Questions about CB and CBsubs

Hello dear CB developer and community members!


I'm planning to build a community based on subscription plans but I really need answers about some questions related to CB and CBsubs.


Your help is highly appreciated:

1- can I make different type of profiles with different information (fields) during registration?

2- can this type of profiles assign to specific user groups?

3- Can users upgrade their subscription then they assigned to different user group and get more fields on their profiles such as verified badge and more fields to add and edit information ?

4- Can I create subscription plans and each plan allows the subscribers of it to be able to see the other members from specific user groups while the others can't see them?

5- Can I assign modules to appear or disappear based on the logged in user type and subscription plan? (e.g. removing modules that contains ads if the user upgraded to higher plan).


6- will users receive notifications about their subscription start, before expire, after expire?

If yes. Is it through email only or also on the notification list on website.

7- Can CB and CBsubs notifications sent to users through push notifications (Mobile and Tablet) feature?


8- Is there any plugin that can detect the exact user location automatically through phone GPS and then the plugin shows the location on the profile of the member and update it every hour or every time user open the website through simple webview app.
I mean the user location that can be used on google maps directions where people can drive to the location of each other if they accept visits from others. Is there is a way to do that on behalf of the user without hassle them with updating their location manually?


9- Does CB has review system for profiles so members can review and give comment for each other and the stars can appear under the avatar.

10- What's the future of CB and CBsubs development specially that we are near from Joomla 4 ? Also what is the future of the trend that aims to make every thing for mobile view first.

11- What the most beautiful, responsive and "mobile first" template at the moment for CB and Supports all CB addons.. is this template will support joomla 4 also?

12- Is CB and CBsubs able to create dating website based on paid subscriptions where some users who already subscribed to paid plan can see other users in specific user groups but the others can't see their profiles until they subscribe to for paid plans too ?

13- Is there any real live websites that uses CB and CBsubs ? I need some examples if possible?


14- What makes me use CB instead of Jomsocial ? I need very clear answer please.


15- Can I transfer the members from the current website that uses CB only to new clean installation of joomla, CB + CBsubs? how about the custom fields, avatars, canvas, notifications, etc ?


16- Is there any way to make CB users chat with each others instantly with voice notes in addition to plain texts ?

17- Is there any point system based on the reviews the user get in CB ? If yes can users use this points to extend their subscriptions made by CBsubs ?

18- How CBsubs payment process work ?

19- Can CBsubs payment done in one page only using AJAX features instead of multiple pages or this is depends on the template that website will use ?
I want to see the user choose the plan then the payment form (e.g 1checkout inline payment) appear to the user to make the payment immediately without navigating next page or somewhere else.

20- Can I control the ability of "specific user group" to perform things on the community such as posting on activity wall or uploading pictures, sharing content while other members can do so based on the subscription plan ?

21- Is there plugin for Suggesting friends or people you may know ? if yes can I choose which user group will appear to which user group ?

22- Is there manual friends feature ?

23- How to maximize and enhance CB and CBsubs on android and iphone to look like native mobile app specially the notifications without much budget in the beginning ?

22- Can CB and CBsubs used for long-term growing community ?

23- Is there any API for CB and CBsubs for future integrations ?

24- How about the support for my community based on CB and CBsubs.. will it be for them only or JoomlaPolis will stand behind my community with the full support to make their products work well with other plugins ? I don't want to get hacked then you tell me sorry we won't support you because e.g your manual friends plugin is not from us :woohoo:

I know it's many questions and each might need a topic for explanation but really it's the time to get real answers because I don't want to regret if I take the step to run my community using CB and CBsubs, I care about the future where no one will use desktop and laptops to browse websites any more while people will do it from mobile phones and in the same time I need to build my community in budget and grow up with it depends on the income I can gain... making sure of the possibility to achieve what in mind will be through public discussion about the products I'm interested in such as CB and CBsubs.

you can consider my questions as pre-sales inquiries. I would be happy if you assist me.

Regards.

