How to Add an Affiliate Banner

You can add a custom banner so your affiliates can use a graphical link instead of just a link. You will need to upload a graphic. Once uploaded, when you affiliates sign in, they will see the banner choices that you've provided.

Here's how you add an affiliate banner:

1. Login to admin.
2. Go to Users > Affiliates.
3. Focus on the AFF Approved Banners panel. If there are no banners, click on the Edit Banners link. This will enable the Banner List sub section.
   
   
   
   
4. Focus on the Upload new banner panel and you will the Upload New Banner title along with a Browse button. Clicking on the browse button will prompt you to choose your graphic. Find the banner graphic you've created. Once you've made your selection you can then click the Upload button.
   
   
   
   
5. Once uploaded you will see the banner in the list and your affiliates will be able to choose the banner along with the link code. The affiliate will see a Banners panel by going to Affiliate > My Link.
   
   

How to Make Members as Affiliates

You can encourage members to become affiliates. This will give them a special incentive to invite others to your site and get something in return.

How to Become an Affiliate

A person can sign up as an affiliate at http://www.yourdolphinsite.com/affiliates.php

You can get a listing of subscriptions by going to Tools > Money Calculator. Focus on the Finance panel and select the Total amount radio button. Then click submit. If you have subscriptions, you will see the Transactions and Calculations panel listing the subscriptions.

How to Assign Affiliates as Administrators

Anyone can become an affiliate and does not necessarily have to be a member. As long as they get assigned an affiliate link then they can refer people to your site and they can earn money. As a site admin, you can create an affiliate account and then send the new affiliate a login link and their affiliate URL.

Here's how to create an affiliate via the admin:

1. Login to admin.
2. Go to Users > Affiliates.
3. Focus on the Manage Affiliates panel. You will see that there is a form that shows fields for:
   Name, E-mail, Password, Percent and Status.

--

Fill out the form and click add. This will add the person as an affiliate to your site. They will be assigned an affiliated link that uses a numerical id to determine if they get the credit for a sign up. The affiliate link looks something like this:

http://www.yourdolphinsite.com/?idAff=1

Once a person has become an affiliate they will get a simple admin area where they can find out who has signed up, how much money they've made and also acquire their affiliate link url. Here's the login location for an affiliate:

http://www.yourdolphinsite.com/aff/

The new affiliate can then login using the assigned login and password. They can use their id number or their e-mail.

Another Way to Make Money With Your Dolphin Site

In order to make money from you site, you need to take it out of "free mode". Taking it out of free mode will enable the membership and payment system to allow the collection of money via a gateway such as PayPal.

Here's how you take it out of free mode:

1. Login to admin.
2. Go to Settings > Membership Levels
3. Focus on the Membership settings and uncheck the "Site is running in free mode" check box.

You now need to add a membership type. In the default install there are 3 that are currently available, they are:

1. Non-member
2. Standard
3. Promotion

How to Add a New Membership Type

For this tutorial, let's add a membership. We can call it anything we want, for example, let's add a membership type call "Member Level 4". Here's how you add a new membership type:

1. Focus on the Manage Membership Types panel.
2. You will see "New Membership". In the text field, enter the name of your membership.
   
   
   
   
3. Click the Add button.
4. Your new membership type will show up in the Membership Types list. As a default, its mode is [Inactive]. To activate the a custom membership type, click the [Inactive] link and it will toggle to [Active].
   
   

Add an Action to the Membership Type

Clicking on the membership type name will enable the Membership Actions panel. In this panel you can specify the allowed actions for the selected membership type. An action can include things like allowing a member to use the chat features or to search the forums. You can also limit or control the quantity of actions.

1. Click on the membership level that you want to modify.
   
   
   
   
2. Add actions by selecting the action from the drop down list.
   
   
   
   
3. Click the Add action button.
   
   

The added action will then show up in the actions list for the selected membership type.

Specify Limits to an Added Action

You can limit the quantity of actions by clicking on the Show link that appears to the very right of the action. For example, here are actions that relate to "can add_delete classified":

• Number of allowed actions: [no limit]
• Number of actions is reset every: [no limit] hours
• This action is available since: [no limit] (This is date based)
• This action is available until: [no limit] (This is date based)

By specifying the limits, you have some control on what actions can occur in terms of quantity and duration.

Delete and Action

You can delete an action by clicking the Delete button located to the very right of the action. It actually does not delete the action but rather will remove it from the list.

Add a Price to a Membership Type

Clicking on the Pricing link will enable the Pricing panel. In this panel you can specify the Number of days and the price for the selected membership type. Here's how to do that:

1. Add the number of days you want the membership type to be active by entering the number in the "Number of days (0 = life-time membership):" field.
2. You can then assign a price to the field by placing the cost in the price field
   
   .
   
   
3. Click the Add payment option.
4. The Pricing panel will refresh to show you newly added payment option.
   
   

Note: It is important to note you must enable a payment provider so you can receive money. This is done by logging into the admin and going to Settings > Payment Settings > Manage payment providers panel.

