Top "Row" Added to Pages Builder (and the new Profile Cover is using it)

Andrew Boon posted 9th of June 2015 in Dolphin.pro News. 24 comments.

The "add new row" feature for Pages Builder has been requested more than once, but we hesitated mostly because directly adding rows always seemed like a sure way of breaking layouts. Still, there are situations when something like a row is needed. 

 

For Dolphin Pro 7.2 we have examined a number of potential situations when extra row may be useful and almost always it is for the top of the page and full-width (no multiple columns within that row). So, to keep things simple and to get the job done we've just added an extra full-width "column" to the top of every page in Pages Builder. If you don't need it, just keep it empty. If you do need it - throw blocks into it. 

 

This way you can now quickly and easily add things like cover-blocks, ads, navigation, breadcrumbs, feature-blocks, etc. to the top of the page.

 

For example, we've used this new feature to create the new Profile Cover block which sits on top of normal profile columns, and includes cover image, profile photo and profile navigation:

 

 

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paansystems
things come along nicely! your are on the right way guys, keep on track!!
moonsoon2u
Will it work for forums post view as well? cause we don't have it in page builder :/
AlexT
Forum is the different software integrated into Dolphin, so there is no page builder there, also it uses AJAX navigation instead of regular page reload like on other pages in Dolphin.
gsicard
The Forum needs some serious work to bring it up to par with other forum systems like phpbb, vbulletin, SMF, etc. The Orca Forum is the only part of Dolphin that I really don't like at the moment. I wish there was an easy way to integrat SMF or phpBB with Dolphin.
Dezzy
So if you can find reasons to add a top row...why not also a bottom row?
TravelNotes
You can. Add full column goes top or bottom; or top and bottom. http://demo.boonex.com/
geek_girl
Well, I would have given it a thumbs down, dislike, but I don't see the dislike button. 20 people may like it but 20000 may dislike it.

There is Prashanks module so I guess that can be used for a true add row feature and I already allow my users to do a profile cover using the existing block. This new 7.2 release is probably going to be a nightmare for existing 7.1.x users that have sites that uses the avatar module and has other things that Boonex is going to screw up.

By the way, photos see more are still rectangle so what is this circles for photos? The last time I looked, my camera takes rectangle photos, not circular ones.

7.2 may see me ending my support for Dolphin; meaning I want be coming into the forums and giving my valuable time to Boonex; not when Boonex is doing such things to Dolphin that means I stop at 7.1.6.
Dezzy
Or 20000 people may like it and only 20 may dislike it...but who knows...
Andrew Boon
7.2 update is not going to be disruptive at all. Rows is builders are pretty harmless, since all the do is adding a pre-configured site-wide column to the builder, which you can use to add blocks to. Keep it empty and it's work same as 7.1.

Rounded profile pics are released through CSS. Just change the corner radius and they're back to square. We're using rounded profile thumbnails because this is currently the most popular way of displaying "people" in social networks, contacts lists see more software, chats, etc. It serves as a quick indicator of this being a "person". They are becoming quite conventional, so we believe that Dolphin should adopt this trend. Again, it is VERY easy to change this back to square, rounded square, or whatever. It's just CSS. Photos are still kept as square/rectangular originals.

Avatars - we are yet to get to that point, but generally the plan is to keep Avatars module functionality, but switch to Photos as a default way of serving avatars. Just making it more intuitive for users - too often people get confused on why Avatars aren't served from Profile Photos and why they have a different interface. Once we update uploaded and add cropping tool to all pictures, Avatars would be easy to create from them.

So, all in all, even though on surface 7.2 will seem very different, you will see that under the hood it's nearly the same as 7.1. We don't expect any serious compatibility issues with most Market extensions/modules/mods/templates to occur either.

Cheer up! It an evolutionary update. We all could use a little bit of a fresh look and extra interest from newcomers.
TravelNotes
Nice clarification, Andrew.

I wasn't sure about this (circle profile pics and profile cover) when I viewed sites that have upgraded, but it's growing on me and we can always turn the features off, as you have pointed out.

Avatars vs Photos has always confused me, so look forward to that just being photos. Cropping tool will be awesome.

Soon time to freshen it up our end..... and see what breaks.
geek_girl
Just did a 7.1.6 upgrade to 7.2.0 and it is a nightmare with all the crap changes to 7.2. Which is why I haven't try this for years. Everything is breaking just like I knew it would. Having to crawl through the sql.sql and removing things that never should have been added.
newton27
Your getting to be as bad at bitching as Houston.
houstonlively
I've always thought I was pretty good at bitching .
badass
This is great, however, Prashank's solution has layout issues when creating 3 columns below the single row. Have you guys solved this problem, or did you know this problem currently exists?
Prashank25
I doubt the new inbuilt solution will have any of those problems. My mod was done in a midnight and haven't found the urge to work on it since then :/
mrtn
Looking good. The only thing is, why did you not start much earlier with those changes? And is there a release date? Or could you split the release into 7.2A and B so we could start with what is finished of the changes? I cant wait to have a good looking and working responsive dolphin.
Andrew Boon
We have a had a long delay due to active Trident development. Now that we're back to Dolphin this should be a normal pace. Release date isn't set yet, but we have a rather small list of things that we plan to do before the first beta, so not too long now. Your suggestion about splitting the updates is perfectly relevant - we had a much larger TODO list initially and separated it into 3 consecutive releases (7.2 - 7.3 - 7.4).
Skamadix
is there possibility to give more importance for the timeline or a wall like FB for example, because since two years i have your platform and all what i saw is peoples running after the 3rd party to get a nice wall, till now we can use IBDW wall for much money!!!!
yes we need boonex dolphin with "walls" groups, pages , homepage, profile....
when I see socialengine which its not better then you, have a nice wall system and nice display of photos (grouping) all ppls posts, only groups posts, see more only pages........ i want to cray
TravelNotes
Had a play around with this on the demo site. Why is called 'Add Full Column' and not 'Add Row'? http://demo.boonex.com/

As for the profile photo in Cover, would it be possible to move its position; say upper right corner?
 
 
Below is the legacy version of the Boonex site, maintained for Dolphin.Pro 7.x support.
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