Let the New Season Begin... Now! Dolphin 6.1a + Ray Chat 3.5a.

Today we start the new season of public pre-release testing, tweaking and development. We're excited to show our advancements in Dolphin 6.1 and Ray 3.5 development.

Admittedly, we're somewhat behind our plans, since we initially wanted to come up with final versions of both beasts today, but were drawn back by the imminent need to upgrade Expertzzz.com and Unity. As a result, we're just about to show off a huge remake of the entire BoonEx Unity system, which will incorporate many new features, including Expertzzz.com functionality.

So, for now, we're showing you two ALPHA versions, which means that not only do they still need to be improved after your comments and testing, but also that we still have some plans on the table. Most notably, Dolphin 6.1 is yet to have a wide-screen layout option, new Shark-style comments in all modules and customizable blocks width setting; and Ray has yet to have other-than-chat widgets upgraded.

Anyway, this is a major upgrade. I couldn't stress more - it's a HUGE upgrade.

Dolphin 6.1a

With 6.1 Dolphin gets to the rare class of web-software solutions that provide truly effective and user-friendly ways to build and customize your entire user database. With the new Fields Builder you create, manage and edit profile fields, join form, search form, and profile edit...all with access levels and with the elegance of our top-class Drag-and-Drop building interface.

Next, we finally bring back "Couples" to Dolphin. After lots and lots of requests and great, structured suggestions from our community members we are happy to present an all new "Couples" functionality.

Third, Dolphin now has totally, absolutely, definitely and optionally ;) Search-Engine-And-User-Friendly URLs. After the huge success of friendly profile URLs we extended this feature to all types of Dolphin content.

Security has finally received due attention in Dolphin. We're now passing HackerSafe certification and have already patched a number of potential vulnerabilities. Our focus is to make the final 6.1 on of the most secure web-scripts ever.

Dolphin languages received a serious upgrade. Now it will automatically determine the user-preferred language and apply the corresponding language file. Languages handling has been adjusted to international standards.

Dolphin now remembers user login sessions with a nifty new "remember me" feature.

As you may know, after 6.0.0004 Dolphin supports a clustered hosting setup. In 6.1 we extended and improved Dolphin scalability and speed, so you and we can feel confident that Dolphin will keep doing a great job when your site gets busy with millions of members.

See all closed tickets in the Roadmap to learn more about what's been done till now.

Ok, now to business:

• Play with Dolphin 6.1a demo
• Play with Dolphin 6.1a admin demo (login: admin, use password: dolphin)
• Download Dolphin 6.1a (Only the Free Version is available till the final release) (9 Mb)

IMPORTANT: We strongly recommend that you NOT to use this version on your live site until it gets to the stage of Final Release.

We plan to make Dolphin 6.1 a de-facto standard for web-community software and will put all our efforts to test and improve it until it gets released. Your participation is essential. Every member is welcome to submit comments and post their ideas, observations and findings. Pundits may submit tickets in Trac and edit documentation. Very soon we'll deploy a new Unity, which will let you collaborate more effectively.

Good luck and welcome to the gold rush for perfect community software - Dolphin 6.1.

Ray Chat 3.5a

I would call it Ray 4.0 or Ray 5.0, since the step up is mindblowing. In fact almost the entire Chat has been re-written and re-drawn. It's a whole new experience! For now Chat is the only widget that we're ready to show, but others will follow pronto. Even Chat is ALPHA for now, since we're still working on design, cross-platform and browser compatibility as well as some features, but even now you can get a feeling of what it is going to be like in the nearest future.

First and foremost - Ray Chat now features a tabbed rooms experience. Yes, finally, users can chat in multiple rooms simultaneously with tabs-popping notifications.

Second, (it's hard to count how many times it was requested) there's a full-blown 1-to-1 private chat! Built-in to the main chat interface, without the Messenger widget, with Audio/Video and file-sending. Now, this is really BIG NEWS for many!

Third, with the "send to" feature messages can now be addressed to specific person, plus made private with the new "whisper" mode.

Fourth, there is an all new, super-advanced Settings panel, which will let your users adjust the chat for themselves.

Fifth, say hello to all-new password-protected rooms, user-details pane, new default smilies, panes dragging, HELP section, viewing-me pane, and an all new videos pane with large and full-screen video windows!

BTW, the Help page has a Troubleshooting section which isn't completed at the moment. You are working with your members directly, you get their reports, you know their most common problems. Thus, you are welcome to suggest your questions which should be explained in Ray's Help page - Troubleshooting.

'Nuff said, it's totally new and re-built on the new Flash 9 platform, with a fully revamped interface and design. Take a sneak peek now and expect a totally new software soon. Ray 3.5!

• For now it's only an online preview - here. (Login and Click the "Chat" tab)

Play with it and share your observations. The downloadable version will be available only within a full suite with a new Ray Base.

Next What?

Now, with your help we'll add a few more features and will polish Dolphin 6.1. We plan to release the final version within April, so it's going to be a hot month here.

Ray 3.5 will go out with 6.1, although we still have to do a great deal of work in that department. Finger crossed, wood knocked, developers engaged.

BoonEx software matures and gets better. We have more and more users every day and the growth continues to accelerate. Popularity comes with a price, so we have a hard time keeping up with support, community management and Expertzzz.com administration. With that in mind, we're building a new - future-proof system, which I call Unity 2. It's due to replace the current Unity and Expertzzz in April. With Unity 2 BoonEx will leverage the power of the community to become a more capable company for everyone to be happy with.