Affiliates

An affiliate link can help to increase your membership and revenue.

How Dolphin's Affiliate System Works

Here's how it works:

1. A person/company becomes an affiliate by either being assigned an affiliate link by you or they sign up using the affiliate sign up page.
2. When they officially become an affiliate, they will get an affiliate link. They can then take this link and place it on their site or send it as an e-mail to a prospective member. There is also an option that allows you to generate custom affiliate banners for your site.
3. When a person's affiliate link is clicked, it registers that click to the owner of the affiliate link. Any action such as signing up for the site to purchasing a membership is then credited to the affiliate who helped to facilitate the new member sign up.
   

How to Enable Affiliates

In order to allow affiliates, you have to make sure that Affiliate support is turned on. To do this go to Admin > Settings > Advanced Settings > Enable Affiliate Support.

There are two ways to create affiliates. They are:

1. Member becomes and affiliate.
2. Admin assigns affiliate status to a member.

Members

You can manage your Members' Profiles in this sub section.

There are 3 info panels. They are:

1. Total registered members
2. Search profile
3. Profiles
   

Total registered members

This gives you an immediate view of the number of profiles currently active.It will also give you the number of profiles currently inactive.

Clicking on the Active link will show only the active members in the Profiles panel.

Clicking on the Inactive link will show only the inactive members in the Profiles panel.

Clicking on the With unconfirmed emails will show members whose e-mails have not been confirmed in the Profiles panel. In the Profiles panel, you can click the checkbox next to the unconfirmed e-mail and then resend a confirm e-mail message.

Clicking on the unapproved photo will show members whose photos have not been approved in the Profiles panel. In the Profiles panel, under the Photos column, it will take you to a link where you can then moderate the photo.

An inactive member means that the profile info is in the database but has yet to be confirmed or has been suspended. An inactive profile's e-mail is highlighted with red in the Profiles info panel.

Search Profile

You can add a new profile and also search using criteria such as Nickname, Email or by ID.

Add a new profile - Clicking this link will take you to the admin version of the join form. This is useful if you are registering a new member on their behalf. Just assign a password they can change when they login.

The search field allow you to enter your criteria such as Nickname, Email or ID. Your search results will appear in the Profiles info panel just below the Search profile panel.

Profiles

The Profiles panel gives you more information about your members. For example, in the Profiles panel you can find out items such as ID, NickName, E-mail, Registration date, Last Visited date, if they have photos, audio, backgrounds and their membership type. The information is presented in table format.

Clicking on the ID link will take you the admin view for the selected profile. You can then set their Status, whether they are a featured member, their membership level and also edit the profile's core information.

Clicking on the checkbox next to the ID will allow you to apply actions denoted by the buttons Delete, Confirm Email, Activate ,Approval, Ban, and UnBan. You can set the Ban time in hours by entering the time in the hours field.

If you wanted to simultaneously select all the ID you can click the Check all link. This will auto select all the visible ID and will add a checkmark to the checkbox. The Uncheck all does the reverse.

You can also send a message to any checked ID by adding your message in the provided text box and clicking the Send Message button.

Users

All user related admin duties can be done in the User section.

There are 3 sub sections. They are:

1. Members
2. Affiliates
3. Moderators

Dashboard

The dashboard will give you a quick overview of the latest activity on your site. It will give you information such as new members for the day, week, month and year. It will also give you an idea of how many people have uploaded photos, videos or music and if they are awaiting moderation. Just like a car dashboard, it will you a set of indicators on how your site is doing.

There are 5 information panels. They are:

1. Quick stats
2. Awaiting Moderation
3. Version
4. Links
5. BoonEx News Feeds

Quick Stats

The Quick Stats view gives you a snapshot of your site's recent activities. By looking at the numbers you can get an idea of your site's activity.

Below is the list of stat items and what they represent:

• Members - The number of members on your site.
• Online - The number of members currently online.
• New Today - The number of guests who have signed up to become members.
• This Week - The total number of guests who have signed up to become members within the week.
• This Month - The total number of guests who have signed up to become members within the month.
• This Year - The total number of guests who have signed up to become members within the year.
• Friends - The number of friend connections in your site.
• Photos - Total number of photos files uploaded in the public gallery.
• Videos - Total number of videos files uploaded in the public gallery.
• Music - Total number of music files uploaded in the public gallery.
• Profile Videos - Total number of profile videos uploaded in the member profiles. This is different from the public gallery. Videos uploaded in the a member profile will only show up in the member profile.
• Tags - Total number of tags in the site.
• Groups - Total number of groups in the site.
• Blogs - Total number of blogs in the site.
  

Awaiting Moderation

This listing shows the quantity as per the description that requires the admin to look over approve or deny.

Version

This part gives you version information about the current install of Dolphin.

Installed - This is the current version installed on your server.
Latest - This is the version that is most current.
Check For Updates - This is a link that will take you to the Dolphin download link.

