Timeline question...

I've not really used timeline yet but am now looking at it for a new site.

I noticed some test comments I posted on a timeline have dissapeared after about a week of not looking at them.

Is this a normal setting on timelines? To delete content after a time period?

If so, is there some setting to change this? Or is it just my site playing up....!

? anyone ?

 Yes...

Read this as well.

http://www.boonex.com/forums/topic/IN-REPLY-TO-DOLPHIN-7-1-4-BETA.htm#213766

Thanks. Am I missing something, or is there a way to change the time (or prevent) for items to be deleted from outline/timeline?

 Not yet.

Crap. Thats makes it less functional than 'comments' :-(

Dolphin is rapidly appearing to be less useful to me as a 'social' network... 

All the social / communication elements are severely lacking...

Forums .... incredibly restricted in its layout and functionality compared to nearly all other forums out there...

Timeline / outline.... deleted content after x amount of time so cannot be used for conversations...

chat ... well, maybe best not to go there. All iphone users never will!

that leaves, comments. The most basic featured 'conversation' facility in any site. The most stable and useable on Dolphin...!

Help. 

ps - before someone claims that other 'social' features at dolphin includes photos, videos, sounds etc... please don't. It does half a job of these in truth and is missing features that other sites claimed to be 'innovative' 5 years ago that are now normal on other media scripts.

Always been a fan of dolphin for it's open scope to how it 'could' be setup. However, without many basic social features, it will only ever do half a job of getting anywhere. Someone please fix the basics before going any further with D8...

 Agree!

In fact, it's getting to the point of exhaustion for me, or at least feels that way.

After years of using D and figuring out what works, what works well, and what doesn't, it seems some of the most basic essential functions just don't 'function' as they should do. 

Forget the thousand plugins on the market to bling up your site with... 

forget the million ways to configure your site to be 'individual'...

if the basic communication functions don't really work like they need to, then all the rest is just hot air.

I've got one project in the works at the moment, possibly the most basic stripped down dolphin site I've worked on and when it comes down to minimal, you start to see that that's where the problem really is. It doesn't really work like it should.

Guess I've probably got about a month to figure out getting the basic functions of effective-engaging-and ongoing communication between users to work properly or it may be that my Dolphin drowns for good.

Some other platforms are looking to get the basics right and are already looking like a potentially better way forward for me.

Shame really, as I've developed a love hate things with D over the years!

I can get a site to look, feel, structure pretty much how I want, but it still just doesn't 'work'!

If I go, I have 10 licenses all currently un assigned, and thousands of $ of modules on this account all would be un-used. 

 Same here.

seems to be a subject not many people are bothered about which is a shame. unless its just me being too picky...

Comments has been looked at before in various forum posts, can you easily add photos etc without having to embed them from a url (most users like to just browse/upload photos), various 'solutions' were offered mainly based on hacking or upgrading tinyMCE editor. 

Forum integration has been done in groups, events by other devs, not on blogs or articles though.

why we don't have a proper, easy to use, feature 'rich' yet basic discussion option for all modules I don't know. 

Can someone do a proper integration of a timeline/wall that keeps its content and works on any view page? 

The one by Scriptologist says it does this in market sales page but it doesnt. Based on mine, the content self deletes, and it wont even appear as an option on the blog post view page.

someone please offer an answer!!!

Time to get Dolphin social before I sadly walk away :-(

To be honest, it does not make sense for forums to be integrated into blogs or articles.  A blog; weblog, is a member's journal and it makes no sense for a blog to have a forum attached to it.

No I agree that Dolphin is lacking in many areas.  One is that one one has to put in a somewhat clunky solution for members to upload an image and insert it into a blog post.  Members do get the hang of it quickly and we have placed a graphical tutorial on how to do it.  There is a button to attach an image, why not a button that can do the similar thing, insert an image, that will be inserted at the current cursor position?

