Dolphin 7.1.5 Released

Naw.... just kidding.

But seriously Boonex, it's been one year and two months since the Dolphin 7 product has seen an update.  Come on now, this is really exasperating. DU is not going to be a viable product for a real website any time soon. We all know that. How much longer are you going to make us wait? A month? Two Months? Six months? Another year?  Please give me some sort of clue.

Yeah we know.... DU is being coded by the two most brilliant people on the planet. However all members can do with it is register profiles and post  messages.  Congratulations.... you've invented twitter.  No photos.... no videos....no mp3... no groups.... no events .... no polls.... no chat... no forum ... no blog .... No enthusiasm for it.

Everybody wonders why it's so dead around here.  The reason is, there's not a friggin thing to talk about.  As long as there were updates being released every few months, at least people had something to look forward to. Now you've taken that away, and all you do is work on a new platform that won't be ready for any type of real website for at least a year.... maybe longer. 

It's depressing.  The atmosphere around here is depressing.  The lack of creativity in the market is depressing.  I cannot think of one solitary thing to get excited about insofar as Dolphin is concerned.  FFS give us something!

Honestly, I am not sure this can be salvaged HL - they seem to have gone in completely the wrong direction.   Maybe they should just completely strip off any licensing and go totally open source with 7.0 and 7.1 - I don't know much about managing open source projects but probably some here do - couldn't an account at github be started and maybe some simple discussion forum on Google or something?   Boonex probably have clients they must attend to, and in their spare time they work on DU or other "next big things" projects - because that is what they love  - but they don't do squat here.   As far as providing leadership for an open source community they simply aren't doing that and at this point it seems to be all but gone.   People have invested tremendously in this platform and it is probably past due time for a fork.

DU taking too much time...and its still in alpha phase...boonex should bring more programmers to work on DU..or aleast they should give any timeline...i will spend my money on module on DU..i don't think D7 have future...instead of D7 i think its better to use wordpress and buddypress...may be not don't know..m not a pro..lol

Splintering Dolphin into two versions is a mistake; Boonex says they will be used for different purposes but I am not seeing that.  Roll the good stuff about Dolphin U into Dolphin 7 and continue to improve and develop Dolphin; releasing the next version as Dolphin 8 (or if you want to follow MicroCrap, call it Dolphin 10).  If Boonex feels they need additional software in their offerings, then develop other products that are not confusing/conflicting with existing products.

This whole Dolphin C and Dolphin U is a load of cow dung; if Boonex wants to splinter Dolphin then call Dolphin U something else, anything else, but don't include Dolphin in the name.

HL... I saw the title of this and shit my pants man..... "Oh, lets just upgrade the site I have just upgraded and destroy it in the process" lol......     : )

 RE:

 That exact point was argued in the first look by us chosen ones.  The pleas fell on deaf ears.  At least Boonex accepted the fact that D8 was such a dramatic departure from D7, that it should be developed as a different product, and NOT just let the D7 branch die a slow painful death.That may happen anyway if they don't take a break from the next great thing, and polish up the last great thing a bit.

I can't see DU ever appealing to me. It's just too dumbed down... it's like they're designing it for the dumbest person on earth. I don't like the aesthetics of it, and it just seems really awkward to use.  Maybe after it evolves for several years, I might feel differently.  Yeah sure DU looks ok on my mobile phone, but it looks really stupid on my 17" laptop, and my 21" desktop.

That was exactly my point when i said before... other Du post.
Make 7.1.4 and up much better and create really good features instead of building something new and don't look back.
I think that they have made a big mistake by losing focus on what's importent right now (7.1.5)

Just as a neutral observer - I call myself "neutral" because I come here so infrequently, but I am invested in this platform also, what seems to have happened is that Boonex has given up on 7.1, just as they did with 7.0  - they may even have convinced themselves otherwise, but they have moved on to "the next big thing".  Parsing Andrew's words: 

"What we all know and love as Dolphin 7.x will be known as Dolphin Classic. We will keep updating it gradually, implementing the best ideas from both products while focusing on what it has always been good at - social networking".