Links

Quick links to useful Dolphin related sites and locations. The main ones that relate most to your site are:

Web site Homepage - Click on this link will take you to your site's front page.
Search Profiles - Clicking on this link will take you to the admin member's profile search page. The Member's Profiles is a sub section under the Users section.

Quick Tour of Page Builder

These are the key parts to the Page Builder:

1. Tabs area - Shows the core pages of the site.
2. New Page - Clicking this link allows you to generate a new page.
3. Page Width - Determines the width of the page.
4. Reset Page - Clicking this link will set the pages to the original default values for the page.
5. Add Column - Clicking this link will add a column that you can adjust by click dragging the green up arrow located just above the Inactive blocks area.
6. Active Blocks - Whatever block appears in this area is active or visible on the site. Each block in turn has a visibility property unique to itself.
7. Inactive Blocks- Whatever block appears in this area is not active on the site.
   Samples -
8. Other Pages Width - This indicates the page width that gets set when link from the current page. For example, the default homepage width is 960px. If you set Other Pages Width to 1400px, whenever you click any one of the menu tabs it will set the width of the target page to 1400px.
   

Add a Block

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Pages Builder
2. In the Samples area, there are two default blocks. You can either RSS Feed or HTML Block.
3. Click and drag the block you'd like to use and drag it to the Active Blocks area in any one of the columns.
4. To edit the block, click on the label and a pop-up will appear where you can edit the block.
   

How to Disable or Hide a Block

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Pages Builder
2. Locate the block you would like to hide.
3. Click drag the block to the Inactive Blocks area.
   

How to Delete a Block

Note: The core field blocks cannot be deleted. Only user created blocks can be deleted.

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Pages Builder
2. Click on the block label and a pop-up will appear.
3. Locate the Delete button. Click on the Delete button to delete the block.
   

How to Edit a Block

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Pages Builder
2. Click on the block label and a pop-up will appear.
3. You will be able to edit the properties.
4. Click the Save button to save your edits.

Page Builder

The Pages Builder allows you to setup what blocks appear in key pages on the site such as the homepage, account page, profile page and so forth. It uses a drag and drop function based on blocks that you move in either the Active Blocks area or the Inactive Blocks area.

There are 7 main tabs in Pages Builder. They are:

• Classifieds
• Homepage
• Account
• Shared Music
• Shared Photo
• Profile
• Shared Video
• There is also a New Page link in the tab.

Each tab represents key pages on the live site that allows for editing and administration. Each tab also uses the same interface.

There are two types of blocks. They are:

1. Active Blocks
2. Samples Blocks

What is an Active Block

A block is the rectangular container that is used to set properties and enable functions in Dolphin that affects the front end display of the Dolphin site. These blocks are contained in key areas of the Page Builder section. Below, you can the Active Blocks, Inactive Blocks and Sample area:

For example, the Latest News active block contains the code to get and show the news. Here`s an example:

You can control the visibility of blocks on a global level and based on site membership status.

Parts of an Active Block

Each active block has the following properties:

1. Type - Shows the block type as it would be referred to by Dolphin. This property is non-editable.
2. Description - Shows the description as it would be referred to by Dolphin. This property is non-editable.
3. Caption Lang Key - This is the lang key reference. This is used internally in the system to determine the text that matches with the caption.
4. Visible for - Sets the visibility for for Guest, Member or both. This function is very useful if you wish to control or toggle specific blocks to show or not. For example, it is a common practice to hide the login screen when a member has successfully logged it. You could effectively swap that space to be taken over by a more useful block.

Parts of a Samples Block

Samples blocks are custom blocks that have unique properties and functions attached to them.

For example, the two sample blocks that come with Dolphin are:

1. RSS Feed
2. HTML Block

We`ll discuss the properties for the two blocks mentioned.

Samples Block - RSS Feed

The RSS Feed has the following properties:

1. Type - Shows the block type as it would be referred to by Dolphin. This property is non-editable.
2. Description - Shows the description as it would be referred to by Dolphin. This property is non-editable.
3. Caption Lang Key - This is the lang key reference.
4. Visible for - Sets the visibility for for Guest, Member or both.
5. Url of RSS feed - This is the location of the RSS feed. You can add the Url of the feed to connect the block to the feed.
6. Number of RSS items (0-all) - This relates to how many lines of titles the RSS feed will show.

Samples Block - HTML Block

The HTML Block has the following properties:

1. Type - Shows the block type as it would be referred to by Dolphin. This property is non-editable.
2. Description - Shows the description as it would be referred to by Dolphin. This property is non-editable.
3. Caption Lang Key - This is the lang key reference.
4. Visible for - Sets the visibility for for Guest, Member or both.
5. HTML-content - This uses an editor that allows for insertion of HTML content. You can also add JavaScript code if you click on the HTML Source link (it's the tiny HTML word icon).

Quick Tour of the Menu Builder

There are two main areas to the Menu Builder. They are:

1. Active Items - Whatever block appears in this area is active or visible on the site. Each block in turn has a visibility property unique to itself.
2. All Items - Whatever block appears in this area is not active on the site.

