Initial Thoughts on Dolphin 6

I like the functionality offered by Dolphin and it fits the current project I am working on, but to be honest, if it wasn't for the fact that I had some spare time to address the installation issues I have had, I would have binned it.

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It has been frustrating that the support has been zero (no offense to the other users that helpfully contributed) and that the software adapts several features that cause compatibility problems - ie mod_rewrite, php_short_tags, inline coding, not to mention poor coding with the recompile issues for the forum and permalinks. At the very least it should display a message alerting to the user that they need to be recompiled - but there is actually no reason not to do this automatically.

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mod_rewrite can simply be disabled by default - this would improve compatibility and increase the user-base as a result - then if people wanted the functionality they could enable it.

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short_tags is simply bad coding practice - usually as a result of lazyness (which also applies to inline coding) again, both lead to compatibility problems and reduce the user-base as the number of machines that the product can run on is limited.

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Amusingly, I have read that with Dolphins advanced features an advanced server is required - don't be fooled, much of this can be fixed by addressing issues such as those above - it is possible that this code could run on any default configured apache server with some rewriting of the code.

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Another issue that I have found is the issue with TINY MCE not processing blank lines correctly, it is VERY annoying and pretty much fundamental to it's operation - the whole idead of a WYSIWYG editor is that 'what you see is what you get' not 'what you see is what you get less some formatting that the coder could not cater for'. This issues is prevalent on the the boonex site as well (hence the need for a punctuation mark on each blank line)

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Basically any blank lines I enter into the editor should be transcribed as a <br> tag, but instead they are changed to a blank paragraph tag <p></p> this is not the same.

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Currently this is one major reason that will prevent me from deploying dolphin.

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My other gripe is that for those of use who don't use the mouse too much and use the keyboard to navigate, the utilisation of ajax to process user posts is a pain the backside. This is because it is easy to navigate away from the posting page and lose your typed message.

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Once you have navigated away, you cannot go back to your post.

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I ended up typing the same message 4 times, because I instinctively hit CTRL-LEFT to check my previous post only to find that I've destroyed my message as I couldn't return to it.

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I would propose that either the posting page should be directly navigated to or that ajax functionality added to store the info so that it can be retrieved (ie - the info is stored in a drafts folder). It is worth noting that adaptation of technologies just because they are available is not always the best course of action - I'm sure everyone has heard of the KISS principle - it definately applies in this case.

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I hope that these issues are addressed in version 7 as, apart from them, the software is pretty good.

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My only real concern is that with a $1000 price tag the level of support should be a LOT better.
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DM.