Vacation my ass.....

I think I am going to bow out. I have been involved with other community projects that never reached the finished state and I refuse to waste another 2 or three years trying to get this one to market.

There's nothing worse than a man whose word is worthless. Mr Boon, you may have talent when it comes to coding but I wouldn't rely on you in every day life. Thanks for wasting my money and my time.....

LOL. I was about to say something similar.

I will be starting my competitive product in 1-2 months. Just waiting on some funding. Then you can waste your time waiting for mine to be finished. LOL.

I'm with ya brother. At least you know how to communicate.

This is promising...

Well hurry the heck up  ; )

Will I be able to migrate my Soonex site?

/DM

From scratch.

I thought you had your own script you had developed. I am curious why you are not using it.


But one step at a time. I most likley will develop some sort of migration script considering one of my sites i want to keep i plan to switch to my own script.

Just PLEASE don't name it after anything aquatic. I've had enough of half cooked fish  :P

I have a basic scratch written CMS that I wrote about 6 years back, it's not a comparable product to Dolphin as it is only manages page content and does not handle multi-user authentication and content permissions. I still use this on a few of my sites, and am currently tidying it up a little for a version 1 release. Unfortunately I do not see it as suitable as a base for building something like Dolphin from - it's dated and uses old coding methods.  It never got out of beta stage and I'm only tidying it up just to get some closure on the project.

I have been toying with the idea of writing a user/socio-centric site, utilising existing frameworks, and did take a look into what there is about. I found that Yii looks quite promising, and there are already many extensions to the Yii framework available that make it viable. I think last time I looked at this was shortly before 7.0.2 came out, so the idea got a bit of a reprieve with the 7.0.2 release.

Of course it is much easier to just wait until you finish yours - lol

/DM

socialengine.net is looking very promising...... They have an 8 year track record and the community is VERY active.....

If you're adventurous, Drupal can replicate most of Dolphin, though it will require some sanity. As someone who's done this, I know. I lost it.

What about JomSocial?  I've never used it, but it looks just as promising, if not moreso than socialengine.

I wish I had gone with SocialEngine...  This software is crap.   It'll never be ready.  The amount of money I have spent on this software and mods makes me sick.  I chose this because I thought it was cheaper to get into.  I was a fool.  Forums SUCK.  They should have been rebuilt from scratch.  It is AJAX masturbation. Oh look at how much AJAX I can jam into something.  Aren't I awesome.

And just unpredictable stuff too.  Sometimes when I click on Page Builder the blocks have reordered themselves.  Sometimes they are fine.

And the market here is a freaking joke.  And absolutely infuriating.  There are some good developers here.  In fact, they could probably rebuild this program from the ground up 100x better than it is.

I can't stand the business model either.  The agents concept is nonsense.  I don't like asking for support when my agent just sends me to developers that I have to pay for.

Suffice it to say that I will be switching as soon as I can afford to.  So count me in when you guys develop your own.  I'm dying to get out from under this mill stone.

Though I guess this means I'll be banned from the forums.  Awwwww.

I've never been a fan of Joomla!. It annoys me for some reason.

It is AJAX masturbation.

Priceless.

LOL - I feel the same way about Drupal

Totally Agreed. A perfect description.

/DM

I agree with you all, this company has been promising for years now and we still have unfinished sites. I think they are spending more time on another software that they will not give away for free. I can't see how backers would keep giving to them if this is ALL they are creating to try to recoup their investors money back. Reminds me of the song "wasted days and wasted nights"

People certainly have every right to take a vacation, but there is no doubt that this forum has gone downhill, and that we all now live in terror of what ever the next "announcement" will be.  The only thing we can know for certain is that it won't be to our advantage, and may cause us a huge amount of harm.  I am glad they are letting this post stand for the moment but the new censorship policy is appalling.  I am sorry to be losing Skyforum because he was working on a "real world" site and that is the kind of member who should get the most attention.  Everything I have seen so far seems to indicate that Boonex has lost interest in D7 and instead is working on some future version - whatever the most recent name is.   It is too bad, this could have been a world class product.