Add a New Menu Tab

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Navigation Menu Builder
2. In the All Items area locate the NEW ITEM block. It looks like this:
   
   
   
   
3. Click and drag the NEW ITEM block to where you want it to show up in the menu by dragging it over to the Active Items area.
   
   
   
   
4. Once it sticks, click on the block label NEW ITEM and a pop-up menu will appear. You will see the following:
   • a) System Name - This is the internal name that Dolphin will use to refer to the selected block. It is the label that appears in the Menu Builder.
   • b) Language Key - This relates to the language and translation for the block. Notice the _ underscore.
   • c) Default Name - This is what shows up on the site. Whatever you enter in this text field is what the block will show.
   • d) URL - This is the link to the page when the block is clicked. For the top level or first menu tab, you can also place links. For example, the Videos tab has the following:
     URL: browseVideo.php|viewVideo.php
     
     

Here's an example:

• a) System Name - My Menu
• b) Language Key - _MyMenu
• c) Default Name - My Menu
• d) URL - mymenu.php
• e) Target Window - Click the Same radio button
• f) Visible for - Click both the Guest and Member checkboxes.
  
  

  

How to Disable or Hide a Menu Item

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Navigation Menu Builder
2. In the Active Items area, locate the menu item you want to hide.
3. Click and drag the menu item to the All Items area. You will notice it will snap into place and sort itself in the All Items area.
   

How to Delete a Menu Item

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Navigation Menu Builder
2. In the Active Items area, locate the menu item you want to edit.
3. Click on the block label and a pop-up dialog box will appear. In the pop-up you will see a Delete button.
4. Click the Delete button to delete the menu item.
   

How to Edit a Menu Block

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Navigation Menu Builder
2. In the Active Items area, locate the menu item you want to edit.
3. Click on the block label and a pop-up dialog box will appear. You can then edit the valuesnsuch as the System Name, Language Key, Default Name, URL, Target Window and visibility..
4. Click the Save button to save your changes.

How to Control the Blocks Visibility for Members and Guest

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Navigation Menu Builder
2. In the Active Items area, locate the menu item you want to edit.
3. Look for the Visible for: label.
4. You will notice that there are two checkboxes, one for Guest and the other for Member.
5. Click both so that everyone will see the block. Click Guest so that once logged in, members will no longer see the block. Click Member so that only members can see the block.

Navigation Menu Builder

The Navigation Menu Builder allows you to setup what tabs appear in your menu. It uses a drag and drop function based on blocks that you move in either the Active Items area or the All Items area.

What is a Menu Block

A block is the rectangular container that is used to set properties and enable functions in Dolphin that affects the front end display of the Dolphin site. For example, the Video block will show a menu item on the live site. Here`s an example:

It has a textured marking on the left side of its display and a text title on it that gives an indication of what it`s for. Here`s an example of a block:

You can control the visibility of blocks on a global level and based on site membership status.

Parts of a Menu Block

Menu blocks can be customized. Clicking on the menu block label will show the following block form:

Each block has the following properties:

1. System Name - This is the internal name that Dolphin will use to refer to the selected block. It is the label that appears in the Menu Builder.
2. Language Key - This relates to the language and translation for the block. Notice the _ underscore.
3. Default Name - This is what shows up on the site. Whatever you enter in this text field is what the block will show.
4. URL - This is the link to the page when the block is clicked. For the top level or first menu tab, you can also place links. For example, the Videos tab has the following:
   URL: browseVideo.php>viewVideo.php
5. Target Window - Clicking the Same radio button will open up the link the same window. Clicking the New radio button will open up the link in a new window.
6. Visible for - The checkboxes determine visibility for Guest, Member or both.
   This means that all the links separated by the `bar will be visible across the board. If you need to control link visibility, you then need to use a block. Using a block will give you control of its visibility.
7. Target Window - This determines how a link is launched. There are two options
   • a) Same - This means that when clicked, the new page gets loaded in the same browser.
   • b) New - This means that when clicked, the new page gets loaded in a new browser window.
8. Visible for: This determines the visibility of the block on the live site. There are two options:
   • a) Guest - When checked, the block will show to all guests on your site.
   • b) Member - When checked, the block will show to all members on your site.

Quick Tour of Fields Builder

There are 4 main tabs in Fields Builder. They are:

1. Join Form
2. Edit Profile
   • Owner
   • Admin
   • Moderator
3. View Profile
   • Admin
   • Member
   • Moderator
   • Visitor
4. Search Profiles
   • Simple
   • Quick
   • Advanced

In each tab there are three areas. They are:

1. Active Items - Whatever block appears in this area is active or visible on the site.
2. Inactive Block - Whatever block appears in this area is not active on the site. You will notice that these blocks have textures on both the left and right sides. This indicates they are used to group a set of blocks that relate to one another. For example, General Info is used to group NickName, Email and Password. See the picture below:
   
   
   
   
3. Notice that the block`s title is what appears as a title in the join form.
4. Inactive Items - Whatever block appears in this area is not active on the site.