That can be interpreted both as a loss of interest, and as a really bad strategy but it is obviously an abandonment.  For further proof go no further than the OP's observation that there have been no updates for more than a year.   For an open source platform, that is ridiculous - and is so disrespectful off the investment people have made here it should almost be considered a default.  I looked at the UP plans and am sort of meh - it is ok, but the market will have changed by the time it is finished, and they have some decent products now.   They also had a vibrant community, and that represented a great deal of value in the company they have squandered away.

I dabble in business strategy, and in a way they have taken a "worst of both worlds" approach - this is not really open source software, and it is not really commercial software either.   This company could have been a pretty good play in Silicon Valley - some people could have been rich by now, but the community was part of that.  Now they have two unsupported pieced of software and "future plans" for something they say will be great - so why has the community fallen apart, and almost no one is excited or even cares?

What should happen now, in my opinion, is an officially sanctioned "fork" done with the blessing of Boonex.   7.0 and 7.1 will have the license requirement stripped off and they will be come completely open source.  The DU can be their commercial product, proprietary -  not open source, and completely owned by Boonex.   This would be similar to the approach taken by Sugar CRM - they forked into an open source and commercial versions, and both communities are still doing well.   There would be no telling what would happen if that was done here, but desperate times call for desperate measures.   That is the only move I can think of. 

I'm pretty sure this has all been a hobby for Andrew all along. I'm guessing he comes here and posts whenever he gets bored or throws a few dollars at the coders to come out with a new version when he wants to generate a little interest and make a few bucks in license revenue.

If D7 hasn't been updated in more than a year, then people are going to have to come to grips with the fact that it is no longer a supported program.   I looked at the DU section here, and what those people really are doing is "a hobby" - or volunteering to support a hobby.  By the time that is released, the market will have changed and it will have become completely irrelevant.   I haven't looked lately, but the rest of the industry can't be sitting still - I think even Buddypress is more sophisticated than it once was.  What else out there is good - does anyone know?

The very fact that Andrew hasn't weighed in on this post should tell you something.  I can tell by what he has written this community is "on maintenance".   I don't want to speculate on what is going on in his head, but I can guess that he thinks when DU is finished he will come back here like a white knight on a horse and everything will be perfect again.   

It won't be - they have destroyed what was once a vibrant community and squandered and opportunity for what could have been "industry standard" software.   I don't mean to be negative here - I am just "calling em like I see em".   I am not sure that there are even too many moves that could save this at this point - I have given my suggestions, but what I do know is doing the same old thing won't work.   Since I only come back here every month or two I can see what others might have missed because they are in the middle of it, but with each "data point" it gets worse.  I am not trying to cause offense to anyone, but this community, and the software itself, is clearly going downhill.

Like I said, they somehow have managed to come up with the "worst of both worlds" here - poorly supported commercial software, and "open source" that is not really open source.   I am sorry, but if only two guys are contributing to the code, and rest are "testers" for some mythological future system, this is no longer an open source product.

 RE:

 It has certainly turned into a hobby for ME.  Years ago, I had some really cool ideas for a few sites, but so much time has passed waiting on one thing or another, those ideas are no longer viable.  I have a few good ideas left, but what happens to those, highly depends on whether or not Boonex puts out 7.1.5 or 7.2 before this year is over.  If that doesn't happen, I'll likely walk away from website development and never look back. I simply have better things to do with my time.

Dolphin just isn't a very business friendly platform.  It seems like the only people that want to use it, are all the dating site wannabes, or all the porn site wannabes..... and they all want to make their grand entrance without having to spend any money. Who in hell wants to build a business oriented site with Dolphin 7?  It's a platform better suited for all those internet creeps that want to look at cell phone pictures of each others genitals.  All the built in dating site crap that made it into D7 has always driven me nuts.  Anybody that wants to build a website that involves something other than a bunch of creepy people admiring each others asses, has to first spend hours stripping all the built in dating site useless bullshit.  If I'm building a business site, no one is going to give a flying fck what my favorite books or movies are.