Wow!  I'm surprised this thread hasn't been wiped out.  Until it is, I'll also throw in my two bits.

I run about a dozen sites.  Included in these sites are two abk-soft sites, two social engine sites, and two dolphin 7 sites.

I've also thoroughly examined every other dating and social networking script out there.

Regardless of the bugs and issues that still need to be ironed out, I totally believe that Dolphin 7 is the best.

This is why I choose to use Dolphin 7 for my most active site.  It's not because I can't afford better, it's because I believe this is the best...even not being perfect it is still the best.

And when Dolphin 7.0.3 comes out this month, hopefully making things a bit faster, I will be even further convinced.

One of my dolphin 7 sites is now averaging 3,000 visitors a day and everything is currently working great.  So why do so many people here think they have to have every single minor bug completely and perfectly resolved before they can go public with their sites.  Maybe I'm crazy but I just don't get all the complaining.  Sure Boonex might not be giving 100% of their time to this product, but you show me a software company that is.  Everybody's got their hands in multiple cookie jars (including myself).

Epic thread is epic.

Leave that with those number image boards.

People dwell on small / single issues opposed to the 100s of things that Dolphin does right.  I fully support Dolphin and think it is a great piece of software!

I have had few issues with Dolphin, thanks in part to a proper setup and a lack of third party modifications (stability is key). I agree, it's a powerful script, and nothing tops it in feature count, but some of these concerns are legitimate. There are features that work nowhere near properly, and the support offered is limited to the few who dare to post on these forums. The agent system is flawed so heavily, that it ceases to function, except for those few miracle moments.

I agree...  I think the agent system was screwed when I first saw that "tickets" are nothing more than an Boonex in-site Emails.  No real way to track progress and keep up with replies such as a real help desk would have.  Never mind response time...

There are definitely flaws that need attention and for the people who would not use those features, Dolphin would be awesome for them!  For the people who want to use them... definitely sucks.

No question that this software is not for everybody.  For those who need a lot of help, it would probably be better to pay a for a "not so good" script from another provider that offers total and complete support through a ticket system.

But for those of us who want the best, and can figure out "most" things ourselves, Dolphin is definitely "it".

As for the agent system, I've actually had some pretty good experiences with my agent.  However, most of my issues have been resolved through the awesome support I've received from these forums.

I will not post my thoughts on Dolphin, else the thread WILL get deleted.

I think that the issues is mainly perception - the product is 'sold' as a fully working, fully featured product, and therefore peoples expectations are that, this is what it should be. It is also a premium product - meaning that it will cost you money to own and run it - even if you are using the 'free' version, it is not actually free to own / use. The end result is that there is an expectation that as a premium product it should have premium support, an expectation that is clearly not met.

Nobody really bags Joomla or phpBB or whatever when they get a bug, this is simply as there is no expectation - it is free to use / run, and supported by volunteers. The bug gets reported, the volunteers fix it, it gets released. Even if such bugs never get fixed, people rarely complain - people simply accept that the project is no longer being supported.

Bugs with Dolphin, however, are much different. You pay to use the software (yes even the free version in most cases), and there is an expectation that it works, so you get annoyed when it doesn't. You report the bug(s), which either gets brushed aside as a feature, completely ignored or even when it does get addressed, does not get released in a timely manner.

If Dolphin wasn't marketed the way it is, perceptions would be different, and people would not be complaining about each and every bug.

It has been said before - that Dolphin is a beta product, and this I have to agree with. It is simply a shame that it is not sold as such. If it was, I doubt that there would be one single complaint.

02c/DM

My biggest gripe is there have only been 2 updates since d7 and tons of bugs just brushed aside.  And in a blog post as of late andrew mentioned D8 and Trident.  Come on man, look around at these other softwares.  The reason they have support is because they don't upgrade the core every year.  Joomla is still on 1.5, PHPfox just updated to 2.0.  This allows for developers to create the much needed support and mods that open source is supposed to breed.

I'm sorry boonex, but I am looking at other options now.  The lack of support and constant new releases just kill any type of reason why I would continue to use this software.