Add a New Field Block

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Fields Builder.
2. Select the form you want to edit.
3. In the Inactive Items area locate the NEW ITEM block.
4. Click and drag the NEW ITEM block to where you want it to show up in the form.
5. Once it sticks, click on the block label NEW ITEM and a pop-up menu will appear. You can then fill out the form. At a minimum you need to fill out the General tab.

How to Disable or Hide a Field Block

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Fields Builder.
2. Select the form you want to edit.
3. In the Active Items area locate the block you want to hide.
4. Click and drag the block to the Inactive Items area.

How to Delete a Field Block

N.B. The core field blocks cannot be deleted. Only user created blocks can be deleted.

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Fields Builder.
2. Select the form you want to edit.
3. Click on the block label and a pop-up menu will appear. Locate the Delete button.
4. Click on the Delete button to delete the field block.
   

How to Edit a Field Block

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Fields Builder.
2. Select the form you want to edit.
3. In the Active Items area locate the block you want to hide.
4. Click on the block label and a pop-up menu will appear.
5. Edit the field builder and click the Save button to save your edits.

Field Builder Usage - How to Add a "Looking For" Field on the Join Form

In this tutorial, we will be adding a new field in the join form. For example, we want to add a custom "Looking For" with a new set of checkboxes.

The first thing we need to do is make a field block that will serve as our "Looking For" field on the join form.

1. Login as admin and go to Builders > Fields Builder.
2. In the top tab area, click on the Join Form tab.
3. In the Inactive Items area locate the NEW ITEM block.
4. Click and drag the NEW ITEM block to where you want it to show up in the form.
5. Once it sticks, click on the block label NEW ITEM and a pop-up menu will appear.
6. Focus on the General tab and add these values:
   • Name: Looking_For
   • Caption: Looking For
   • Description: What are you interested in?
   • Type: Select Multiple Selector
7. Now, click on the Advanced tab and add these values:
   • Mutiple selector control: Select Checkboxes
   • Mandatory: Leave this blank
   • Possible values: Enter your values and add a return after each value. Each return will create a new checkbox when viewed on the join form. For example:
     • Friends
     • Inspiration
     • Work
     • I am bored
   • Used lang key: Use the default, in this case LKey
8. Click the Save button.

Once you've saved the new field block, go to your form and you will see it appear as checkboxes. You can also add the "Looking for" member selections to the View Profile page by click and dragging the newly created block to the Active Items area. There is one caveat, you will notice you get a "_field_caption" label. This happens in version 6.1.4. The workaround is by clicking on the newly added block in the View Profile tab and re-entering "Looking for" in the caption field.

See It In Action

This part of the tutorial shows you what the changes you made in the admin will look like on your live site or the front end.

You can test out the tutorial with your Dolphin install:

1. Navigate to your Web site's home page. For example, www.yourdolphinsite.com/index.php.
2. In the top right corner, you will see the Join Now link. Click on the link and it will take you to the join.php form.
3. You should see the changes you just made.

Fields Builder

The Fields Builder allows you to add custom fields to the Dolphin database. It uses a drag and drop paradigm and gives you the power to easily administer your join forms, profile and search pages.

What is a Field Block

A field block is the rectangular container that is used to set properties and enable functions in Dolphin that affects the front end display of the Dolphin site. For example, the join form has a NickName block. Placing the NickName block in the Active Items area will make it visible on the join form page.

All blocks have a textured marking on the left side of its display and a text title on it that gives an indication of what it`s for. Here`s an example of a set of blocks that show a NickName, Email and Password field block:

You may observe that at times a "block" is referred to as an "item". For example, in the Fields Builder you will notice the parts that contain the functional code that affects the site's display are referred to as "items". In the database both are referred to as blocks. At this point, they are interchangeable and would largely be determined by context.

Parts of a Fields Block

For the Fields Builder, there are two block types. They are:

1. Active Blocks - This relates to what panel the fields are contained in on a form page.
2. Active Items Blocks - This relates to the fields that show up on a form page.
3. Below is an example of an Active Block and an Active Items Block:
   
   
   In the example above, the General Info is the Active Block
   and the NickName is the Active Items Block.

Active Blocks

Each active block has the following properties:

• Name - Indicates the name of the block.
• Caption - Indicates what appears on the form page.
• Description - Indicates what the active block is about.
• Join Page - Dropdown indicates if the block will appear on the first or second page. This is zero based, so the 0 indicates the first page and 1 indicates the second page.

Here's an Active Block labelled General Info example:

Note: The blue circle with the "i" will show a brief help notation when you hover over it.

Active Items Block

Each active items block has a set of tabs that allows you to see and change the properies. To see the tabs, click on the label of the active item.

A pop up will appear. The tabs are show below, they are General, Advanced, Messages and Matching :

1. General Tab

Below is an example of an active field block with the general tab selected.