1- can I make different type of profiles with different information (fields) during registration?

Yes, CB Conditional can be used to show/hide tabs/fields based off other fields values. So you'd have a field for selecting profile type and then it can change how a user registers and how their profile displays. You can also do this using CBSubs subscriptions by having fields show/hide based off a subscription.

2- can this type of profiles assign to specific user groups?

Yes, CB Auto Actions can assign a Joomla usergroup based off a field value (e.g. your profile type field). CBSubs can also assign a usergroup based off subscription.

3- Can users upgrade their subscription then they assigned to different user group and get more fields on their profiles such as verified badge and more fields to add and edit information ?

Yes, CBSubs can move them to different usergroups. CBSubs Fields Tabs Protection can be used to show/hide tabs/fields based off subscription so yes it can make more information available to the user. As for a verified badge you can use the CBSubs Plan Image integration like we are for subscription badges on profiles and our forums.

4- Can I create subscription plans and each plan allows the subscribers of it to be able to see the other members from specific user groups while the others can't see them?

That's a bit trickier to do. You can do an extent by using CBSubs Fields Tabs Protection to block access to a bunch of tabs and fields, but it can't block access to the entire profile without maybe the help of CB Auto Actions and simply redirecting away from others profiles.

5- Can I assign modules to appear or disappear based on the logged in user type and subscription plan? (e.g. removing modules that contains ads if the user upgraded to higher plan).

Yes, CBSubs Content integration can protect modules or you can just use the usergroups you're assigning to users. You'd likely need to use usergroups since CBSubs is designed to give content not so much take it away when someone is subscribed.

6- will users receive notifications about their subscription start, before expire, after expire?

Yes, if you configure this within your plans under the Presentation tab as you can configure emails for multiple state changes. If you only want to email yourself you can use CBSubs Emails integration.

If yes. Is it through email only or also on the notification list on website.

Email only, but you could probably do onsite as well with CB Auto Actions and CB Activity by acting on subscription state change to log a CB Activity notification.

7- Can CB and CBsubs notifications sent to users through push notifications (Mobile and Tablet) feature?

We've no push notification features.

8- Is there any plugin that can detect the exact user location automatically through phone GPS and then the plugin shows the location on the profile of the member and update it every hour or every time user open the website through simple webview app.
I mean the user location that can be used on google maps directions where people can drive to the location of each other if they accept visits from others. Is there is a way to do that on behalf of the user without hassle them with updating their location manually?

We've no feature for that and would warn against implementing such a feature. You'd be getting into dangerous levels of privacy concerns and be extremely liable for that data. Recommend asking yourself do you really need that data. If it's a "nice to have" do not implement it.

9- Does CB has review system for profiles so members can review and give comment for each other and the stars can appear under the avatar.

CB ProfileBook and its Guestbook can behave like a profile review system to an extent. Otherwise you could combine a Comment field provided by CB Activity and a rating field to have such a feature.

10- What's the future of CB and CBsubs development specially that we are near from Joomla 4 ? Also what is the future of the trend that aims to make every thing for mobile view first.

To become a standalone web application that can work with Joomla and independently is our ultimate goal.

Our plan is to aim for mobile first as well as that's just the world we live in now. It's easy to make things more friendly on desktop from a mobile first perspective than it is to make things more friendly on mobile from a desktop first perspective. As is we've pretty decent mobile support, but like always there's room for improvement.

We plan to move forward into modern frameworks (backend Symfony and frontend VueJS) to better utilize API endpoints (we want to modernize and make most endpoints just JSON data responses). This is all of course in discussion and design phases so there's no telling exactly where we'll end up, but that's our goal at least. We of course plan to support Joomla 4.

So in short if you're asking how long we'll be around. The answer is a very long time.

11- What the most beautiful, responsive and "mobile first" template at the moment for CB and Supports all CB addons.. is this template will support joomla 4 also?