Lower the life boats.....

Is there anyone alive out there!? Can anyone hear me!?

Agree 100%

If you release something that has known BUGS in it - it is NOT a finished product

Trac always has bugs in it

GRRRRRR

I'm not getting drawn into this again.

It makes my blood boil...

It will never change, you can disappear for 2 years and then come back here and things will be exactly like they were when you left. (except that the version number will be different) .

On returning, at first things may appear to be different, as they will be dressed up in a different way, but the same issues will persist, the same complaints will be made about how the issues are handled, the same regulars will be in the forums complaining about how crap the support is, the same webmasters will be holding out, waiting for the magic version that will allow them to take their sites live, and the same core developers will be selling mods that should be core features.

As I know that this will be deleted - I've also posted this on my site - to prove a point. Come back and check in 2 years - It will be the same - I will stake money on it.

02c/DM

Boonex should put a 'hold' on there staff developing mods for the time being and get there staff (unencumbered with there private projects) to put some real time and effort into doing there job and resolving these issues.

I think the Dolphin script is excellent and one of the best out there, I feel these problems are more of a lack of Boonex management and needs to be addressed before it is too late.

Better yet, they shouldn't be developing for-pay modifications that are taken right from Trac.

Nuff said...

Agree'd.

Point in case - recent post in forums for help about Timezones.

Instant mod for sale by developer - yet there is already a ticket in Trac for it

The release for the fix in Trac has been pushed back until next feature release as it has been stated that it is too much work, yet the work has clearly already been carried out by the developer.

I would like to state this (this will please DosDawg)

Boonex. You've just removed a moderators status for a "conflict of interests"

In the ideal of fairness, you should also do the same to your developers.

Having set a precedence with DosDawg, I believe that you should now prevent any active developers from being able to post modifications.

/DM

"I believe that you should now prevent any active developers from being able to post modifications."

Agreed, but that will never happen, catch 22.

It's a rhetorical question, and yes, it puts Boonex in a rather interesting moral predicament.

I would love to see the outcome if this was enforced. It would show which devs truly care about the product.

/DM

This is a rather discouraging read, in the sense that everything stated has proven true in my experience.

I am embarrassed to say that the neat little dolphin video was enough for me to transition my production phpbb/wordpress site over to it almost immediately. Wow was that a bad idea!

Don't get me wrong, if all the features they claim to package this thing with actually worked or were supported, it would be one hell of a platform. It's unfortunate that they use the buzz words of a social network as a gimmick to suck you in, then let you get socked with high prices for modifications that should be included to begin with. I see a value in being able to purchase modifications, true modifications that extend the ability of the base platform, but I should not have to purchase an extension that fixes something that was broken with the base.

For a long time we have been very active in adding features to the default package and at some point it began working against us. So, we decided to slow down on features and bug-fix, up to the point when Dolphin, as it is, becomes very stable. There's no predicament or conspiracy behind it. I don't even look at what devs do as their personal mods, and always order things that need to be developed according to demand and "trends"/need. Developers produce their products from how, after they're done with their day work.

So, right now we are focused on fixing bugs and improving speed. This will continue for some time, and we'll only be adding features that are crucial for correct operation of the script. Report your specific issues or bugs and we will work on them, and will issue an updated version very soon.

I have previously posted my thoughts on Dolphin 7, saying that it is indeed, in some ways, based on old technology and approach, which keeps taking it's toll, and we are working on 2 things - better Dolphin 7 and a whole new Dolphin 8.

Now, we have tried lots of different products, including Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and many other and I can tell you that their "legendary quality" is a myth. They all have their flaws and Dolphin 7 has it's own strengths when compared. For an "out-of-the-box" community software it beats them as hands down and will only be getting better.

We have made our share of mistakes, both in coding and management, but we clearly see a path to fixing them.

I believe the issue people are having with this is that developers (employees) are treating tickets in Trac like an idea farm and are picking up all the tickets that will give them the most money are are releasing updates in the form of for-pay modifications. Some of these modifications have been features pushed back because they were claimed to be too difficult to integrate in the short-term, where this has now been shown otherwise. This goes down like paying extra for promised features, and rightfully has people upset.