• a) Name - This is the value that is used within the Fields builder to identify the block.
• b) Caption - This is the value that is used to display in the Web form.
• c) Description - This is the value that is displayed when a user hovers over the description icon in the form.
• d) Type - This determines the field type that will be used. There are 9 types of fields. They are:
  • Text
  • TextArea
  • Password
  • Date
  • Selector
  • Multiple Selector
  • Number
  • Range
  • Boolean (checkbox)
    

You will notice that depending on what field type you choose, the remaining tabs will change to show the relevant properties for the selected field.

2. Advanced Tab

Below is an example of an active field block with the advanced tab selected.

• a) Mandatory - If checked, the form will require a value be entered. Otherwise the form will not process.
  
• b) Minimum value - Indicates the minimum value in characters for input.
  
• c) Maximum value - Indicates the maximum value in characters for input.
  
• d) Unique - If checked, the form will requre the field value be unique.
  
• e) Check - This uses a return function to parse data that is entered. For example:
  return ( preg_match( '/^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]+$/', $arg0 ) and !file_exists( $dir['root'] . $arg0 ) );
  
• f) Default value - Indicates the default value should one not be entered by the user.
  

3. Messages Tab

Below is an example of an active field block with the advanced tab selected.

• a) Mandatory error message - The message a user will receive if a field designated as mandatory is not filled out.
  
• b) Minimum exceed error message - The message a user will receive if the value entered does not meet the minimum required.
  
• c) Maximum exceed error message - The message a user will receive if the value entered exceeds the maximum required.
  
• d) Non-unique error message - The message a user will receive if the value entered is not unique.
  e) Check error message - The message a user will receive if the user enters a value that does not comply with the preg_math filter.
  

4. Matching Tab

Below is an example of an active field block with the advanced tab selected.

• a) Match with field - A pulldown menu that determines what field needs to match with the current field for comparative functions within Dolphin.
• b) Match percent - The desired match level for the field matches. This is a function within Dolphin that will "search" out matches that relate to members.

Navigating in Builder Mode

Builder links have common areas. The are:

1. Tab area
2. View control
3. Active Items
4. Inactive Blocks
5. Inactive Items

For the Navigation Menu Builder, the key areas are Active Items and All Items.

Builders

This is one of most advanced parts of the the admin section. It uses a drag and drop paradigm and gives you the power to easily administer your site navigation, items such as join forms fields and also control what blocks or parts show in your core pages.

There are 3 sub sections. They are:

• Fields builder
• Navigation Menu Builder
• Pages Builder

Compile Languages

The compile languages relates to what language file will be used for the Orca forums. The default is English and is indicated with a link labeled "en".

You will most likely need to recompile your language file for Orca if you change your language settings. You will see square bracket [L]. This means you need to recompile. To recompile, do the following:

1. Login as admin and go to Plugins > Orca
2. You will see the "en" link.
   
   
   
   
3. Click on the "en" link and it will compile the language.
4. Refresh your browser to see the changes.

Reported Posts

To view and admin reported posts, login as admin then go to Plugin > Orca > Reported Posts. It will put you in Reported Posts mode.

You can do the following as admin:
1. Delete - Click this link to delete the post.
2. Edit - Click this link to edit the post.
3. Report this post (Circle icon with slash) - Click the icon to take it out of reported post mode. This is toggle function between members and admins.

Manage Forum

1. To manage the forum, login as admin then go to Plugin > Orca > Manage Forum. It will put you in Manage Forum mode.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. You will see a button labeled "New Group".
   
   
   
   
3. Click on the New Group button and a pop-up will appear.
   
   
   
   Add a name for new group. For example, type in "My Group " for group and click the submit button. On success, you will get an alert saying "New group has been successfully added".
   
   
   
   
4. A new group or folder will appear labeled "My Group " and to the right of that are the admin buttons.
   
   
   
   They include:
   • Edit group (pencil icon) - This allows you to edit the group name.
   • Delete group (X icon) - This allows you to delete a group. It will give you an alert asking if you really want to delete the group.
   • New forum (folder with down arrow icon) - This allows you to create a new forum.
     
     
     
     The following properties for New forum are:
     • a) Forum title - The name of the forum.
     • b) Forum description - Add a brief description of the forum here.
     • c) Forum type - You can choose to have a public or private forum.
       
       
5. Here's an example of the "My Group" and "My Forum Title":
   
   
   
   
6. Move up (arrow icon pointing up) - Click this to move the group up one notch up.
7. Move down (arrow icon pointing down) - Click this to move the group down one notch up.

Once filled out, click the Submit button and the forum will appear just beneath the parent group folder.

A forum can be administered with:

1. Edit group (pencil icon) - This allows you to edit the forum title, forum description and forum type.
2. Delete group (X icon) - This allows you to delete a forum. It will give you an alert asking if you really want to delete the forum. Be careful, if you choose to delete a forum, it will delete the topics and posts associated with the selected forum.

Orca Forum is an Ajax based real-time forum. It gives you updates as posts are made and the posts are displayed on the main page.

