Dolphin U is now Trident (again)

Andrew Boon posted 29th of December 2014 in Dolphin.pro News. 43 comments.

The name of the new platform has been bouncing back and forth quite a bit lately. Well, we thought we'd test your patience once again, hopefully cementing it once and for all. We are renaming Dolphin U to Trident. Moreover, we plan to move Trident downloads, support and discussion to another site soon. BoonEx will only be focused on Dolphin Pro. 

 

Dolpin and Trident

For many years we've been living the dream of launching the Next Big Thing, talking about it, showing bits and pieces. Exciting stuff for some, but for many developers in BoonEx Market and for many web-masters all this talk only brought confusion and distraction. A lot of clients would hold off purchases waiting for the release and worrying about Extensions upgrades and compatibility. Many would consider Dolphin a soon-to-be-outdated platform.

 

The new system, however, turned out to be rather different from Dolphin, both in form and in purpose. Dolphin, meanwhile, continued to improve and gather great selection of 3rd-party extensions. And so, we clearly see now that Dolphin has to become Dolphin Pro and continue as a flagship BoonEx product, further improving. 

 

In order to avoid any distraction, we're going to move all the Trident talk to another website. It would still be a BoonEx property, but without a lot of exposure on BoonEx.com website. 

 

We will still honour the licensing promise, giving all commercial Dolphin licence holders the right to download any BoonEx-made Trident extensions for free. 

 

In short term we plan to launch a couple of more Trident alphas (here at BoonEx) and then the first beta at another site (TBA). 

 

Mid-term, we'll be releasing a major Dolphin Pro upgrade, as promised and then full release of Trident. Next Dolphin would have a new licensing policy.

 

Long-term, we're hoping to be able to bring the best ideas from Trident to Dolphin and most needed features of Dolphin to Trident. As soon as the gap is small enough, we'll be working on two-way migration scripts. 

 

Consider it our New Year resolution. 

 

Happy Holidays!

 

 
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prince64717
i am like waiting for dolphin U from like more than 6 months ..and i already have prime license ..since u guys renaming dolphin U to trident and moving to other website...plz confirm ..
are we going to get prime license features for boonex trident or not ..or we have to buy prime license again to use trident product ??

p.s its a bad idea to create seperate site ...better create seperate page and new forum in this site...
seperate site means u starting from group up..which will take atleast a see more year with lots of user feedback to build up the reputation on internet...new license feature will stop many ppl to moving from d pro to trident..
Andrew Boon
Current Prime license will cover Trident completely. Whatever licensing we'd come up with, you won't have to pay BoonEx anything else to use Trident and BoonEx-made extensions on your Prime-licensed site.
moonsoon2u
Seriously? Common guys now you owe me 2 licenses instead of 1. Earlier you said dolphin pro new release will be in Aril now you taking it to end of next year. Seriously I think I wasted my money here. No confirm time frame no confirm ideas no confirm commitment . Just hopping here n there.
Andrew Boon
Sorry if I confused you. There's no change of plans for around-April timeframe for Dolphin Pro update. If anything these new changes should free up some time for us, because we wouldn't have to change a lot at BoonEx.com.
moonsoon2u
Plz before you release the full Trident, would you like to do some thing about the dolphin app? cause now we at boonex are only concerned about when dolphin is going to upgraded and when the app is going to be rebranded. You can keep testing the Trident project on side line but plz make the dolphin up to date for the current needs of users.
Andrew Boon
yes, we do plan to update Dolphin PRO and both mobile apps before Trident release. The work will commence after the first Trident BETA.
houstonlively
I like the name much better than Dolphin U. I can certainly see logical reasons for giving Trident it's own home. It will probably give Trident it's best environment for growth in popularity, when it doesn't have to live in the shadows of Dolphin Pro.

A few questions: Will the user database here on boonex.com be transferred to the Trident website or be synchronized? Will the member database for the Trident site begin anew? Will there be a unified login system?

A little more detail on see more how you envision the Dolphin Pro and Trident licensing servers working together, or separately, would make good fodder for all the hungry animals
Andrew Boon
At this stage we plan to NOT move the user-base from BoonEx to the new site and we will NOT be sharing logins either. The new site would be powered by Trident, too and would start anew.

As for Extensions, licenses, etc. - all that would just check back to Boonex.com servers, as it does now. Trident-based sites have Extensions storefront built-in, also checking back to Boonex.

So, for new web-masters everything should look and work pretty straightforward. They download from the new site, there's see more not need to license the core system, they can buy/download Extensions from within their Studios.