There's nothing wrong with the developers releasing modifications that are original, but when it's needed enhancements and new features from Trac, then things change. To me, it produces a conflict of interests, as on one hand, they are suppose to incorporate these very same modifications into Dolphin, while on the other hand, releasing them through the market as for-pay modifications gives them extra money, all while these modifications remain out of Dolphin, meaning people have to continue to purchase from them for a specific feature or enhancement.

Take for example, that for some reason, you couldn't integrate Ray in time for Dolphin 7, and had to release it without Flash applications, but promised their return in the next update. Before the update, one of your developers successfully integrates Ray, but instead of releasing it as the promised update, they post it to the market and change money for it, meaning to get a promised feature, you now have to pay.

If this was a third-party developer's work, then nothing would be wrong with it, as they are not affiliated in any way with you. However, what we have in this situation are your own developers, who are on your payroll to develop this software, taking promised features for a next release and releasing them for pay.

I agree with this very much. I'm very new to Dolphin, but have been using other CMSs like Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, some dating apps like SkaDate, for years. When I found Dolphin and after installing on a test server and seeing it's potential I quickly chose it for two larger-scale clients of mine. For the most part, Dolphin stands out as great, but when you dive into it and start setting it up that's where the problems are found.

I've been posting asking about the YouTube embed issue and Desktop app failing to install for weeks. There are several threads on both of these and nobody seems to be able to offer a solid solution, but we sure can pay for a developer to sell us a bug fix when this is touted as an out-of-the-box feature. Now this far into developing the site for one client I have to choose between starting from scratch on my own dime because I chose the wrong software that's too immature for prime time, or hoping someone will post fixes for these as they're both pretty important to the site.

It's also very discouraging to send a message to an agent, and never hear anything back. No, I didn't pay for a license but once I see how crappy support is that pretty much guarantees I'll never pay or recommend anyone else to pay for it. There really is no way of support for Dolphin besides the occasional, useful post on the forums.

I have to chime in Andrew- Your statements regarding the WP/Joomla/Drup are a bit dated. Actually, way dated. I'm speaking as someone fluent in all 3, but I'll use the current offerings available (and most free) for Joomla as an example here. Your current line of thinking could very well be your downfall because lately, Joomla's ability to become everything (and then some) Dolphin is right now is staggering. No dependencies on remote servers, no attempts at encrypting anything, and sadly, 99.9% of it works right out of the box. They dont try to milk any $ out of support forums, especially for people trying to get corrections/variations for their specific situations, like some do. Everyone knows thats a waste of time nowadays because with a few google searches and the right utilities, that "valuable" support "information" thats being hidden behind member only forums is open for anyone to read, no matter the platform.

You need to keep up on whats going on around you to remain innovative because as someone who has, does, and will continue to see it all, I can say this: youre setting yourself up for a very hard fall if you rely on that line of thinking. Joomla and Jomsocial right now (Jomsocial is open source now) have the track on any of the social community softwares out there. Where you are shooting yourself in the foot moreso is anyone who has tried these "community" specific packages ends up learning more than they need to drop a Joomla/JS instlallation in, in minutes - no rooting through 20 different authors to get a simple task done. WP and Drup are slowly following suit.

You need to introduce a true package- and one that can be backed up by a solid working experience- not a nickel and dime setup where you leave features out and expect people to run a gauntlet of people asking for 20,50, 100$ for something you should have included in the first place because it IS a standard elsewhere. Nobody's going to pay for a uber premium package because you say it is- it has to BE one.

Hope you take some of this to heart because I wouldnt have said it if I didnt like, and want Dolphin to go somewhere. As a consumer, I go with what works and feel its at least a return gesture to speak up when theres alot at stake.

I am surprised to see this thread... Not because people have found mistakes about Dolphin & Boonex team but because of the way their thinking direction is.. This has generated more respect about Mr Andrew and the entire Boonex team in my eyes.. One needs to have a heart of gold and steel at the same time, to allow such kind of criticism openly on their platform..