CBs template is already mobile ready. We've implemented responsive design throughout. This includes our backend table views as well. As for Joomla I don't know as most of our development is just done on Joomlas core protostar template. CB currently uses Bootstrap 4 for its styling so if you use a Joomla template that also uses Bootstrap 4 you can turn off CBs Bootstrap CSS and have it completely styled by your template. Alternatively you can use CB Template Changer and its Template Builder feature to generate a custom CB template.

12- Is CB and CBsubs able to create dating website based on paid subscriptions where some users who already subscribed to paid plan can see other users in specific user groups but the others can't see their profiles until they subscribe to for paid plans too ?

Yes, we've several users already using CB and CBSubs for such sites.

13- Is there any real live websites that uses CB and CBsubs ? I need some examples if possible?

We don't track customer sites in any way so we've no idea beyond the sites people choose to share in our showcase forums below.

www.joomlapolis.com/forum/16-cb-showcase

You can also explore our demosite below which is using our CB Quickstart package to better showcase a real social networking usecase.

demo.cbdemosites.com/

14- What makes me use CB instead of Jomsocial ? I need very clear answer please.

Depends on what you need out of your site. CB is highly customizable and modular. Jomsocial is simpler, but strictly follows a usecase you can't really deviate from. My advise is to check out both and use what best fits your needs. Basic CB at the least is completely free and our demosite lets you explore all our products (feel free to alter it however you like as it resets regularly).

15- Can I transfer the members from the current website that uses CB only to new clean installation of joomla, CB + CBsubs? how about the custom fields, avatars, canvas, notifications, etc ?

Ensure your old site is up to date then you shouldn't have any issues just copying over the database tables. We don't have a specific tool for moving from 1 install to another though.

16- Is there any way to make CB users chat with each others instantly with voice notes in addition to plain texts ?

We do not have chat of any kind at this time. CB Activity will be providing a Conversations API to provide text chat, but there's no plans for voice chat at this time.

17- Is there any point system based on the reviews the user get in CB ? If yes can users use this points to extend their subscriptions made by CBsubs ?

You could implement a points based system with CB, yes. Using a Points field to keep track of user points then using CB Auto Actions to increment the points field based off various actions. CBSubs Promotions can be used to discount purchases based off a fields value (e.g. your points field) as well.

18- How CBsubs payment process work ?

A user selects a plan to subscribe to. They're then sent to the basket page to review their purchase. From there they select a payment method. What happens next depends on the payment method and its gateway. For example it could be a credit card form or they could be sent to PayPal.

19- Can CBsubs payment done in one page only using AJAX features instead of multiple pages or this is depends on the template that website will use ?
I want to see the user choose the plan then the payment form (e.g 1checkout inline payment) appear to the user to make the payment immediately without navigating next page or somewhere else.

No, the user must always visit the basket to finalize payment. Once we transition to what I replied with in question 10 then yes it'd all be ajax driven to an extent.

20- Can I control the ability of "specific user group" to perform things on the community such as posting on activity wall or uploading pictures, sharing content while other members can do so based on the subscription plan ?

Yes, our plugins have create access parameters to select a view access level that has permission to create content. You can assign a usergroup based off subscription to give access to such content. Worst case CBSubs can actually protect access to URLs within Joomla and you can protect a page or an action of a page entirely.

21- Is there plugin for Suggesting friends or people you may know ? if yes can I choose which user group will appear to which user group ?

We do not have a suggest friend feature at this time. I suppose you could use a userlist for that and have it filter the users down to be similar to the viewing user. Userlists have access checks as well.

22- Is there manual friends feature ?

To an extent. There are some "connections of connections" features like with CB Privacy.

23- How to maximize and enhance CB and CBsubs on android and iphone to look like native mobile app specially the notifications without much budget in the beginning ?

Hire a team of developers to make you a native application. What you're asking for is not a simple task by a long stretch.

22- Can CB and CBsubs used for long-term growing community ?

Yes, we're using both here ourselves. We've several users using both for their businesses as well.

23- Is there any API for CB and CBsubs for future integrations ?