I'm glad DU has a lot of that crap missing.  To bad just about everything useful is also missing.  Maybe DU will evolve into a great platform for business use, but I'm not going to wait around for two or three more years to find out.  Judging from the lack of inspiration and creativity in nearly all those market products, I can't imagine what might happen to change the course that developers have always followed.  It's why I created the "assholes" module.  It was a protest against the hundreds of market modules that are nothing more than a clone of the Boonex groups module with a few minor embellishments.  I'm tired of everything around here. I'm even tired of wasting my time typing this post, so I will abruptly end it.

Planned sequence: 

- Dolphin U Beta Release (upgradable version)

- Dolphin Classic Update (likely 7.2, but that doesn't matter much. We are including some feature updates, so...)

- Dolphin U Full Release

So, no we're not "abandoning" Classic and don't see it as a viable strategy. Classic will be taking cues from U where possible and will continue to improve. 

Andrew, you pretty much just verified everything people have been saying is wrong here.  My take on Dolphin U - you have to ask the key question: who is it for and who cares about it.   Would a new customer who has never bought Dolphin be interested?  Of course not, they would be looking for the best solution for their needs that is on the market now. All you have done with this approach is convince them that buying the current version of Dolphin is a horrible idea - you yourself are saying that it is barely supported, or at best is a low priority.

That means that the only people who might be interested are people who either already have a successful D7 site and see this as an upgrade path - but that doesn't include all people who have D7 sites - a bunch of us got stuck at D7.0 and even many of those with successful D7.1 sites might not see this as a realistic upgrade path.  Unlike you, they have to live and work in the present, not in the future so they can't put their plans "on hold" while you work your developers dream.  The people most interested in Dolphin U are those you might call "Dolphin consultants" - people who over the years have gained expertise in how to build Dolphin communities, and of course, the mod developers. 

Do you see what is wrong with this picture?  You got it totally backward - the customer is last, the active users and community is last, and the actual real-world working product is last, while something that doesn't even exist yet has been deemed most important.   You should have talked to a business advisor or something, because this is absolutely a horrible strategy.  he community that is now mostly destroyed itself had a huge amount of value - had this actually been professionally managed as an open source project.

What you just said is nuts - you have prioritized the beta release of a product that doesn't exist over your existing product.  Someone would have to be absolutely crazy to buy a license for Dolphin right now - talk about shooting yourself in the foot, and then taking that gun and shooting your own user community - what is left of it.  No one cares that you might have some awesome product in the future - they just don't.   That Dolphin U should have been a quiet R&D project, and you NEVER should have coined that horrible "Dolphin Classic' name - it just screams "dead end'.

Sorry if you think this is too blunt, but I no longer have a dog in this fight.  My main project here was destroyed in the "upgrade" to 7.1 which like all your major upgrades results in massive loss of functionality (that and the "null field search issue - remember that - it was central to what I was doing as was promised through about 10 versions) - my other project is a 7.09 site and I am still developing it but because of the way you have done things here, support will be increasingly hard to find.

May I strongly encourage you secure the services of a business advisor - a good one - it may be too late, but these are just bad moves, plain and simple.  Not trying to be a jerk - none of this stuff really matters to me any more, I just think it is really sad what has happened here.

Every time we see a new version they seem to dump the last version into the garbage. We always here that we will continue developing and updating, but in reality it is pretty much dead. Too bad.

I really don't see how the small team can maintain both at this point. Hopefully they can, but I don't see it happening. Not on a regular basis.

Once a new version comes about the previous version is demoted to a non-existent status and the current new version becomes the sole priority. Year after year for the last 6+ I have seen the previous disappear, with the claim that it will continue. I have yet to see a single one that had an update.

