A set of bored questions that I need to ask...

Hi all,

this is my first post, so I just introduce my self :-)

I am Giovanni, 27 yo, and I am interested to build a social network.

... Ok, not the best summary, but I do not want you guys to get bored :P

First of all, I want to say "nice to meet you" and congratulate with the boonex team.

I had the chance to install, on a virtual machine, the latest version of Dolphin and, later, the version 7 RC2, on a Ubuntu 9.10 based LAMP platform.

I didn't have problems to run the scripts; the only problem that I have encountered is something related with the permalinks; I hade to disable them, cause my mod_rewriting module appears to be misconfigured (still I have to check it).

Moreover, I didn't have a lot of time to play with the Dolphin platform; I have just tried something with the release 6, but, when I checked th availability of the 7th, I cleaned my environment to install the latest RC.

In these 2-3 days, I have collected a lot of questions about the product and I would like to share them with you.

I want to advance to you guys that my wish is to migrate my PHPBB3 based community (2400 users) to a social network platform. I want to do that cause I do not have time anymore to manage my website; it's a phpbb3 "integrated" website; this means that I used the phpbb3 login functions to integrate a full 100% php based website developed by myself.

It was a tricky work cause I am able to let users to charge video (300-400 mb) on a very limited webhosting service.
I do not have the ffmpeg module installed, so every convertion to flv is made manually.
I am modifying it step by step in order to make it closer to a social network, but the work is too much, and I need something that can be managed trough an administration panel, in order to give the permissions to my moderators to use it.

So, you know the situation and now come the questions :-)

1) How do you think its easy to migrate the database metadata informations from PHPBB3 (and custom tables) inside the dolphin tables?
I do not have problem to get the metadata from my database (videos, photos, articles...) but I do not know how much is complicated to insert this informations inside the dolphin db structures (moreover I have to link the metadatas to the real resources, like jpeg photos, flv videos....).
In addition, the thing that worries me more, it's the chance to fully migrate PHPBB3 to the ORCA forum.

2) What about the multi language?
I know there is a panel to add custom labels; the problem is that I didn't found a way to import new pre-defined languages inside Dolphin; I mean: dolphin comes with english language by default; I can understand that if i want to add new custom fields to the user profile, I have to add new labels (in english and in the other languages that I want). But If I had to translate all the basics platform, this starts to be difficult. So, there is a chance to import other standard language package (downloading them from this site)?

3) Version 6 vs 7.
Once I installed the version 7, I saw that all the video modules, image gallery.... were not inside dolphin anymore.
Maybe I have to install them from the plugin panel?
When I installed the 6th, they were already inside, even if from the plugin panel I saw they were not; is it a bug?

4) Version 7th template.
I have read that the template management in the 7th version is different from the 6th; so that's why I wanted to start directly with the 7th, in order to do not have to rebuild the templates for my website in a second time.
But I didn't find a complete guide to customize the template.
My idea is to apply this template (more or less) www.pescasubacquea.net/index.php?lang=it to the dolphin platform; do you think is something possible (without going crazy)?
So for example, how long it will take for me to just put the main menu vertically, instead of horizontal?

6) facebook like wall?
Even if dolphin it's a social network platform, I didn't find a main wall, like the facebook one, in which you can read informations like "guy has commented the pic of other guy", "guy has posted a video"...
This kind of wall is something that makes users crazy, and I would like to have something similar (in my website I had to develop it by my own).
So, is there a way to have it (maybe an existing plugin)?

7) There is a way to modify the videos convertion parameters?
In order to provide an HD resolution to the uploaded videos, there is  the chance to setup the parameters of the convertion functions used by dolphin? (and images too obviously)

Would be great to have it in the administration panel.

8) what kind of support will I have buying the prime license?

I mean; if something goes wrong, can I count over people who will fix the problems or I will have to do it by my own?

9) once I buy the prime license, it will be valid for the next dolphin version also (installed in the same domain)?

Viewing how many versions has been quickly relased, I would not like to buy something who will be obsolete in 2 months.

Now comes the last question.
Obviously, in order to choose the best platform, I need to surf the web, collecting comments in order to find the best solution.
I do not know if you guys have read some of them, but I will do a small resume.

People think (me too) that dolphin is the most complete social network platform tha can be found now, but it comes with several problems:

1) very difficult to customize: I took a look to the code and I have to say that I almost agree with this. People say that the developers have build the platform with a strange developing way, that makes people crazy when they have to modify the code.
2) No documentation: I agree with this too, cause surfing the website, I didn't find a complete documentation and, moreover, there is no separation between all the dolphin versions.
For example, I have seen that the templates documentation is related to the version 7 (that is still an RC!)
3) No stable version: people says that boonex developers are releasing new versions quickly, without taking care of the bug fixing that the previous releases need.