For Dolphin users that have a paid license, the site would check back with BoonEx and would show all BoonEx-made Extensions as free for that domain.

At some stage we might have to create a separate Market for Trident, but it doesn't have to happen very soon.
newton27
Great idea; I hope this takes care of the confusion for a lot of members that didn't grasp the name changes.
TravelNotes
Great news to end the year on.
xeluan
I´m a little bit confused! This means there will be 2 versions of dolphin? On the one hand Trident and on the another hand Dolphin Pro? Anyway, I have checked the new code of Dolphin U alpha and now I´m really confused. It seems that dolphin U alpha code based on Dolphin 7.1.4. That´s right? If so, why you have made this decision? I hoped, the new dolphin is more modular, more flexible, especially for developers. There is no using of unit testing or BDD. You make no use of namespaces! (really??). see more There is no modern, scalable and robust architecture! There is no API for 3rd-Party plugins or services. And now I ask: WHY? There are any reasons, why you release a "brandnew" dolphin after YEARS of work with an old and unflexible architecture? I really want to use dolphin, but there is absolutely no advantage why I should use Dolphin U or Trident or Dolphin Pro, right?
Andrew Boon
Not 2 versions of Dolphin. Just one Dolphin and one Trident. They are rather different and need their separate homes and separate names. How different? Think OS X and iOS different. One has more features and is more capable, but requires a more knowledgeable operator. Another one does fewer things, does only some of them better and is more user-friendly. It just depends of your needs and on who you are.
xeluan
Many thanks for your reply Andrew. Now I understand it better. But which of them will have a better code basis and code quality? Dolphin Pro or Trident? I think for all developers it´s important to know how you develop Dolphin Pro. Do you use the base of Dolphin 7.1.4? It´s a complete new engineering process? Which technical benefits we will have after using Dolphin Pro or Trident? It would be very helpful if you can give me more explanations about this. Thanks in advance!
xeluan
Andrew, can you give us some additional informations about technologies you will use in Dolphin Pro and Trident? I think it´s not only important for me to know how I can use Dolphin Pro technically. Dolphin 7.1.4 still now has not a good and modular architecture. It´s very hard to extend it without touching the dolphin code, you understand what I mean? What do you have planned about this very important requirement?
AlexT
Development process of Trident is covered here:
http://www.boonex.com/n/security-and-code-quality-enhancements-in-dolphin

Development of Dolphin Pro has almost no changes from the development of Dolphin 7.1, but we will use the best principles from Trident over the time.
So when does this come out
Well done!!!
Another fucked up cms!
I spent 200+ USD on Dolphin, i can say it was a mistake!
Your problem, as far as i see, you lost your vision! No clear goals!
RIP Boonex
houstonlively
You high rollers drive me crazy. How to you guys come up with these monumental sums of money?
Can we trust Trident??
Which reason for this move?
1. you do not like what you have done with Trident and you put it on another site to not bother your actual business
2. You do not think that Trident can become Dolphin 8 so you put it on another site.

At the end your communication is so confusing ! Dolphin is not outdated and you call it a pro version. Sorry guys, but moving to another engine.
geek_girl
So the plan at this time is to not copy the user base to the new site. However, you may want to give some considerations to those who have been contributors to Dolphin all these years. Asking them to pay another fee to be able to post; and thereby assist users who have problems or questions with Trident, might not be the kindest thing to do. Also, asking developers who have helped build the Dolphin marketplace to once again pay to help build the Trident marketplace may not be the kindest thing see more to do and may make some developers reluctant to building Trident modules.
houstonlively
I must have missed the part where he said everyone would have to pay to use the site..
Andrew Boon
I assume you're concerned about the "paywall" that we use here at BoonEx - the $5 one time fee to allow posting comments and forums posts. That's been introduced to ward off spammers and is not collected from anyone making any paid order from us. So far we do not plan to introduce it at the new site and if we ever do, we would find the way to weave it to any "advanced" Boonex.com members, that's for sure.
Nathan Paton
I think people are still confused about some things, so let me restate what Andrew and some others have said:

1. Dolphin U has been renamed to Trident to avoid confusion with the original Dolphin. The fact is, the codebase is becoming more different, and Trident is not necessarily backwards compatible. Furthermore, while Dolphin is optimized for social networking and other community sites, Trident is pretty bare and more of a core right now. This will eliminate the confusion a lot of people had see more that Dolphin U (now Trident) will be an upgrade for existing Dolphin sites. It won't.