Personally I don't see Boonex maintaining 2 Dolphin versions, but you never know. I just don't see it happening based on historical data.

Just want to tell to everybody who is waiting for 7.1.5 and so on: modules on the market WILL be updated in order to work with the next Dolphin version. And 7.1.5 is a build, not another new version of Dolphin, so the most modules from 7.1.4 should work on 7.1.5.

Build update is not version update.

 so no more alpha ..right..will u give us any timeline..??

if beta version of DU is going to launch..then when we will know the complete features and modules of DU..??

So if it takes two years to get a beta of Dolphin U out, then we can expect more than two years to see anything for Dolphin C.  So I have plenty of time on getting the past 7.1 upgrades in place

yes we want to know a aproximative time for the launch of the beta version of dolphin U... if its in 2 or 1 years for the final release i will start my website with 7.1.4  so please at least reply to this question.... :(

 According to current state of D.U I guess this is approximate time to get it for public use. I would start my site on 7.1.4 now, no matter what. In any way, first version of any software\hardware usually has quite a lot of bugs that will be fixing from version to version. So why should I lose my opportunity now being waiting undefined time for the first version of some software, if 7.1.4 fulfill my current needs pretty much? :)

I agree; if you are planning on a site with Dolphin, go ahead and start with 7.1.4.  Boonex has stated it will be possible to migrate a Dolphin C site to a Dolphin U site; unless I read Andrew's blog post wrong.

Well if your right Geek girl, you finally answer to my BIG question... because if its not possible to migrate from 7.1 to U i prefer wait but if it's possible... well i start my website finally today :)

to boonex expert: " if 7.1.4 fulfill my current needs pretty much? :)"

well as i post previously, actually dolphin 7.1.4 dont offer auto update function, dont offer disk space limit for member account, dont offer HTML5 without flash and without RMS

so that's why D U is important also for me.. but if you confirm that i will be upgrade in 1 year from 7.1.5 to U well all my question is solve :)

 Well, if you have a lot of core files modified, you can't update automatically.

Disk space limit for member account — custom work would solve this ;)

HTML5 video — just don't use default player, but some other based on HTML5 :)

well can you create the custom code for set disk space limit per membership  :)

i will buy this mod on the market

The current D7 line may actually do all of that eventually. However i don't really see the need for auto update. I have a feeling it will fail most of the time anyway. Auto updating modules is one thing. Auto updating dolphin is another. In DU there is a option to force updates even if files have changed. However if that option is on, then the update is not complete as you will still need to manually reapply all source changes that were made for any mods. If the option is off, then you will still need to manually update those files that it did not replace automatically. So, ether way. You still need to do things manually if you have made any changes to dolphins source.

I never viewed Dolphin as a general user application and I have stated that many times.  Dolphin is really a developer's product.  Yes, you can install it; even through Softaculous, and it will work out of the box as a social network.  Once you move away from just running what is in the box, wanting this and that and the other, then you have moved away from the install and run it to the developer's world.  If you can not do the work, you have to hire a developer to do the work for you.  This will be the same for Dolphin U; you can install and run it as it is but once you decide that I want this, that and the other that is not included, you will be right back to where you are with Dolphin C and again if you can not do the work you will have to hire a developer to do the work for you.

No one can confirm anything about Dolphin U, not even Andrew and the development team.  They can say it will be released in a year and then issues come up that prevent it from being release, or they do a MicroCrap thing where they just strip out all the promises made about the new release (Remember when MicroCrap promised a journalled file system in Vista then since they could not do it in time for the release just scrapped it and many other items?).  So, you can just sit and wait, and wait, and wait, or you can build a site now and worry later about moving to Dolphin U.  However, none of us is going to confirm anything about Dolphin U because that is out of our control. 