This is just what I have found, and I would like to discuss it cause, obviously, if I will decide to go for the prime license of dolphin, I do not want my community to be in danger. Till now, beeing the only one developer, I had the situation under control; I would not like to migrate and then face irreversible problems.

I hope you will not think to what I've just said like a way to push you guys down. I just want to find reasons and convince myself that go for dolphin should be the best choice.

Thanks a lot for yout time.

Giovanni

Nobody's there? I really need to get some answers in order to decide wheather to go for dolphin or not.

Thanks.

Hello Giovanni,

I am in a similar boat as you and I'm finding that Boonex doesn't respond to basic questions like this at all. I have such queries out and I'd think these are basic requirements for dolphin to be part of something bigger, but they appear to concentrate on folks who are starting from scratch and so should not need to modify the code at all (or maybe it is a service play after all).

I went through join.php and member.php and the code is hopelessly complex for such basic operations and it appears to be deliberately obfuscated in order to generate job opportunities.

In any case, I'm still trying to decipher it (no community support!) and building a batch mode php to pick information from my database and invoke something from join.php to add the info to dolphin database. Not easy since all POST values etc that need to be set are amazingly obscured.

If I'm not able to do it in another week or so, I'll walk away and I'm sure that has happened to others which is why a software with such an awesome feature list is so limited in adoption.

Did you go into Tool -> Modules in the admin. The modules are there. You select which ones you want installed.

There is a wall, videos, groups, forums, sounds, facebook connect, and a ton of others.

The code is structured a bit weird, and i have to agree, i also have a hard time following it. I am old school classless php developer so dealing with all this classing of everything slows me down. I am not used to it. The coding methods used here are far more advanced.

There are no guides for template development.

If you look at the main boonex webpage they are not even offering D7 yet. It is still a release canidate which meens it's not finished. But even when it is there will not be much for docs. D6 did not have much either.

To enable mod rewrite on Ubuntu which is not enabled on default installs of ubuntu you need to turn it on by issuing the command sudo a2enmod rewrite then restart apache.

A PHPBB3 intergration of dolphin has not been written by anyone for D7 yet. As i said, D7 is new and is not out for public release yet.

Video quality has been recently discussed in the forums. So it can be improved.

1.  phpBB3 will fully integrate into dolphin and users can be exported from Dolphin to phpBB3, a simply look at the SQL will enable doing this in reverse order.  From there all members will join the Dolphin site and automatically be added to the phpBB3 and they will utilize the same Database.  Trust me when I say you don't want to take your forum form phpBB3 to Orca, that would be a huge step backwards. 

2.  If you go to expertzzz.com you can pick up language files for most languages for an insignificant fee.  These will translate the majority of your site and then you simply have to deal with the new Language Keys that you add beyond basic Dolphin.  Sounds like you already have phpBB3 translated, so this would be only Dolphin that needs it.

3.  Once D7 is installed, you then have to install the Plug-Ins as an after the fact item.

4.  This depends upon your coding skills.  If your a beginner it can take you a very long time, if you well versed in php then it can be done pretty quick.  There is no template modification manual as of yet for D7, it's still in RC versions and nothing is set in stone.  Beyond that, all of us are still learning it so it's difficult to make the call on.  I do know that Dolphinmods has already done a new template as have a few other people.

5.  Take another look at the Wall function of D7, I think you'll be surprised at what it does.  Many of us already have thi functionality inside of d6.

6.  You'll get 3 installs and support of the basic Dolphin package, Boonex does not support customization you do to the site. 

7.  Prime license is a lifetime license.  It's not attached to a version, instead it's attached to your domain.  You may update as many times as you like, however keep in mind Boonex will only do 3 installs and there is a time limit on this, not sure what the time limit is.

*****

Next set, same as the first.

1.  Dolphin is not difficult to customize.  While it's templates are designed differently than most CMS's, it's actually easier once you learn the hiearchy of the files and how everything interacts with everything else.

2.  There is a Dolphin Manual (you can find it at boonexnerd.net ) that deals with D6 and from what I understand a D7 version is in the works.

3.  That is completely untrue.  While there is no such thing as a bug-free CMS, it's for a reason. 

• To many different server configuarations and site owners not following the server requirements thinking they know better than Boonex.
• Way to many different types of Web Browsers for Boonex and/or Site owners to be able to contemplate all the different scenarios that it will be attempted to be used within.
• Even more types of end user (member) home computer systems to anticipate potential uses.  Just look at the large number of Windows OS's and you'll start to get the picture.  Now figure in Apple and so on and you'll really get the picture.
• Boonex has done very well overall in releasing patches for Dolphin when issues are discovered in a reasonably timely manner.  The vast majority of issues, over 80%, that people encounter with Dolphin are either server or user related and have nothing to do with Dolphin itself.