2. Dolphin's next release will have the product renamed to Dolphin Pro. There is no new secret product here, it's just a new name to highlight how advanced the script is, especially when 7.2 is released. The license change only means that free users (those who do not have a license) will need to buy some of the more popular BoonEx-made extensions, while users with a license or Prime are completely unaffected. Depending on how much all the extensions combined will cost, it's indeed likely that buying a license now will save you some money. It's also possible that if you only need one or two extensions, you could save a lot of money over the current license price. So I feel this works out for everyone.

Pushing Trident off to another site is a good thing, I feel, as it means Dolphin will remain the focus here. This is where the establishment is, and this is where new users and developers all hang out. Trident having its own site and community means there won't be any competition, and hopefully it'll allow BoonEx to further take Trident into a direction of its own. It's an excellent core that can be extended into pretty much anything, so it has a lot of potential. But when it comes to social networks and communities, nothing beats Dolphin. Hopefully this will keep people from waiting around to start their new site, when Dolphin is already here and is a mature product with thousands of extensions.
Andrew Boon
Thank you, Nathan! Well explained. Also, I'd like to add that Dolphin's "PRO" moniker would also imply that Dolphin generally requires some level of technical proficiency, but at the same time offers more flexibility. Trident, however, by design may not sit well with idea of code customisation. It would be much better to just play with Extensions, Templates and their options, without diving into the code.
The licenses have disappeared in my account please help! Ive tried to message u
Nathan Paton
Your licenses should be here: http://www.boonex.com/market/licenses

Note that free licenses (not Standard or Prime) no longer work and wouldn't qualify as having a license these days. If a paid license is missing, open a ticket here: http://www.boonex.com/help/contact
malpa
Questions for BOONEX TEAM:

Please tell me:
1. What is the difference between Dolphin and Trident (I mean from the customers' point of view)? For whom the Dolphin is recommended and for whom - Trtident?
2. Do you have enough power to develop Dolphin and Trident both? Or the Dolphin is a dying project from now? It's impossible to develop for one man 2 scripts at one time: so, do you have 2 teams?

We build large websites and we (customers) should know the future of the Dolphin for 1-23 years see more ahead.
phan
they dont have one man, boonex is a team. they have more than 5 people.
malpa
Read my 1st sentence, please: "Questions for BOONEX TEAM".

I had in mind (when I wrote "It's impossible to develop for one man 2 scripts ") that Bennex Team must be separated on 2 camps: Dolphine Camp & Trident Camp.
kumpleto
I've always thought that's the reason why Dolphin takes ages to update and upgrade, lol
AlexT
1. Dolphin is full featured community site, while Trident is limited in functionality and available modules but more modern, mobile friendly and some experimental features.

2. Since Trident is evolution of Dolphin, they have a lot of the same code. So some features just need to be transferred from one Trident to Dolphin.
daihlo
Andrew, this all sounds positive to me.
The only thing I would suggest consideration would be to have strong links between boonex.com (dolphin) and 'other site' that would host Trident.
If you're not thinking to migrate the users, then at least make a join login...
Complete separation would make life difficult for your long term Dolphin community to keep on top of both scripts - which Im sure they would want to.

I personally have very limited time between family, life, work and personal see more online projects, so tend to limit myself to only a few websites - especially those that are community based as Boonex is, and I expect 'trident host' would be.

complete separation while I imagine you have your reasons for wanting, I think also has some very strong negatives for the community here.

Other than that, looking forward to seeing both scripts develop.
Andrew Boon
Good call. Yes, there will have to be a strong link, but we can't foresee particulars just yet. One potential source of action that we're pondering now is launching the new site as "invitation only" (lucky we have this Invites module in Trident already) and inviting BoonEx folk to register.

Joined login is a little tricky and potentially cumbersome, but at this stage I won't rule out some kind of bridge.
The licenses have disappeared in my account please help!
prince64717
when new alpha will come out..are u guys planning to group module...
and in org module ..are we going to have different option like ..what type of org is that ..is it a company or college ..or any other type or org..
prince64717
ok category for org is there...we still need group module..
DeanMonte
So just to be clear here. If your a commercial license holder, your able to download Trident for free, does that also include the removal of boonex logo, links etc...?
okiewardoyo
I have registered in boonex since 2009, after using it for almost 2 years, i go to another engine becouse i confuse with this unstable and bad architecture, then i was not active in this community. Many years after not active, i login again, and still confuse :)
 
 
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