When I talked about migration, it was not that you could take a Dolphin 7 (C) site and move it to Dolphin U and retain everything you had with Dolphin 7, it would be foolish to think that.  Migration is about getting users and profiles and content over to the Dolphin U site; however, there will be a lot of things from the Dolphin 7 site that you will lose, such as modules that are not compatible with Dolphin U and custom work that is Dolphin 7 specific.

 RE:

 I don't know what your definition of abandonment is, but in my world when you ignore something for 14 months, it's abandoned. 

DU can wait for a while.... especially since no one will be able to build a real website with it any time soon.  Maybe some developers will jump in and create modules for it, but don't count on it.  The Vendor mentality here for the most part, is to have an inexperienced captive audience that the vendor can sell a module to, so that they can be just like Facebook... or so they can be better than Facebook.  Until DU has a significant user base, the vendors around here won't be writing any pretend to be an animal modules for it. They just wont see it as something they can make a few bucks off of in their spare time.  That developer mentality is one of the reasons I suggested you call it Dolphin Professional in that first look preview. It could have been an opportunity to give the product a higher level of perceived professionalism  DU however, reminiscent of DUH, does better reflect the average sentiment toward the product at this time.

I know you want a great new product.  That's fine, Just remember, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Great ideas and products aren't always brought to life by holding a straight, steady course, like I know you want to do with DU.  More often than not, you have to make a number of course corrections along the way.  One of those corrections should be to give some immediate attention to the existing product.  You are currently seeing some of the fallout of your decision to call this new product 'Dolphin'.  I thought it was a mistake then, and I still do.  It should have been named something else entirely.  It has all had a paralyzing effect on your customer base.  It was all quite predictable... at least by me it was.

One thing is certain.  The future of your business may depend on what you do next. Think carefully about it.

If there is one thing I have learned since joining the Boonex community is that Andrew, once he makes his mind up, won't change it; no matter how important it may be to change it.  Andrew should be seeing the mistake of just the naming; yet, I am sure that Dolphin U as a name will remain.  Andrew, there is no shame in admitting that you made an error, stubbornness is not a virtue in either politics or business. 

Boo Hoo, cry cry..

Just move on to another platform.

I personally can't wait for the new DU.

7.1.x is a cluttered POS IMO.

Years and years of constant bitching, no wonder they went a different direction.

It's about time for a totally compatible system that looks the same on all phones, tablets, and PC's.

It's like Apple simple; I mean all Apple users like simplicity right?

 RE:

That's such a stupid fking statement, I hardly know where to start. I suppose that's fine if your sole purpose in life is to operate one of those creepy pay-per-peep internet spots.  In the real world however, where people sit in their office all day long behind a desktop working for a living, they might feel a little short changed when they see a 21 inch wide website made for a cell phone.

The everything has to look the same on all screens is stupid beyond belief.  If I have a real job that requires me to use a workstation with one or more large screens, why in hell would I want to display content meant for a 4 inch wide screen?  Why would I want to see a website designed for a cell phone, on the 17 Inch laptop I am using to type this post?  Conversely, we all know that content meant for a desktop, just doesn't work on a 4 inch wide screen. Why should everyone that wants to use this platform be stuck with the lowest common denominator? You have been conditioned by twitter and Facebook.  In the professional, grownup world however, things are a little more complicated than conveying ideas 140 characters at a time, and no one gives a shit about those pictures of your food, or that 99% won't re-post this or re-post that. 

Dolphin 7.1 doesn't adapt well to cell phone screens. We all know that.  The mobile app sucks. We all know that too. The currently available "responsive templates" suck. Yep.... we all know that too.  It doesn't have to be that way.  There are tickets on the 7.1.5 milestone, if implemented, will go a long way toward making D7 more adaptable to small screens.  If everyone around here weren't so busy making all those mindless pay-per-peep creepy sites, and all those utterly useless hookup, dating, and chats sites where the median IQ is around 90, the Dolphin platform would evolve in a more positive way. 

