Dolphins Lack of Pre-Dependency.

Back when I first started using Dolphin I noticed right off the top an issue that it had.  It wasn't an impossible issue to fix and within a few days it was fixed and working well.  Unfortunately, as I look at D7 I am seeing that I have to go back and spend all that time fixing it again.  This is a simple item and it's ridiculous for me (or anyone) to have to spend their time correcting a deficiency that it should of had in the beginning.

Specifically, I'm talking about Dolphin lack of Pre-Dependency when it comes to Values.  The best example of this is the Country LIst and how it just stops when a country is selected, offering no means for the member to better specify.  Confused yet? 

Okay, if a member selects there country as "Guam" then that is a simple answer as a Guam is a small enough area that only a city needs to be specificed to give those viewing the profile an idea of where in Guam that person resides.  However, if a member selects United States as their country, they then specify a city and it can get a confusing.  How?  Well, let's say they living Springfield, Ohio.  So, they specify the United States and type in Springfield, seems simple enough right.

But, there are actually "34" different cities and towns in the United States with the name "Springfield".  So which one does the member reside in?  Okay, so they can use a Zip/Postal Code to specify, but do you know the Zip/Postal Codes of all 34 Springfields?  Can you tell me which one is in which state?  Don't worry, neither can the overwhelming vast majority of end users of our sites.

This is where Pre-Dependent Values comes into play.  Currently with dolphin if you were to attempt to generate a "Predefined-List" and call it States or Provinces then your members can select the state they reside in.  But what if they reside in Canada?  It has 13 Provinces.  So you can add them to the states, but now you have 50 states + Washington D.C + 13 Canadian Provinces = 64 on your list.  Of course, we also have the UK, how does one specify where in the UK they are from?  Do we add those and the list from Australia to this state/province list if your building an international site?  What if you have family members overseas?  Getting the point?  This list is getting incredibly long for members to have to sift through to find their specific State/Province.

So, what do we do?  This is where you make the list of States/Provinces Dependent on what Country is choosen.  So, if a member states on the Join form that they are from the UK, they wil then get only a list of UK territories/provinces/states.  Then they can choose Wales or Ireland for all intensive purposes.  A member from Canada would only see the 13 provinces from Canada, the US shows only the states + DC from the United States. 

What's more is once this is done, it operates (at least in my D6 sites) via AJAX which means the member really doesn't even realize it's happening as they jump through the join form.  They select and a field turns on or off.  If they say they're from Guam, then the state/province field stays turn off/hidden.

Even better, now let's play with the idea.  Let's say you have specific questions for Males & Females.  You want the guys to stay if they chew tobacco, wear boxers or briefs and how many teeth they have.  Of course the women would get fields like cup size, tampon or maxi-pad and whether their PMS'ing, Pregnant, Post-Partem or Menopausal.  Again, the fields only turn on for those that they apply to and remain off (via AJAX again) for those that they don't apply to.

So my question is this:  Dolphin is an awesome CMS for the most part, but it is missing a very simple and fundamental item that Boonex is well aware that many, many, many site owers utilize on their own sites, so why then Boonex are you asking all of us to go backwards by installing/upgrading to D7 just so we can repeat the work of figuring this out again?  Pre-Dependency is NOT a site enhancement, it is basic FUNCTIONALITY!  To be able to steer the member in the proper direction during the join form provides a cleaner and more pleasureable join experience.  It reduces inaccurate profiles being dumped into the DB and in the end provides much better data for us as site owners to be able to make decisions conerning our sites. 

It enables members to answer the questions as they apply to them and does away with offering them redundant options that they are forced to bypass.  So where is this Pre-Dependent Value in your eyes Boonex?  Is this something that the members go and create again for our sites in hopes that you might add it somewhere way down the road to Dolphin 968.9