The new forum "insert to post" is nice but one has to first save then edit the post.  What this means is that the post is then listed in the new forum topics although the member has yet to finish writing the topic.  While I understand how the insert works, it needs the topic to exist before it can insert it, it is a bit on the clunky side.  Of course the uploader thingy as been added to the forum so one can use it instead of the "insert to post"

For social networking, the real lacking areas are in notifications and comments.  These are the areas that help to drive interaction on a social site and is where most Dolphin sites are hurting.  Comments need to be displayed in real time; yes, this means the shared hosting that Boonex recommends will have to go; and they should go.  A real social networking site with a large member base just won't work properly on shared hosting.  Seeing new comments come in without refreshing the page results in increase interaction.  And replies to a comment a member leaves should be part of the notifications; currently it is not and members complain about not seeing when someone replied to their comment.

The reason I mentioned forum integration with modules is as an alternative to comments as comments is just way way too plain, basic and extremely limited. More like a text message than a media rich web experience!

Forum integration does make sense to me for articles and blogs. At least it offers a better discussion platform for whatever is posted in the article / blog post. Forums offer more layers to discussion than comments do and you can easily see the wider discussion unfold, plus even have multiple threads following an article of post.

It has been done for groups and events, why not articles and blogs also?

best solution would be a timeline/wall though for each module. Much more familiar layout for users, much better functions also.

 I write a blog post about this, read here

ohhhhh (big sighhh) daihlo- I agree..... My thoughts run wild when I think- "What would I do if I had all my $$$ back or simply another $4000+ and a couple years to start all over again?"

There would be so many things I'd do differently for sure, but the biggest change would quite possibly be platforms.

Im not so bothered about the money, it was an investment and made itself back several times over in the last couple of years. 

I would though, like a platform that when you strip it down to the basics, does them well before adding on the bells and whistles.

Ahhhhh and I was going to recommend the Multi-Wall for ya diahlo.....

Sadly, I see that idea is out the window too....That's not the only problem with that mod...

I am at a point where I'm leery about recommending any of his mods now- ughhhhh.

Perhaps Dolphin 8 will include all these things we look for in 3rd Party Mods? LOL

come on Andrew Boon this is a big and important feature, maybe the biggest...so need your full attention!

 what other problems have you found with this mod?

Just added the wall to Dares Mod.....

It adds comments to the Timeline/Wall, but when I tried to simply add a photo, it didn't appear on the Timeline....

BUT- It appeared on our NewsFeed.....

Yet, When You click on the Image which shows on the NewsFeed, it takes you to a page that says "FILE NOT FOUND"

With as many issues as Ive jacked with between this Wall-Generator and Multi-Page Creator, I'm afraid to test what happens if I try to upload a video and other media using the Wall-Generator....

BACK TO THE OLE TEST SITE I GUESS- ughhhh!

More issues with Scriptologist - multi wall generator mod... (sadly)

It is supposed to post a wall to any 'view' page. So far, does not work on articles, or blog posts view pages... (the 2 i need!!!)

2 - content seems to randomly be removed from walls/timelines now and again.

3 - try to 'edit' a view page after this module is active on it. It redirects to /modules/?r=/edit/1 which results in a module not found () error.

This means, any view page you have it active on, that content cannot be edited by user!!!

So far, its not working too well. 

I messaged Scriptologist about it, first reply I got 'Juhn' was asking for site access, then asking me to purchase a 'module installation' from them on market in order for them to look at fixing my site....

nothing wrong with my site, its the module that does not work as advertised.

Oh well, shame as it promised to be an answer for a big need of mine! If cant get it fixed (for free) guess I will be opening my first dolphin refund dispute :-(

Now, someone needs to make a working 'wall/timeline' generator module for 'any view page' as that would be a really valuable module for dolphin!

back to using 'comments' I guess.... site just took a step back into the 90s again...!

 HMMM....I'll be damned! YUP- I was having that issue too with "It redirects to /modules/?r=/edit/1 which results in a module not found () error." .... I thought it was an issue with the SCHOOLS Mod, and figured it would resolve itself when I installed a fresh copy of 7.1.4.....Good to know...I've put the Multi-Wall on only one module, so I guess I'll stop trying to use it as well----> Big waste of money and time- Which is money.......SO SICK OF HALF-ASS MODS!!!

WELL, GG shared a cool tip with me for making Comments a bit more fun and useful--->Adding PHP-Embed, HTML, Fonts- Styles and Sizes, and a much better selection of Smileys (THANKS GG)....One could add PHP-Image as well....