 If this is true, then while Andrew may be a good programmer, he is tragically not a leader.  This product wasn't supposed to be about him - there are, or at least were, many other stakeholders, who have invested hugely in this product - in money, time, helping others, and most of all a massive amount of sweat equity.   

I am sorry - this is just selfish - he has decided he would rather play in the sandbox than do the right thing and someone needs to tell him he has made a huge mistake that has now damaged everyone.   In addition to selfish, it is also foolish - if he could have at least pretended to be a CEO part time and run this professionally, he could have been a very wealthy man now - and many others would have been successful as well. 

I was just curious if there were many D6 sites still out there (and before you laugh, D6 had some great features that never made it into D7.0 or D7.1) and I noticed there is no longer a support section for D6 - then I noticed there is no longer one for D7.0 either.   The system I uses, and many others still do as well, has been officially abandoned.   Now before you get too smug, you need to realize that D7.1 has been abandoned also.  The "words" someone uses to try to justify it don't matter - an "open source" product that hasn't had a single update in over a year is simply no longer supported.

So sorry D7.1 users - read the handwriting on the wall - you guys are old hat, and you are using a dead end product - that has all but been decreed by the developers.   Perhaps they think, with misguided but good intentions, that after they are done playing in the sandbox with DU they will come back here and make things better.   Sorry, it just doesn't work that way - for something like this to work, constant attention and engagement is required - you can't just come back after neglecting something for a year and think you can fix it in a few weeks - massive and probably irreparable damage has been done.

I am sorry if these words are coming off as a little blunt - but I have been here for probably a decade and earned the right to point out that this is probably one of the dumbest business strategies I have ever seen.   Andrew can continue to "be stubborn" if he wants, but in this case if he sticks with this strategy it will almost certainly lead to massive failure - not just for him, but for all of you as well.

Dolphin 8 is not simple to use, both for users and administrator! It is exactly the opposite of "Apple simplicity".

I want to know if Apple website is visible in the same way in your mobile phone. I think the answer is "NO".

A website needs to be adaptive and scalable, but not identical in every system (phone, tablet, PC). You can have a good website only if you have the ability to understand how it works easily (for example: you can join, create and edit your profile, write and read a message, see notifications, find your user setting easily) and if the administrator can access and manage all settings easily. In Dolphin 8 you can't do that easily! There are only good ideas implemented in a bad way.

About "Studio", why I need to have a "tile" for every module installed if there are no settings in that "tiles" (except for some modules)? I have the same voices inside the "settings tile". The only function of that "tiles" is to disable or unistall the module! I would like to see the old uninstall system with the new protection function!

Edit: I forgot to say that "Studio" is the old administration area redesigned. It has nothing really new compared to the past. Then I do not understand why you still can not change the addresses of the pages. I want to have the ability to customize every aspect of my site! Finally do not understand why Andrew is so determined to work on Dolphin U that will come out in over a year when Dolphin 7.x urgently needs an update!

It's not rocket science.... 1.4 is what we got.... Either build your site with it or don't.... It's better than 0.9 that I was using a while back... Personally, I would not use Dolphin of any kind for a social networking site - unless as HL says, it is for a professional in-house solution for a corporation or business of some kind.

Our new project on 1.4 (yes we got fed up with waiting too) has hardly any social aspects to it... That side of things is being ripped out, and we are going to try to use Dolphin for something else entirely (purely because the huge investment from our last project can be re-cycled into this project - so it is not a complete waste of 30k).

HL - I do know of large corporations that are going this way (paying to have in house social networking solutions developed at great expense) This is an emerging market which dolphin could excel at, and which is getting bigger all the time... I have even thought about providing a service myself... Definately worth thinking about.

Just a few considerations which hopefully would help some of our valued clients to understand the reasoning behind what we're doing now....

1. Just updating Classic with some fixes and improvements that largely would be notice by select few would bring a significant change to BoonEx bottom-line in general. A more impactful change is necessary and this is true for just about every product in the industry. 