Yes, both are object oriented and have several API functions that can be called to do all kinds of things. CB Auto Actions makes interacting with the APIs even easier.

24- How about the support for my community based on CB and CBsubs.. will it be for them only or JoomlaPolis will stand behind my community with the full support to make their products work well with other plugins ? I don't want to get hacked then you tell me sorry we won't support you because e.g your manual friends plugin is not from us

We of course stand by our products. We can not speak for any other developers products. Nor are we responsible for any other developers products. We do not provide integration services with other developers products either. If your 3rd party plugin gets hacked that's of course not something we can do anything about as we didn't make it. Please keep in mind you'd be subscribing for access to our products and support for those products only; our services do not include a personal developer or anything of the sort.

Thank you krileon

- When can I expect push notifications for CB and CBsubs to come out?

- Also when we will see the whole CB and CBsubs works modern with JSON ?


You mentioned something about creating push notification feature using CB Auto Action.
If there is any documentation about that I would be happy to take a look.


- Regarding location tracking is not needed for the website's administrators use but because the planned service is to allow members to drive and meet each others. Respecting people privacy is one of the most important concerns for any successful business so this feature if founded will be just depends on the user choice to allow others to see it or not. Similar to Facebook where people can choose to share live location with specific people but not with thieves. I can't share the exact use of the feature but I'm sure that respecting people privacy is first of all.
I hope at less if there is a profile map field that user can use to point his preferred location on the map by him/herself. but if it can be updated automatically then it would be very awesome.

- Can I migrate jomsocial members, to CB with their photos, activities, messages, joined and created groups etc?

- When can I expect push notifications for CB and CBsubs to come out?

Sometime this year as part of CB Activity.

- Also when we will see the whole CB and CBsubs works modern with JSON ?

It already can to an extend with CB Auto Actions since you can directly execute an auto action via its URL. There are several action types available such as updating field values, giving subscriptions, executing custom PHP, executing custom SQL, and much more. Beyond that the core JSON improvements are planned for sometime this year to push towards being a modern web application.

You mentioned something about creating push notification feature using CB Auto Action.
If there is any documentation about that I would be happy to take a look.

There is no documentation for implementing push notifications. CB Auto Actions is just a tool to code as little as possible. It is designed to "if X then do Y" by acting on CB triggers to perform various actions. You'd need to write all the necessary code for push notifications.

Regarding location tracking is not needed for the website's administrators use but because the planned service is to allow members to drive and meet each others. Respecting people privacy is one of the most important concerns for any successful business so this feature if founded will be just depends on the user choice to allow others to see it or not. Similar to Facebook where people can choose to share live location with specific people but not with thieves. I can't share the exact use of the feature but I'm sure that respecting people privacy is first of all.
I hope at less if there is a profile map field that user can use to point his preferred location on the map by him/herself. but if it can be updated automatically then it would be very awesome.

We've no such feature and is too niche for us to implement as part of the core so there are no plans for such functionality. You'd have to implement this yourself. CB Auto Actions can be used as a JSON endpoint to store that information, but you'll need to write the JS responsible for getting and sending the location to CB Auto Actions. How you store it from there would be up to you, but for example it could just be a field created in CB > Field Management that CB Auto Actions updates via a Field action.

- Can I migrate jomsocial members, to CB with their photos, activities, messages, joined and created groups etc?

We've no migration tools from Jomsocial to CB. You'd have to move that data manually. Most can likely be done with some database queries.

Hello and good day!

I'm back again to this topic that I started and didn't continue since this COVID19 pandemic popped up. Hopefully, everyone over there is safe and doing well and everyone here in this community safe and in the best condition.

- Regarding the CB quickstart, Can I move my current CB users and their avatars with the custom fields to a new installation with CB quickstart?

30 - Is there any module to show the notifications and messages icons on top of all site pages (like Facebook for example) or I will need to do my own hack?
What makes me ask that the demo site was not good enough to introduce a beautiful appearance.

