 is coming.  I am completely confused here. I was still building my site only to hear that dolphin 8 will be out soon.  my site does not upgrade to dolphin 8.  yes they are going to a dolphin 7.1 but will it compare to dolphin 8.  I think this whole plan is really bad.  what do those do with dolphin7.?  will boonex eventually forget about them.  think about it, by not allowing previous dolphin sites to upgrade to the 8 version it is like abandoning us all together.  I am seriously thinking about going to social engine.  I know many others have already decided to switch companies because of this fact.  I am still holding on here to see what happens a little longer.  The promise of a new site and yet the delays are really frustrating though.

you should create a system to allow those with dolphin 7.? to upgrade to 8.  come on guys the people paying for your services and that have gotten you this far, you are merely going to forget about.  I am still new here but from some of the customers I have met and befiended most are pretty upset about this.

bill

Dolphin 8 will not be out that soon.  Andrew hasn't even given an ETA for it, as far as I know.  It's still under heavy development and isn't even ready for an alpha release.  The next release is 7.1, which has a direct upgrade path for 7.0.9 users.

People who aren't concerned with templates should be able to move forward with 7.1 on release, but there's no reason why you can't hold off on the upgrade until you're ready!  I know people who are only now moving to Dolphin 7.  Really, the only thing you need to do is take the security fixes from the newer versions, which are announced after said fix's upgrade is released.

Thanks for clarifying that. That's a bit of stress off.

Still don't help with the 3rd party modules.

Case in point, Deanos Tools is not compatible as is, so how can an upgrade work unless we remove all modules and take the site down to the core modules. That will not work because of all the *!&%ing dependence on other modules.

Talk about template incompatibility...

I started developing my template on a SVN from a couple weeks ago. Just pulled the latest tonight, copied my template over & it does not work. 

All I get is a blank page when I try to preview it or set it as the default. This is pretty frustrating, even though I'm sure it's something simple!

I can say the latest SVN does have some nice enhancements though, albeit somewhat minor & mostly cosmetic from what I can tell.

I intend on having my modules updated before the final release of 7.1. So as long as you update to the 7.1 compatable version of the module before you update to 7.1 then there should not be a problem.

 Yes, I should have used a different example, as I know you told me it would be updated. Sorry.

Perhaps a better scenario would be, my module, Sounds Playlist.

That one involves removing five or six, including the forums before it can be removed itself, and then of course all the data from all those removed modules is lost without tedious and time consuming backups of way to many things.

Or you could...  You know, wait for your stuff to be updated and then apply the patch after everything's been checked.

 right...

like my deartmedia/beckmedia facebook module, which fortunately still works with 7.1 as I have fixed the date and other issues..

so I hope when the final release comes out it still works.

Some drop in activity isn't that unusual for a pre-release period. Always somewhat a tough time. 

Still, we can't and won't keep them secret, because they're in public SVN anyway, and we also rely on community feedback. 

We should probably keep upcoming release a bit less "advertised", though. 

You're right about being open about your product, because the product site is tied with the marketplace users see/buy the product and then see what's available to enhance the product, I would love to see a marketplace perform like Themeforest and Codecanyon. 

Wish list for the marketplace:

Better storefront design, grid layout for products (to fit more in) thumbs with hover cards (no descriptions, just thumbs), sort by latest, popular

Enable commenting on products even you haven't purchased

And purchase, download counters (free and premium products), great for sellers so they can see how well other products are doing as well as their own.

And that's it! :)

 I think that could go both ways. If it was less advertised, you might risk losing a good chunk of followers such as myself.

I like that it's openly communicated here. What might be hurting most is the lull between announcements. A weekly release would be awesome. Say every tuesday (doesn't matter which day really), you put out a blurb about current progression... even if there is nothing noteable, you could talk about how much you enjoy the color blue and it will still have a positive effect. Just proving that there's a pulse more than anything I guess.

 Agree 100%

How about this: I'll make a new post every week with the latest changesets.  It'll be called "This Week in the Mammal".

Funny, maybe you should.

I had no idea what the hell a changeset was for at least a year.

It was a while before too that I find that the "Notes" section is where Andrew Boon spends his time making updates that most new members never see.

I like "This week in the mammal", a good way to celebrate next release might be some free sound's templates in a module, "Mammal mia" seems a good choice

Well, i don't really know if the site has become quiter lately, but i guess some users also have a life out of the internet...i do!