2. We're building Dolphin U with hope to attract wider scope of people. It may not seem like it just yet, but fundamental ideas of Dolphin U are primarily aimed at making it truly simple and enjoyable to use for less than savvy web masters.

3. Classic, as we see it, should eventually turn into more of a "pro" solution, that would borrow from Dolphin U ideas, but would still benefit from it's longer history of development, broader selection of extensions and variety of included features. Think OSX and iOS here. Both product will be getting closer to each other, where needed, but generally both would have their own target audience. 

4. We need Dolphin U to be able to support and develop Dolphin Classic more rapidly and effectively. 

5. Classic is rather stable now and that helps us to be able to work on U. 

6. There will be a significant update to Classic soon, as I noted. 

A mobile Solution integrated in Dolphin U - Like a Web based - Native Mobile app with current Standards and Templates. Would bring you in a better Position to sell Licenses than all others CMS 

Apppresser.com - is a a Indepent WP - Solution for Native Apps. have a look Andrew. 

Greetings 

 Apppresser is a "converter" for Wordpress sites. I don't believe that properly designed sites should be converted. Adaptability should be "built-in", so as to create a more uniform experience across all devices. That's how Dolphin U is designed. Users know what to do when they switch form desktop to smartphone and web masters don't have to depend on 3-rd party UI processing. 

 RE

 I guess that is where I see differently. The Administrator/Studio side has more features that are easier to use IMO.

[edit] I'm not talking about the "Apple" site.

 RE

 If you read back on the blogs, DU is truly responsive now. There really won't be a need for a separate "app" to worry about.

 RE

 Thanks for a better explanation.

 Just to reiterate what I see as the proper response for each of these 'notions'.

1. The fact that 7.1.4 has been labeled a "Classic" before it's even finished speaks volumes about the pace things move at around here. Didn't that happen with 6 as well?

2. Building Dolphin U to attract less savvy users seems a little ridiculous to me. Also, I would have to ask. By the time you get it any where near completion, will it be relegated as another unfinished "Classic" as well?

3. Making the current 7 a "Classic" and trying to remodel it as a pro version? In other words, you're not going to complete it leaving it unfinished and requiring a major skill set to get it to work fully?

Do you see where I am going with this? I have been a member of Boonex (one of those less savvy ones you speak of) since 2009 and I have never seen a completed project. I have paid out thousands of dollars during that time trying to buy mods or get specific problems 'fixed" and in the end, relegating much of my attempts to complete to the trash bin as just not feasible for me.

Everyone here is really beating around the bush trying to be nice. That's not my style as many will tell you. You need to quit your day job and get serious if you truly want this project to survive. You can't build this working on it for a few hours every Sunday night. If I ran my business that way, I would have been on the street years ago. There is one very real reason that the forum posts and user levels have plummeted around here over the past couple years and it's all due to your lack of desire to actually complete anything you start in a reasonable amount of time.

Andrew, first thing to do is to leave Dolphin 7.1.x's name as is; it is just "Dolphin".  Don't stick "Classic" onto it.  Second is to rename Dolphin U to something that does not have Dolphin in the name.  If they are two separate products, then give them different names.  Gee whiz, even a student taking Business 101 knows better than to give two different products the same name; it is only going to cause confusion.  Once you have settled on a nifty name for the second product, that will allow you to better market the two products to the prospective user; clearly defining the intended market share for each product.

What you have done by this Dolphin C and Dolphin U naming convention is to hurt sales (licenses) for your currently shipping product.  That is something that you should quickly work on fixing as I am sure lost sales is not a good thing for Boonex.

 RE:

 This point was argued for days during the initial first look.  If you think DU is bad, you'd be stunned by what Boonex first wanted to call it.  Some fairly decent sounding names were kicked around, but Andrew finally decided that DU would be best. Just for the record, none of the six in the first look preview liked it.  I thought calling the product Dolphin was a bad idea then, and I still think it's a bad idea.