I would laugh at people who says that there are product without flaws.. I am using Dolphin long enough now, to be able to make a statement, that its the best product in its class, not just for its flexibility but for the people behind it.. Keep going Boonex, I believe in your abilities to develop and improvise, as required..

All in all, I see some great pieces of wisdom and appreciate everyone's input. Like I said, we are working on Dolphin 7 (to make sure current users are happy) and Dolphin 8 (to make sure everyone is happy). Ideas and coding approach that we're taking in Dolphin 8 effectively address many of the raised concerns. See, it's not that we're not trying, in fact we're working our butts off to make D7 better, add features, reply to support queries, etc. And it works for many. And yes, it also fails for many.

Now, we have massive experience, great ideas, some very promising code, and high hopes to deliver a revolutionary product. AT the same time we have a huge customer-base - people that work with current product and we realise that we need to keep them afloat.

Well, again, thank you for everyone who cared to post, even if feeling dissatisfied.

Thanks Andrew!

Thank You..

It is insulting to think that instead of working on fixing the product you've sold us, you're working on another version.  How can ANYONE be working on 8 when you are only on 7.0.3????  Get to 7.0.4 and release 8 and have the same problems?  This shows a critical flaw in the way you think of your customers.  AND how you think of 7. You never should have released it.

I've worked extensively with WP and I have built more than 2 dozen WP sites.  Some full cms, some just blog.  I have NEVER experienced the problems you're talking about. Open forums, respected user base, actual help from the developers.  Support that doesn't nickel and dime you to death.

Seriously, the fact that there are problems with this, people put in tickets and then they end up as paid "mods"?  That is infuriating.

Being told that for support I should ask my agent and then have my agent send me programmers to be paid????  And yeah I paid programmers for things I would have done myself with a little help. Because I was desperate.  I never should have been put in that position.  I've gladly paid programmers for various things that I couldn't do myself, but these are core things that should have been done.

Time zones?  Seriously?  $25?  Wow.  The forums?  They never should have been released.

Frankly I should have known better.  When a development team stops at 6.1 and moves on to 7 it shows they have no interest in developing a more solid project, merely selling people on something "new" and flashier.  And it sounds like that is exactly what you are planning.

So you say repeatedly you are the best.  These problems alone show you aren't even close.  The product is only a portion of that...

Thanks Andrew,

and farewell Skyforum! You was a great help here!

Derrick

I agree with RCnorm - Boonex should be working on getting D7 to be great, before they start working on another version.  If there are new features and structures in "D8" then they should be added incrementally to D7 so we all get the advantages of them.  The industry is moving too fast for another "big bang" product introduction - you have a working product - you should just keep making it better and better.

Developers doing the mods is a huge conflict of interest.  You really should look at the whole mod list and decide which should be a part of the base product.   The page control mod and RPX integration (OpenID, Facebook, Google, etc) come to mind, as is a "select membership and pay on join" if there is one.  The problem is that now there are getting to be multiple mods for the same function that maybe should have been in the product - and we will now all have a big configuration control problem in using mods for basic functionality.

Oh, and please make the database join form and search functions work again like they did in D6.  Remember?  If you use a predefined values table on the join form, there is no way to have a null value, making both the join form and the search is dysfunctional.   I wrote a detailed blog post on this explaining the technical issues that was censored, and the Trac on it has been incorrectly labeled as "fixed".

I agree with you - CALTRADE

- Tis really important function - The search function is much used on our site

Google Analytics

1. /             - 59 445 page views

2. /member.php - 27 832

3. /mail.php?mode=inbox - 27 370

4. /video/all/10/1 - 23 131

5. /index.php - 19 537

6. search.php? alt=1 - 17 422

7. /search.php - 14 547

I never saw myself as much help here. If I did help, it was by accident (lol). Thanks for the compliment.

I do see happening here what I have seen many times before. Many projects started, none completed and too many sticks in the fire.