Administrating Orca is done on the live site install. The three main admin functions for Orca includes:

1. Manage Forum
2. Reported Posts
3. Compile Languages

To get to the admin, login as admin then go to Plugin > Orca. This will take you the main page for Orca. It will show the admin links such as Manage Forum, Reported Posts and Compile Languages.

If you are in admin mode, you can also just go to the orca root directory to access the admin links.

How to Admin Your Dolphin Site

You will need the login information in order to administer your Dolphin site.

You can login to your Dolphin admin site by going to:

http://www.yourdolphinsite.com/admin/

This will pull up the admin login page. It looks like this:

Enter your login and password and it will take you to the main admin page. Your login and password would have been created during your installation. If you've somehow forgotten or lost you login and password you can create a new one by going to this tutorial at BoonexNerd.com - How to Reset Your Admin Password.

*NOTE - If you haven't registered your copy of Dolphin, you will get an alert in the form of a big red box indicating "This Copy of Dolphin is Not Registered". You can click the "Continue" link to proceed to the main admin area.

Once logged in, you will see a left navigation menu that shows the dfferent ways you can administer Dolphin. You will see:

On the right side is where the left navigation will show its related and linked information. The default view shows the Dashboard. This is what it looks like:

The BoonEx Dolphin Admin

The BoonEx Dolphin admin area allows you to control and edit information. In most cases, whatever you adjust in the admin portion of the site will be reflected on the live site and can be visually observed. For example, the navigation menu builder, when updated, will reflect the update on the live site.

A special part about the BoonEx Dolphin admin system is that it uses a drag and drop method when working with blocks. You can think of a block as a collection of functions that is encapsulated in a neat draggable container. Here's an example of a set of blocks:

The blocks when seen on the front end look like this:

It's important to take note how the blocks with match up to the display. One of the best ways to get an idea of how it works is to try it for yourself.

The admin also uses the standard Web controls such as text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, pulldown menus and form buttons. These standard Web controls may also be included within special blocks giving additional admin control of the block and the functions associated with the selected block. Along with the drag and drop paradigm, the standard Web controls it give Dolphin a friendly and unique admin system. Here is an example of a block with Web controls:

The web controls pass parameters to the page and then to the database so the values can be saved. Blocks can help to specify the information you want to display. In the example above, the block is an RSS Feed that picks up the top forum posts.

What is the BoonEx Dolphin Smart Community Builder?

This is the $5 tour of Dolphin, Ray and Orca. I will give you a brief synopsis of how these different components interact with one another to complete this very cool community script.

What is Dolphin and what can you do with it?

Dolphin is created by a company called BoonEx. It is a community builder script that allows your members to share photos, videos, chat and blogs. It has been used for business network sites, dating sites and personal community sites.

Dolphin can be used freely as long as you maintain the logo links at the bottom of the page. You can have them removed by paying a fee to the company. It is a great bargain when you consider Boonex is providing a script that would normally cost a few thousand dollars to create for a nominal amount. Boonex celebrated its 8th year anniversary in August of 2008. Below are some examples of Dolphin based sites created by James Tadeo (aka jtadeo) a Dolphin designer and programmer.

What is Orca and what can you do with it?

Orca is an Ajax driven interactive forum. Your members can post to threads with questions, answers and opinions to thread topics. If you are familiar with phpBB, it's a similar idea. What makes Orca unique is its real time display of topics on the main page. When members make a post it will show up in the display.

You can check out more information about Orca Interactive Forum by clicking here.

What is Ray and what can you do with it?

Ray adds another dimension to the Boonex suite of products. Ray is a community widget suite that allows your members to video chat, IM and interact with one another in real time. The advanced functions of the Ray widgets is enhanced with the use of RMS. RMS stands for Ray Media Server. It is required if you want to have real time video conferencing. It comes with Ray and if you have a VPS or dedicated server you can have it installed with the same IP address as your site. Otherwise, you can purchase RMS services for a few dollars a month. You can check www.BoonexNerd.com in the resources link for RMS services.

You can check out more information about Ray Community Widget Suite by clicking here.

Where Can I Get Dolphin, Ray and Orca?

You can download these very cool Web apps at www.Boonex.com. You can also click their product links to get more information about their products.

Try it Out

One of the best ways to find out more about Dolphin is by trying out a working sample. You can get an idea of how Dolphin, Ray and Orca work by signing up at www.BoonexNerd.com. It was the first Dolphin tutorial site in 2007 completely created using Boonex products. It uses the BoonEx products both as a useful example and also the engine that drives the site.

Four key components to Dolphin include:

1. Front end - This is the part that gets displayed on the Web. It is publicly accessible. For example, if you go to www.BoonexNerd.com, you will see the front end portion of the site. In essence the part you see and interact with in order to participate in the community.

2. Admin System - This part of the system is accessible only by an authorized administrator. This authorization is assigned during the installation process. The admin allows authorized personnel to update settings, moderate the site and also collect statistics. It is an abstraction to the backend database.

