How Dependent Is Dolphin On Captions?

I currently have no members yet. But here's my site if you want to take a look at it.

https://1vibration.com

Here's my question. As a new member, of Dolphin full time, I've really gone all out and started attempting to customize what I could. I've changed every aspect and setting of Dolphin and I really love what I've been able to build with it. One such customization I took a great interest in, is profile information. As you can see, I've stripped out all the fields I thought were too invasive, and tried to make it more homely in a way.

From what I understand, every time you upload new fields to the system, you have to edit and or fill in the caption keys. Can this be done by simply clicking on the enabled module for each active view point? Or do I actually have to add the keys manually? The way I see it, caption is just another word for title. And title is the front end display of what text is shown to members and visitors alike. When I add a new field, if I browse to say search page or view profile page from join page in profile fields builder, I'm able to click on an active module and it opens up a pop form where I can add a custom caption. Does this automatically generate the language keys when I save it? Because I was able to solve the problem of having the placeholder change to the text I wanted for the caption. When I go into language keys, I see the caption already exists.

I'm facing a problem where I edited the captions, not the system names, but just the captions of default fields in dolphin. Is it a requirement the caption and or system names need to be unchanged for some or of all default dolphin fields a new install ships with? I don't know what those are if so. Because I'm facing a problem where nobody is able to join or edit profile information. I thought it was because I added an extra field, but disabling it doesn't fix the issue. As that's the only thing I can think of that would fix the problem, I still don't see why Dolphin would depend on a Caption instead of a System Name remaining unchanged to achieve this functionality. I'm working on a  default dolphin install, fresh, with no mods. BTW all the mods are incompatible with Dolphin anyways, so I skip those.

A part of me wishes Dolphin could add check boxes to make the appearance settings of where fields appear easier by including on one screen or form all options as default when adding new and updating existing fields in the builders section in general.

The bottom line is that I am facing a 50 50 chance Dolphin is secretly dependent on some captions and system names remaining unchanged. I don't know what those fields are to revert them and I don't know what parts of the profile fields builder are dependent on the unchanged caption system name requirements. All I know is that the only posts which reference this problem are very old, and the methods used to solve the issue involve ones that I am seeing have an updated interface. One documentation does not say exists. Yet one that specifies the same changes via a UI shortcut. Which, in this case, is not needing to add language keys since editing the form to display active fields already fills in language caption strings when you add them through the form interface once created and enabled on the page.

What do I need to revert? Full Name and Username seem to be dependent. But are there others?

The Short answer is: No, Dolphin doesn't rely on captions, but you and your visitors will!

I'll try to keep this simple.

When you open an existing field or create a new one, you're presented with:

System Name. In the case of fields created by Dolphin, leave this name alone. My understanding is  it's the name of the field in the database and it's also my understanding that other parts of Dolphin may be set to access that name. I could be wrong, but there's no real reason to change it.

When you create a new field, use a unique name that describes the field: For a Field asking people if they swim, you could use Swimmer

Caption is the Field Heading you or your visitor sees. You can make this caption anything you want. Say the System (field) name is Swimmer, you can make the caption "Do You Swim?" in the Edit Profile section and "Am I interested in Swimming" in the View Profile section.

Notes:

• Once you create a caption in the Edit profile section, that caption becomes the language key and there's no need to manually create one.
• The caption remains attached to that field, but only in the Edit Profile Section.
• When you use the same field in the View Profile section, the caption is blank. You must re-enter the caption, or use a different one as shown in the Swimming example above. Provided you have your browser set up correctly to predict field values, this is a simple task.
• If you don't enter a caption, you will see something like: _Looking_For when you view the profile.
• Captions can be any reasonable length and explanatory whereas System names should be short. I also make them a single word.

Description allows you to enter a help message if someone clicks the Explanation mark next to the field.

Type is the type of field you plan to use. If you use other than text fields, also fill in the Advanced section by clicking the tab.

I don't bother deleting Fileds. Just drag unwanted fields to the Inactive Fields section and they'll still be there whenever you wish to use them. Ditto for inactive blocks.

I find the field building section of Dolphin very elegant and it's the main reason I'm here. Fields can be easily positioned, grouped in blocks and hidden from certain people. It takes time to find out what everything does or can do and you may get some additional help here. 

https://www.boonex.com/trac/dolphin/wiki

I'd love to make some YouTube tutorials, but I'd love an audience of hundreds, not half a dozen.

johnk42 said

Well allow me to be the first to say I'd subscribe to you on Youtube.

Thanks for explaining profile fields to me. That's essentially what I figured out already on my own. I did want to change the text of some captions for system modules. Full name to just Name. Admin Controls to Account Settings. General Info to Identity. That's for the blocks. And Misc info to Profile Info. That's what I wanted to do in Dolphin. Make First Name and Last Name fields not mandatory and just not use them. Same with Zip, we don't need it. Add State instead. Get rid of Looking For, replace it with Interested In with possible answers being friends, networking, dating etc. Relationship status is a bit of an iffy one for my community, but other than that, the rest I just don't need. As far as default fields are concerned.

I only wish we could change system names and Dolphin would just see that it's the same purpose for the field, just a different title. Especially where blocks and Username, Full Name fields are concerned.