Going to have to say goodbye to Dolphin...

I had high hopes that D7.1 was going to be the answer to my site needs. It is a hard decision, especially after spending so much money on licenses, templates, mods etc. since 2007, but it's just not working out for a niche site like mine. I just can't get this dating software to work as a "gun site". On gun sites, the forums are still real important and Dolphin is weak there.

I am going back to vBulletin 4.2.0 Publishing Suite. I will still hang out here some though.

publishing suite is coming along nicely... have you seen VB 5 connect? Looks like a more comprehensive version of publishing suite... good for forums, blogs, articles

Yes, looking at vB5, but it's in ßeta22 right now.

There is no reason to hang out here. If Dolphin does not work for you I highly suggest installing PhpBB 3.11 with the current very capable and free social network mod.

http://phpbbsocialnetwork.com/

I have a lifetime vBulletin Publishing Suite license already, but phpBB would be my second choice.

Sorry to hear it's not working out.

As you know, I'm experiencing the same frustrations with my non-dating site. While everything 7.1 seems great in theory, I have yet to see it put to practical & functional use & promote a thriving community.

If 7.1 continues to let me down, I might be down the same path shortly. vBulletin 5 Connect looks promising, and better yet it's built based around forums. 

 Let me know buddy because where I am weak in Dolphin knowledge, I am strong in vB.

Same here for me on my VW Beetle Forums site, working very hard to make the forums look, function good but its still light years behind. 

One thing that D7 forums has, that vBulletin never will, is html content.  This allows for much more robust forum post content.  Just try uploading an image in vBulletin, and displaying that image in your post. Although vBulletin is a damn fine forum platform, which I have used on several sites for 15 years, I never liked having to mess with bbcode for every little thing.  If TinyMCE and HTMLPurifier had existed years ago, BBCODE would probably never exist.  Once a platform starts off with bbcode, it's married to it forever.

That's about the only argument FOR Orca forum there is..... it handles posting of multimedia content, and html content better than vBulletin ever will.

Forums in a Social Networking site are not as utilized as they are in niche sites being automotive, guns, hunting etc. and this may be Boonex's reason for not keeping that part up to today's standard. I could see a financial benefit for Boonex to make their software more flexible and adaptable to cover a larger audience.

The reason I started with Dolphin back in 2007 was because it was the only affordable platform that offered forums, chat, ads, events, profiles, blogs etc all-in-one.

You just need to turn the HTML allow feature on. It allows HTML, embedded videos and all.

houstonlively: http://weareprogun.com/vb/showthread.php?28-NRA-to-push-back-soon-sources-say

 Strange... three times now I visited that link, and every time it froze my browser.  But I did see that the image in the post is from an external site.  Can you upload images on the fly and display them in a post in VB?  I stopped updating my VB sites at version 3.8, so I am not entirely familiar with the latest version of VB.  If VB suits your needs, it's certainly a more stable platform than Dolphin.

It used to be that allowing html in VB was a big security risk, and you had to limit it to trusted user groups.  It was a bigger hassle than it was worth

Loads fine for me, and looks like a fine alternative. 

Can you help me understand how allowing HTML in vB is any more of a risk than allowing it in Dolphin? I guess the mystery is within the HTML Purifier, or pandoras box. 

 Yes, images can be posted inline or as an attachment. They can be either uploaded from your computer or via a URL. You can set the image location and wrap text around it if you like. Not sure about your browser freezing, worked for me at work on two browsers (IE8 & FF) and now at home on FF & Chrome.

"It used to be that allowing html in VB was a big security risk"

In an earlier post you said, "One thing that D7 forums has, that vBulletin never will, is html content."

I have no idea about Dolphin as a social networking platform.  We made a decision to go with Dolphin over Oxwall and Elgg for several reasons; one being I did not want to have to learn the SMARTY template engine for PHP that Oxwall uses; I did not know it and neither did the other tech on the team.  We have launched our site so time will tell how it works out.

Best of luck with all things.

-GG

 RE:

 I suppose clarification is in order.

From vBulletin 5 admin section:

Allow users to include raw HTML code in Non Forum Specific Areas?<br />(<b>Strongly not recommended.</b>)

To me, this is not allowing HTML.  If allowing html code to be posted is strongly recommended against, and puts your site at risk by  doing so, then you are really not free to allow it.   What if Glock sold a pistol with a warning that said it could blow up in your face anytime you used it.  Something that you can't use, is a nonexistent feature as far as I'm concerned.  Orca forum posts, and any post at all in Dolphin, is filtered by HTMLPurifier to remove any possibly malicious code.... big difference.