3. Backend Database and Server-Side - This part of the system includes the PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML and various support files that work together to manage and control the data and the display of that data in both the front end and the admin. This is the most granular part of the system outside of the server and its respective resources. If you know how to program you can customize Dolphin in both functionality and display. This requires an intermediate level of programming expertise.

4. Server and Hosting - A key foundation to allow the proper function and serving of the system is the server. As with most custom and specialized systems, Dolphin requires a specific set of server parameters. Hosting is a basic and paramount item in order for your site work. You can check out the specs.

When a member signs up to your site and they decide not upload a real avatar a default avatar shows up. You can see this for yourself in the members browse page. It looks something like this:

You can change the woman and man icon to anything you want by updating the picture.

The default woman and man avatar icon art can be found in templ_uni/images/icon. Before you make changes to any of your files, be sure to make a backup.

There are 3 files for the default man pic. They are:

man_big.gif
man_medium.gif
man_small.gif

There are 3 files for the default woman pic. They are:

woman_big.gif
woman_medium.gif
woman_small.gif

There is also a visitor gif. The name associated with the icon includes:

visitor_big.gif
visitor_medium.gif
visitor_small.gif

Open up the file and replace it with your icon version.

--

How to Apply the Licensing for Ray

Out of all three licensing procedures, Ray is the most complex depending on the number of widgets you are installing. It is also good to note that the licensing naming convention does not match exactly to the name of the widgets as of version 6.1.4. For this tutorial, it will be for version 6.1.4 which is the most recent version at the time of this writing.

To apply the Ray licenses, here's what you need to do:

1. Login as admin
2. Go to Plugin > Ray Suite
3. A Flash pop-up window will appear and you will be presented with the following interface:
   
   
   
   
4. Notice the alert screen where it says "You have 10 unregistered widgets. Please register them.". If you do not register the widgets, you will get an endless spinning graphic indicating a non-connection. In some cases you will get a "not registered" alert. Click the OK button to proceed.
   
5. The procedure to register the widgets are the same. Let's start with the first widget. Here's what you need to do:
   
6. If the widget display is closed, click on the "+" button.
   
   
   
   
7. Click on the "Register" link. It's got a key icon next to it.
   
   
8. You will see a screen like this asking for a License key. It looks like this:
   
   
   
   
9. Enter your license and click the "Register" button. It should register and you will be given a success message. You will also notice that you can enable and disable the widget. The widget display looks like this now:
   
   
   
10. The same steps described can be applied to the remaining Ray widgets.
    
    
11. If you get the following screen:
    
    

• Make sure of the following:

1. • You have installed the AdFree version vs. the Free version.
   • You entered the correct licenses.
   • You have the proper permissions applied to the Ray files.
   • You can also check out http://www.boonex.com/trac/ray/wiki/GenRayFAQs

Ray Widget Map

You will notice that as you register your Ray widgets that the names to widgets don't necessarily match the license naming. Below is a widget mapping that show the widget to license naming.

*Note: The pMusicPlayer is specific to the Profile Music play listing. You will notice it is the same license as the Music Player.

How to Apply the Licensing for Orca

The Orca license is applied within the Orca forum contained within the Dolphin interface.

To apply the Orca license, here's what you need to do:

1. Login as admin
2. Go to Plugin > Orca Forum
3. Just below the submenu you will see this link [Manage Forum]. It looks like this
   
   :
   
4. When you click on it, you will see a license screen similar to the Dolphin license screen, but this one is contained within the Dolphin interface. It looks like this:
   
   
   
   
5. You can enter your license in the Input License text field. Click the Register button to register Orca.
6. It will register Orca.

Square Brackets and Orca Language Compilation

After installation of Orca, you may notice square brackets [ ] that surround certain words. This means that you need to compile the language file.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Login as admin
2. Once logged in go to http://www.yourdolphinsite.com/groups/orca/
3. You should see the "en" link.
4. Click on the "en" link and it will compile the language.

How to Apply the Licensing for Dolphin

Out of all three licenses, applying the Dolphin license is the easiest one to do. Remember that before you apply your license that you have installed the AdFree version.

Here's how to apply the BoonEx Dolphin license:

1. Go to your admin at www.yourdolphinsite.com/admin/
2. The login screen should appear.
3. On successful login, you will be presented with the following screen:
   
   
   
   
4. Where it says "Input License:" you will see a text box. Add you license number there and click the Register button.
5. On click of the Register button, it will automatically take you to the main admin area. At this point, your Dolphin install is now registered. You may also need to refresh your browser so you can see the effects.
6. You can choose to enter the license or you can click the Continue link.

Hi I am the official voice and ghost writer for BoonexNerd. I have known jtadeo for many years and have worked on various projects involving Web. BoonexNerd.com came out of a need to get quick and simple tutorials for newbies and experienced developers.

In the next few weeks it is my goal to repost the information from the original site to this new site install. The old site ran on the 603 database and has been archived.

If there are parts to the site that you need please post it on the forum and I will do my best to get that information out to you. There will be some tutorials that no longer apply and those might be kept just for historical purposes.