I also have been testing some of the big names out there, the competitors, in the search for this Grahal of the portals, the Facebooked's wall, well, i mean, not so well, because they all had it working at the beginning, then, they all failed with the time passing by, at least, i couldn't find anything that was still working, and all the more recent complaints were just confirming that.

Then i am still struggling to make a hard cheese starting with a yoghurt and a few limes, as in this culinary desert i am living in, finding a reinder on the beach looks easier than getting some rennet...and my dogs aren't willing to collaborate

Then, on the technical's front, the people that find out how to build a submerged ram's pump are keeping their secret under deep waters too...not even YouTubing could help.

To stay a bit on topic, i think if Dolphin could find a way to make this wall's thing working, might boost exponentially it's popularity, just a thought...

Hey Deano, i just noticed your new avatar, that looks as a massive deal, 50% off, if you will reach 110% i am going to send you my bank account details for the transfers

To stay a bit on topic, i think if Dolphin could find a way to make this wall's thing working, might boost exponentially it's popularity, just a thought...

You did see the new wall for 7.1 right?

Yes i had a look but i am still confused......waiting for the release....

 Well the wall works like facebook IMO, your friends do something, you see it on your wall.

If you look at the bottom of this wall example, Tussery posted a photo, I made a comment on it..

this wall is the BOMB, it is super clean and easy to see all activity relevant to you and your friends.

 I moved the "Timeline" to my demo's index page, sign in using the credentials I have in my signature below.

You can see the timeline in action, although this is an SVN version and not all functions work.

http://mynewbeetle.net/ username:demo password:demo1

Thanks Newton, that looks great, can you publish bigger pictures as well on this wall??

I am holding off for 7.1, but am putting the time to good use designing and drawing up a brief for an extensive new module I need for my 7.1 site. I am also testing the business plan for it and doing research. All this should make things much smootherif and when a stable 7.1 is released, tested and fixed.

ohhh.... the module.... Its going to rock massively and is unlike anything in the market.

Hey, Nathan! Do the "weekly.." thing. It would be really cool to have some perspective from another angle. 

BTW, we've been busy the last week and the weekend (time to take on weekends, too) and it looks like we're getting close. 

...ah and, yeah, we've already started some works on Market and Boonex in general - so along with the 7.1 we'll updating it, better product listings, improved rating, visibility, and... a new, straightforward dispute policy (apparently disputes put too much weight on moderators, and unduly so).

 This is a good thing to read!

 I suppose your speaking of the wall itself, no.

Those are the set sizes of the images for the timeline wall, the photos and or media will remain there original sizes.

i.e. Facebook wall images and videos all have small thumbnails until clicked on.

You're kidding right? You don't think it has anything to do with people just getting tired of waiting on your team to get anything done? I don't know squat about php and I could build this thing faster than you have been.

Sorry. Have to disagree. Changes are being made in the SVN daily. Based on what i have seen, they are going at a pretty good rate of speed.

Last project i did that was even close to this took me 11 months to get it into beta.

It takes a lot longer than most people realize. Thats why major releases should not be publicly announced until a beta is about ready.

Minor updates would still need to be worked on tho, such as bug fix releases while the major version is being worked on.

I don't believe boonex is handling the releases properly. I have been hit hard with no sales while people sit and wait. Boonex must also have been seeing a drop in sales of licences. Nope, i do not think the releases are being properly handled at all.

 I understand that it can be difficult to imagine the amount of work that has to be done to get even simple things work right. The thing is that everything is multiplied when you're dealing with "universal" software as opposed to just a website or mostly "hardcoded" software (like desktop apps). For example, if you want to, say, add an option for users to add tags to content posted by other users. Sounds like a 2-hour job, but... you have to deal with permissions, privacy settings, browsing, filtering, updates propagation, notifications, settings for different membership types, etc, etc... We know there're a lot of "caveats" and still, every time, we underestimate how much needs to be done. 

----

@deano

Come to think of it, I can see how our updates can affect Market vendors, and we're, indeed, affected too. I like to believe that we've solved this issue in D8, because its Modules will be upgrading separately from the core and the core upgrades will be completely asynchronous with even our own module updates, so there will be no reason to wait for new Dolphin. With 7.1 and further 7.x updates we might just try to keep it within "for Premium Only" segment up to until the last 1-2 weeks before the release. Premium Members would have to be informed, since this is the information hey elected to pay for. 

Tough times, I know it only too well, Deano... hope we'll be through this soon enough.