It's certainly not a Timeline, but at least it works and doesn't screw ya out of your money LOL

sadly decided that unless it gets a fix without me being charged... I will have to file a dispute for refund as it just doesnt do what it's supposed to do as advertised. 

1st time for me in over 3 years being here!

 Can you share that with me also please? Would be interested in seeing comments with this

Thanks

I think it is adding to the TinyMCE toolbar that is used with comments.  There is an embed plugin for tinyMCE that will allow one to insert embed code at the place the cursor is located.  It pops up a little box where you paste in the code and then it is inserted into the comment allowing one to embed videos for example.  I also posted here on the forums an extended set of emoticons that can be inserted.  I need to add more animated emoticons.  Plus you can use the advance link and allow one to upload and insert an image into comments instead of just linking.  You can turn on Fonts and font sizes, font colours etc so that members can post a richer comment instead of just plain text.

 Yeah....I've kinda wondered- How does Boonex deal with those who post products that aren't compatible with a particular version of Dolphin simply to wait for someone to spend some money on the product and make it worth their time to fix....Seems that's what is going on here with a few of his mods...pisses me off...but, I seen a recent dispute, and he says he's working on it....And now that there are a couple other devs working on similar projects- It's a motivator to bring his code up to standard....totally blows that this is what it has to come to.

Ahhhh Well, we'll see where this crap goes????

As for Comments Box improvement, GG covered it pretty good there....

I have family over now, but I'll hook-up with ya a bit later and get ya some details on how I have my buttons setup and TinyMCE tools options....But GG seems pretty big on getting her peeps hooked-up with this stuff too, and may well have a much better setup- She's been working in this stuff for a while and very helpful.

Here is the link to the forum topic that includes a zip download of the smiley set that I am currently using.  It is easy to add smileys, just a bit tideous.  http://www.boonex.com/forums/topic/Different-set-of-emotions-for-TinyMCE.htm

 Here is my current configuration...

In /templates/base/scripts You must edit the BxBaseEditorTinyMCE.php  file as follows:

BEFORE Editing:

    /**
     * Minimal view initialization params
     */
    protected static $WIDTH_MINI = '340px';
    protected static $CONF_MINI = "
                        plugins: 'autolink,autosave,lists,inlinepopups,paste,fullscreen',
                        width: '100%',
                        height: '150',
                        theme: 'advanced',
                        theme_advanced_buttons1: 'bold,italic,underline,removeformat,|,bullist,numlist,|,justifyleft,justifycenter,justifyright,|,blockquote,|,link,unlink,image',
                        theme_advanced_buttons2: '',
                        theme_advanced_buttons3: '',
                        theme_advanced_toolbar_location: 'top',
                        theme_advanced_toolbar_align: 'left',
                        theme_advanced_statusbar_location: 'none',
    ";

AFTER Editing:

    /**
     * Minimal view initialization params
     */
    protected static $WIDTH_MINI = '340px';
    protected static $CONF_MINI = "
                        plugins: 'autolink,autosave,lists,inlinepopups,paste,fullscreen,phpimage,embed,media,emotions',
                        width: '100%',
                        height: '150',
                        theme: 'advanced',
                        theme_advanced_buttons1: 'bold,italic,underline,removeformat,|,bullist,numlist,|,justifyleft,justifycenter,justifyright,|,blockquote',
                        theme_advanced_buttons2: 'link,unlink,phpimage,emotions,embed,media',
                        theme_advanced_buttons3: 'formatselect,fontselect,fontsizeselect,forecolor,backcolor',
                        theme_advanced_toolbar_location: 'top',
                        theme_advanced_toolbar_align: 'left',
                        theme_advanced_statusbar_location: 'none',
    ";

You also need the PHP-Image and PHP-Embed directories (attached) to be placed in- /plugins/tiny_mce/plugins

AND I believe you need to create a directory with 755 or 777 permissions- /uploads/images

Also Attached is a screen-shot of what my Comments TinyMCE looks like.

Let me know if you have any trouble (if you try this out).....I kinda threw this post together quick, but I think I have all the bits needed here???

OH, BTW- This is configuration for Dolphin 7.1.4