31- By talking about appearance I wonder how could be a website with 3 mobile menus. the demo site has 3 mobile menus (1 for edit and connections +notifications, msgs icons - 1 for CB profile menu items and 1 for the website main menu) why can't this all become in one menu that its items have access rules to appear "by default"?

32 - After nearly 4 months from the date of opening this topic, What's the progress regarding the answer in question number 10?

We plan to move forward into modern frameworks (backend Symfony and frontend VueJS) to better utilize API endpoints (we want to modernize and make most endpoints just JSON data responses).

33- The most important questions for me today are:
What're the suitable hosting specifications "RAM, CPU, cores, bla bla" that will be best to serve a minimum of "targeted 500 active users daily" who will post on activity stream and comment for each other, message each other using the internally built-in feature and will use a live chat component integrated with the CB. in addition to that, the visitors that they will come as a result of social media and search ad campaigns?

Currently, I'm on a shared hosting which is not suitable, so let's think to move to VPS, what should I think about to make sure the website and CB will run smoothly without issues or delays in server responses or page load time?


Thank you in advance

- Regarding the CB quickstart, Can I move my current CB users and their avatars with the custom fields to a new installation with CB quickstart?

There's nothing to move in this regard. CB Quickstart can install over and existing installation and it will reconfigure anything related to CB Quickstart for you.

30 - Is there any module to show the notifications and messages icons on top of all site pages (like Facebook for example) or I will need to do my own hack?

For notifications, yes. The CB Activity module can output the notifications. For messages no; the best we have at this time is the new message icon in your CB Login Module or link in CB Workflows Module. For messages this will be improved in a later release likely when we officially deprecate and remove CB Menu plugin.

What makes me ask that the demo site was not good enough to introduce a beautiful appearance.

Ouch . Suggestions welcomed though. It's a tough call trying to provide an actual usecase demo and product demo. We likely need to have 2 different demo sites with 1 having CB Quickstart usecase demo of an actual site and the other just being product demos.

31- By talking about appearance I wonder how could be a website with 3 mobile menus. the demo site has 3 mobile menus (1 for edit and connections +notifications, msgs icons - 1 for CB profile menu items and 1 for the website main menu) why can't this all become in one menu that its items have access rules to appear "by default"?

Menus have nothing to do with CB. Those are just the menus the Joomla template we're using outputs. The only menu CB outputs is the CB Menu plugin above the profile canvas, which we are going to remove in a later release as it doesn't really serve much of a purpose anymore (it's from the Mambo/Joomla 1.x days of CB where we needed it).

32 - After nearly 4 months from the date of opening this topic, What's the progress regarding the answer in question number 10?

None. COVID-19 completely caused a shift in priorities. Everything is basically pushed by 6+ months delay at this point. We've confused instead on fast bug fixes and feature implementations needed for collaboration (e.g. schools, work, etc..). Implementing symfony and JSON endpoints benefits a very small minority so it has been delayed. We're also currently working to improve our downloads page and how CB is updated as it's currently too complicated for people.

33- The most important questions for me today are:
What're the suitable hosting specifications "RAM, CPU, cores, bla bla" that will be best to serve a minimum of "targeted 500 active users daily" who will post on activity stream and comment for each other, message each other using the internally built-in feature and will use a live chat component integrated with the CB. in addition to that, the visitors that they will come as a result of social media and search ad campaigns?

500 active users a day isn't significant in regards to CB. I'm going to assume you'll need at least a mid-tier hosting package instead of budget package, but I'd just start with a budget hosting package and upgrade if necessary. Personally I only use VPS though and deploy my own server.

Currently, I'm on a shared hosting which is not suitable, so let's think to move to VPS, what should I think about to make sure the website and CB will run smoothly without issues or delays in server responses or page load time?

MySQL 5.7 and PHP 7.4 would be a start at least. Beyond that your hardware requirements will entirely depend on the demand of your server. VPS tend to be scaleable so go with their smallest package at first then scale it up as demand increases.