 RE:

  Andrew.  If you think that this is a winning strategy, then you and I should meet up sometime and have a talk.  What's the point of designing a product for the dumbest people on earth? Why don't you just call the product DUH, as I pointed out in the first look preview?  I said in that first preview that DU seems overly dumbed down.  Maybe the mental midgets of the website world will embrace the concept, but the savvy and somewhat savvy webmasters may not be so enthralled.  A number of top developers here have privately told me that they hate the product.  It's a product that may not gain the developer support that you are counting on.  Why would it?  What third party developer wants a bunch of dumbass webmaster wannabes as customers that they need to spoon feed?

 RE

It IS an emerging market. It makes sense.  If you can't keep your employees off social networks, why not use your employees addiction to social networks to your advantage?  A person becomes most successful, not by staying true to course and working hard, but by taking advantages of opportunities. Private corporate social networking is an opportunity that is here right now. Like all opportunities, this one will pass by anyone that looks on and does nothing. Three years from now when DU has evolved into a useable product, this opportunity may be long gone.

Like I said, maybe in Dilbert's office the intra-company social network will be called DUH, but not in the real world.

alpha 6 is launched ..but demo site is still alpha 5...home page is like D7..i think alpha 5 one was better..

http://www.boonex.com/n/dolphin-u-alpha-6

 RE:

 Why don't you show us how to upload a photo album to DU, or how to create discussion forums?  If not that, show us how to upload a video album.

 none of those modules are there..

@Andrew - I must strongly encourage you to secure the services of a business advisor - what you have essentially been doing here for some time is destroying value - not just the value you hold, but also your other stakeholders and this community itself.

I no longer have a dog in this fight - My 7.1 site never worked because a search with more than one selection field will never happen - even though it worked fine on D6 and you kept promising it for every "next version" - it was central to what I was doing on CalTrade and that project failed because of it.  I will continue with my 7.09 site as a pure "content play" even though that version has been abandoned and with this community rapidly disintegrating will make it almost impossible to get support.

I am telling you this only to make sure you understand that it no longer matters to me what you "decide".   I have already lost, and even if you make the right decision it won't help me.  My experience of only coming back to this community every few months has given me a perspective most don't have here.  Every time I come back I say to myself "Wow - it has gotten even worse, I didn't this that was possible".  Sometimes when you are in the middle of something it is harder to see, so I will just say it - this is failing.   

Perhaps it isn't failing for you - maybe you like this as a programming hobby, or maybe you are doing custom work for clients and that is what is really important to you now, but it is failing for many others here.   I wouldn't be saying this unless I could see it pretty clearly - the "strategy" you have outlined is a loser strategy.  Worse, you are not even listening and taking even small simple actions that would help mitigate the damage.  For example, you have been told by a bunch of members here that the names "DU" and "DC" are big problems.  The name "Dolphin Classic" practically screams "LOSER".  Do you even know the origin of that "classic" naming in business history?  

Clearly you aspire to be a programmer, and not a CEO - and there is noting wrong with that - not everyone should be a leader or wants to be, but that doesn't mean you should act selfishly or irresponsibly.   A business advisor, acting in your interests, may advise you to hire a CEO - even a part-time one or one paid with equity if you can't afford one.  You could then demote yourself to "CTO" or promote yourself to Chairman - but someone should fill the leadership role here, and you aren't doing it.  Alternatively, you could cut the programs loose as true "open source" project, or you could sell your company - anything but what you are doing now, because it isn't working.

I took an open minded look at DU and frankly I think it is a dog.  That should have been, at most, a quiet R&D project that consumed no more than 20 percent of your time - it NEVER should have become central here.  Right now if someone was looking for community building software and asked if I thought they should consider Boonex/Dolphin, I have to be honest and let you know I would say "hell no, stay away from that crap".  It's too bad, because the software itself is - or at least was - pretty good, and you should know that I am not the only of your once loyal fans who now thinks that.