Dolphin 7.2 Development Progress Update

Next major version of our flagship product - Dolphin Pro 7.2 - is under active development again. We can already see that the process is vastly different from the way we did it before. Improvements and fixes are not just progressing from 7.1, they also stem from Trident (our resident lab rat).

There is no Beta or Alpha version available yet (although our "continuous integration" practice means that current SVN version is functional), but that time is not too far off. We will work though these tickets during coming few weeks and will produce the first Alpha then. Some of the planned improvements are already in, and some are to be added during Alpha-testing.

Yeah! Big-boys league season is on again!    

Now let's sneak a peek...

Perhaps the most ambitious ideas in 7.2 is making it mobile-friendly. Optimisation for small screens involves meticulous adjustment of every UI element, which in turn results not only in "responsive" template, but in a better overall experience. Big changes like that may inadvertently break things, so we chose to create an additional pre-packaged template, which would carry most of the changes. The new template is called EVO. 

Along with responsive layout EVO is built to be very flexible. We are using mostly neutral colors and a lot of transparency, in a bid to create an "overlay" that would work with any site background, or background used by members via Profile Customiser. This way, you can create unique look and feel simply by changing the site logo, editing texts and uploading your background image. There will be a "Site Customiser" module to do that without messing with any code. 

Here's an example of the new cleaner login form on a smartphone screen - showing the new forms layout, responsive block, sliding main menu and background+transparency look...

And here's an example of a "desktop" view, with join form. Again, showing cleaner forms and how quick swap of background image completely changes the site look and feel... 

We are now in the midst of the creative process as well as routine bug-fixing toil, so any feedback is welcome, constructive particularly. Just don't make judgements yet - it's still raw as. 

And with this we are starting regular updates on Dolphin Pro 7.2 development process! We'd like to share and chat about even small adds, because this is how things get due attention and we can get them right, together. Stay tuned!