Whenever I size someone up, I look at their accomplishments. Incomplete projects, no matter how exciting or cutting edge they are just don't count. It's like being in the lead in a foot race only to stop just short of the finish line because you want to enter a swimming contest next door.

No one remembers who won second place.....

DeeEmm,

indeed, and this was discussed at length when there were mods being released for Dolphin 7 when we were running the beta version. those mods were eventually pulled. i have said that having lead developers on the project, releasing paid modules was a bad idea from the beginning.

i have been told that they do that work on their own time, and is not a conflict with developing for the core application, which in essence is BS, because they all work from home, so if they are working from home, exactly what is considered to be their time, and what is considered boonex time, and how is that monitored.

I concur, but it will never happen. remember the rules i stated on the blog? refer to rule 1 :)

Regards,

DosDawg

LOL - That made me think of one of my mates kids. At their school, when playing sports, they teach that there are no winners or losers. What kind of life skills does this teach? Maybe it's just a sign of the times. Maybe I'm just not with it. No wonder Gen Y are a bunch of lazy asses.

In Australia we have a saying...

"She's a Gunner"

Loosely translated means "she promised she was going to do that"

It somehow seems fitting.

/DM

Why is D8 even being mentioned?  D7 was released in December if I remember correctly.  And 7.0.1 was released in may?  5 months to release an update that fixed a ton of little things.  If anybody did any custom coding (like me) it was lost due to the update.  This wouldn't be an issue if the updates fixed only 20 files...but 500 is another story.

People will be happier if you get D7 running properly before you take on D8.  No offense Andrew, but I feel as if I have wasted quite a bit of time and money in mods for something I'm just putting in the "well I tried" file.

I am hoping that many of the requested features that are currently available in the market as 'purchaseable mods' will be incorporated by Boonex and not continue to be withheld because of other monetary considerations, whatever they may be.

If you would like an example, there is a thread that goes back a year ago where members have been inquiring about the ability for members to choose a membership type when they sign up and based on that membership type, the profile fields change.

It was promised in 7.1 and never delivered. In the course of researching this item, I came across a dozen other examples where members for over a year have been requesting core functions that are currently available as purchaseable mods.

As many have stated herein, instead of working on a new version you should clear out tickets and the customer base requests first.

Boonex provided a clear update path from D6 to D7, and will no doubt do the same for D8. So in fairness to Boonex they cannot be held responsible for the integrity of mod developers, who do not provide updates to their mods. If you run a relatively clean Dolphin install, the upgrade is pretty painless (bugs and issues aside). Installation of mods will always involve a risk when it comes to updating, and this should always be a consideration for modded sites.

I think looking at how D6 was dropped, the same will be likely for D7 when D8 arrives. I for one think that it is a shame that the last few bugs in D6 were not addressed, as there are still many D6 users out there - These are people that decided not to update to D7, but retain D6 as they had too much to lose / too much invested in mods / etc. D6 seems like it was simply dropped. So close to being 'finished', but now permanently stuck with bugs still in Trac.

In most industries obsolescence is an accepted norm. What's the point of manufacturing an everlasting battery / light / whatever? You are simply cheating yourself out of future sales. However, in most cases, there is a legacy support period provided for old / NLA products. In Europe there are actually laws that relate to this legacy support period. For example, motor manufacturers have to provide spare parts for a period of 15 years after manufacture has ceased. This is in stark contrast to the planned obsolescence, period, which usually puts the useable life of a vehicle at 5 years.

In the case of D6 the legacy support could have been community provided, by making it a true open source product, by dropping the licensing and relinquishing control over to the community. Say a change in licensing for D6 - free with no Boonex banners, but maybe a less obtrusive 'powered by Boonex' link in the footer. Community contributed fixes could have then been integrated into the core to address the remaining bugs - perhaps also maintained by key community developers. This is still not too late to occur, and IMHO would bolster Boonex's appeal to the open source proponents.

This would make D6 a true open source project - much the same way that open office is based on older versions of Sun's proprietary 'Star Office'. Open Office is based on versions of Star Office that are approximately 6 months old. A perfect model for D6 / D7 / D8. Setting something like this up would be a good idea - both as a marketing tool, and as a way of shaping the community into something more akin to other Open Source communities.

