Dolphin 7 Imponderables

I have a similar issue with the forums - private forums are still aggregated in the RSS feed, there is no way to prevent this.

It seems that permissions handling is still some way off.

I'm 100% with houston... Kill the shared media !!!

As it was done for some technical reason, the badest possible reason, and not at all for the end user, Avatars has to be killed too !

As about the floating menu, I don't change my mind and still like that this floating thing to be integrated inside the Dolphin template. Redundant items that are displaying in both the main/sub navigation menu and this floating thing has to be "killed" too !

I don't find any logical criteria that make "Match" profiles to display ???

I don't find any logical criteria that make "Related" media to display ???

The link contained in the notifications (email templates) has to automatically login the member (receiver of the notification) and to redirect this member to the concerned page...

Shared media is completely illogical in modern social networks.

A few months ago when I started the discussion about photo albums, the question arose about how to migrate existing Dolphin 6 installations to a Dolphin 7 installation, if shared media were abandoned.

The answer is quite simple. You simply create a default photo/video album for users, and move all existing photos & videos to those default albums. An upgrade script that does this, should not be overly difficult to develop.

In that same discussion, I suggested that media albums be stored in separate directories on the server according to owner, instead of piling them all up in the same directory.

I acknowledge that dumping all the photos in the same directory, with all the ownership info stored in the database is the easy way out, but I don't believe this is the correct path to take with D7.

Thanks for the comments so far, and if anyone else sees something in D7 that makes you ask, "Why was it done this way?" ..... let's hear about it. I'm not talking about little tweaks in the code... let's constrain this blog to major flaws that we perceive.

I wonder if the "privacy" problem on files, images, videos etc. will be really taken serious.. as it was discussed some time ago.. it seems that shared files are the major disappointment..
Also the "BASE" directory is still there in the templates.. and more of that this time you have to modify the base directory to create a new template.. how odd that can be? I mean all the menu and layout images are stored in BASE??? i'm very confused.. you guys said that we will be able to change the WHOLE template only from the tmpl_xx folder and the base directory will play a very secondary role..

If you guys keep the old "base" dir then ppl will have to back up the dir every time they change the template..

It would seem to me Houston that this problem your listing of the Shared Media is not a difficult thing to fix, especially for you. A couple changes in the upload buttons strings, creation of a directory and wa la it's done.

So how about just kicking back for 20 minutes and taking care of this issue for all of us... :))

Shared photos makes no sense.....I'm with you there. An explanation to it's importance would be appreciated. I see no point. If I want to see a bunch of random pictures, I'll do a google image search.

well it might not make any sense for a few of you but for others we still use it in all of todays atmosphere!

Mydatery: "So how about just kicking back for 20 minutes and taking care of this issue for all of us... :))"

Believe me, if I was on the development team, that is exactly what I would do, although your time estimate of 20 minutes might be a little optimistic.

I really don't see why anyone would want to keep the shared media concept. If your sites members want their photos and other media to be public, why not let it be their decision.

Everything in user albums, neatly arranged in a directory structured according to owner, is the way to go.... not lumping everything together on one big pile.

blah blah blah ...............

talk for yourself houston but dont talk for the rest that do still use it.

peace out !

I'm still not 100% if I'm for or against shared media. I think it would be good to have the choice. It's easy enough to add a flag on each media item (in the database) so that it can be processed accordingly. Also, I don't think that splitting up media into separate directories is necessary - database filtering does a much better job. Separate directories is a PITA IMHO.

I would always advocate adding extra control rather than simply removing something - and I guess this is where the permissions issue really lies. It leaves a lot to be desired.

I do have a use for shared media on my site - but then my site is a straightforward community site and so does not have the issues with private media / data that come with dating sites. The permissions (or lack of them) work in this situation as I am not trying to hide anything from members (or non-members for that matter)

Members post images and videos to be shared with all other members, so the shared gallery actually works well in this situation.

The added profile gallery is also a good idea in a site like mine as it allows people to keep images that they like within their profile.

I think that on possible solution is that people each have their own galleries - which they can arrange as they see fit - They can add permissions on images to hide / show only to friends or they can 'share' their images with everyone - Sharing with everyone allows their image to be aggregated and displayed in a 'shared gallery'.

This needs extra permissions of course, but could be an improvement over the current system and is probably a natural progression for the media handling in Dolphin. ie - it currently has no / minimal permissions and all we have is one great big shared media pool - by adding permissions these (and other) things are possible.

I would still say that even though individual galleries are probably the way to go, retaining a central shared media gallery is still a good idea - admins can disable it if necessary - the end effect is that it adds flexibility into Dolphin as a product.

DM

I can tell you with 100% certainty, that the vast majority of social networking site members, are against the concept of shared media, where they have no control over who sees it.

Dolphin 7 will introduce photo albums with privacy controls, so I see no logical reason for retaining the shared media concept.

Photo/media albums with privacy controls, still allows all that media to be shared with the entire world, only it gives the owner of that media the freedom to choose whether or not they will make it public. This is what people expect when they join a social networking site. This is even good for dating sites, as members feel more comfortable when they have complete control over who can view their photos and videos. This is especially true for female members. I'm not making this up... I have thoroughly researched this, and have taken my own surveys.

I think this may true of 'traditional' social networking sites. But for sites like mine - traditionally media has been a completely shared affair - it's the basis for how it works. These sites were built with a separate forum + gallery, with blogs an the such thrown in later on. Whilst this setup is inherited, it does seem to work.

I would be interested to know, if in D7, it is possible to aggregate members media into a central 'gallery'/ feed.

18 negative votes by Technoghost. Oh dear... what will I do. This is so depressing :'( sob...