I know Magnus has already commented on the misuse of the Open Source label.  Andrew also dodged my comment in his blog about the ability to remove licensing (allowable if Dolphin is an open source project). Setting up something along the lines mentioned above would go a long way towards achieving what it appears Boonex is trying - a commercial open source project. It seems that there is little value associated with D6 by Boonex, now that D7 is out, I say put it to better use.

Keep the new versions as a commercial product, release the old ones as open source.

02c/DM

For a long time now you would get somebody coming in very angry saying "boonex is a scam, they say its free but they rip you off for money blah blah ".. youde see it on related forums as you cruise about looking for dolphin related stuff too.

Now at the time, i guess you would be going back to D6, sure it didnt work properly, non of them ever did, and probably never will. But everything seemed above board, just badly done i guess. So the scam thing never really had any grounds...

Whats your point i hear you ask..

Well my point is this, developers taking ideas from trac, us being told they are too time consuming or too difficult to fix just yet, then see the same developers release them as paid mods. Mmmmmmm

Well its not really a bright idea is it with  "Boonex is a scam" still ringing in your ears.

and to say the developers are doing it in their own time is not the point, boonex seem to be forgetting one major point here, we, or most of us anyway are not ordinary punters, we are experienced webmasters who know the score....

Its stupid beyond belief to allow staff to work on private projects to sell on the after market because they WONT fix it at the core.

All this just makes me feel uncomfortable, at best...

Very well put. I think Boonex management are stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one because the developers won't give up there golden egg. BUT something needs to be done and soon.

Dolphin 7 is not going be dropped anytime soon. I have stated it before and will repeat again - Dolphin 7 will be supported, fixed and developed until Dolphin 8 is on par with Dolphin 7 feature-wise. This is not likely to happen even after a full year of D8's life.

As for developers - they do everything that's ordered for the next version, no matter if they have it as their mod or not. IN fact we had cases when we ordered a feature and developer just integrated his mod. We only push out feature requests to next versions when we think that there're bugs or issues that needs to be addressed before them. This is exactly what we are doing with Dolphin 7 now - 0.1, 0.2 and soon 0.3 are for the most part service updates.

And we will talk about D8, because we have had this bastard in works for about 5 years already, in different forms and eventually it MUST be born. D6 and D7 are here only because we still continue supporting the old platform, improving it and providing upgrade scripts. Nothing has changed here, except for we now really want to have the platform out.

great let's roll it out it's not like everyone if forced to jump on d8 right away

Ok Mr Boon. I feel like I am the one that placed this hot plate under your buns by starting this thread. For that, I do apologize but you must agree, there is much consternation in the ranks here.

Give us something to believe in. Pull your resources back from the other projects just for a short time and give us a 7.03 upgrade that is complete and works and give it to us in the next couple weeks. The fact that you are responding here tells me that you do understand the importance of this thread over all others.

Oh, one more point. I think the comments in this thread about developer created mods is a valid one. You need to make a change. If someone is a developer for Dolphin, then they should not be allowed to create mods for sale that are specifically designed to fix flaws in the script or are derived from something they saw in Trac.

You have a chance here to get things headed in the right direction. I do hope you avail yourself of it.

PS, I do like the recent site changes here. The forum also seems much faster and cleaner.

@Andrew - re: " IN fact we had cases when we ordered a feature and developer just integrated his mod".

Consider doing that with Anton's "page access control" mod- give him a fat bonus if you have to.  That has functionality I always thought should have been in the base product, and now there are several mods that do the same thing and we will have trouble keeping our sites configured if we pick the wrong one.  This would make D7 very powerful.

Also please consider giving us login/register functions from major services - Facebook, Google, OpenID - in one package - similar to what has been done with the RPX integration or with your WebHome.org project.  This industry is changing fast and we will need that.

Oh, and did I mention that your database join form and search functions don't work with D7 ? - hopefully you will get to that at some point also so our sites will work properly again.