Migration from EasySocial to CommunityBuilder

Hello Presales,

I have been using all products of Stackideas for years.
The company seems to have been taken over and the service deteriorates.
As there is no product development anymore, I am looking for a replacement.Please support me, as I have some questions regarding the CB functionality. EasySocial has some functionality that I use for my websites.Community functions:

• Can I create categories for groups, pictures, events, videos and files?
• Can I use video links other than YT (bitchute, odysee, etc)
• Do you offer podcast integration?
• ES has a feature called "Pages". This represents an entity similar to a user, but with its own profile. E.g. a company or a technical object. The discussions or videos are shown under this page but ADDITIONALLY in the categories of the videos or discussions. This is a powerful tool to structure data and content by different aspects.
• Can I create lookup connections between profiles / listings ? E.g. A profile for a product contains several properties of the product AND a lookup link to a company profile? This function is very important to me, as I want to define technical objects and relate them to each other. E.G. SAP transaction-->SAP program-->application. area . Each object has its own videos, files, audios, discussion threads blogs. Additionally, all properties should be searchable or behave like a tag.
• Which discussion board and blog functionality is available and what is the integration into CB

Kind regards

Make that two of us who has had enough of EasySocial.  Like the OP I have a lot of customisation already in place for easy social, and therefore keen on the level of support offered from Joomlapolis.

Can I create categories for groups, pictures, events, videos and files?

We provide community groups with CB GroupJive and yes it supports categories, photos, videos, and file sharing. It also integrates with CB Activity to provide modern activity streams per group and CB Gallery providing modern multi-media galleries per group.

Can I use video links other than YT (bitchute, odysee, etc)

Yes, CB Gallery allows for linking to external media. Any external media that requires a custom iframe embed simply let me know and I can add it. Same for CB Activity by simply sharing a media URL it will automatically detect it and render it as such.

Do you offer podcast integration?

Not specifically, no. In what way would we need to integrate? If you mean displaying a podcast embed on profile that's probably easily done with a Custom HTML field or a text field to supply the URL with you supplying the HTML in the fields layout.

ES has a feature called "Pages". This represents an entity similar to a user, but with its own profile. E.g. a company or a technical object. The discussions or videos are shown under this page but ADDITIONALLY in the categories of the videos or discussions. This is a powerful tool to structure data and content by different aspects.

CB GroupJive supports a group type of Page that disables user management. It effectively makes the group owner the only manager of that "group" so yes we do have pages.

Can I create lookup connections between profiles / listings ? E.g. A profile for a product contains several properties of the product AND a lookup link to a company profile? This function is very important to me, as I want to define technical objects and relate them to each other. E.G. SAP transaction-->SAP program-->application. area . Each object has its own videos, files, audios, discussion threads blogs. Additionally, all properties should be searchable or behave like a tag.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. All data is relational in CB. Everything belongs to the profile that created it. So each profile has their own blogs, own groups, own photos, etc.. Most of our plugins have a Joomla smart search plugin so we integrate globally for search, they also have inline search for searching specific galleries or groups, and we've userlists for advanced searching of users.

Which discussion board and blog functionality is available and what is the integration into CB

We don't provide forums. We just integrate with Kunena for that. As for blogs CB includes CB Blogs that can store blogs to Joomla content allowing most Joomla article features to work with blogs (e.g. searching, displaying, categorization, etc..).

AnTw: Hello, first of all, thank you for the response. wrote:

Can I create categories for groups, pictures, events, videos and files?

We provide community groups with CB GroupJive and yes it supports categories, photos, videos, and file sharing. It also integrates with CB Activity to provide modern activity streams per group and CB Gallery providing modern multi-media galleries per group.

AnTw: The question is: Does CB have SEPARATE categories for groups, events, photos, videos, audio? E.g there are group categories cars and motorbike, event categories racing and market , and video categories combustion engine and electric.
Now, I post into the car group a racing event and a combustion engine video. Looking at the group, I only have one event and a video. But when I access the event group or the video group, then I will find all videos of this cateories with the group event and video being one of them. Thhis function did work well under EasySocial and it gives a great "surfing experience, because you hop from groups to related videos and events and from there to pages. On all levels with different categories.

Can I use video links other than YT (bitchute, odysee, etc)

Yes, CB Gallery allows for linking to external media. Any external media that requires a custom iframe embed simply let me know and I can add it. Same for CB Activity by simply sharing a media URL it will automatically detect it and render it as such.

AnTw: EasySocial offers the most common video platforms as a standard, i.e. YT, Bitchute, Odysse, Twitch, Vimeo...You just paste the video URL and the video appears as an iFrame.

Do you offer podcast integration?

Not specifically, no. In what way would we need to integrate? If you mean displaying a podcast embed on profile that's probably easily done with a Custom HTML field or a text field to supply the URL with you supplying the HTML in the fields layout.

AnTw: The ES treats podcasts the same way as videos. You give the podcast URL e.g. spotify and this will appear as thumbnail of the show with the detail information

ES has a feature called "Pages". This represents an entity similar to a user, but with its own profile. E.g. a company or a technical object. The discussions or videos are shown under this page but ADDITIONALLY in the categories of the videos or discussions. This is a powerful tool to structure data and content by different aspects.

CB GroupJive supports a group type of Page that disables user management. It effectively makes the group owner the only manager of that "group" so yes we do have pages.

Can I create lookup connections between profiles / listings ? E.g. A profile for a product contains several properties of the product AND a lookup link to a company profile? This function is very important to me, as I want to define technical objects and relate them to each other. E.G. SAP transaction-->SAP program-->application. area . Each object has its own videos, files, audios, discussion threads blogs. Additionally, all properties should be searchable or behave like a tag.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. All data is relational in CB. Everything belongs to the profile that created it. So each profile has their own blogs, own groups, own photos, etc.. Most of our plugins have a Joomla smart search plugin so we integrate globally for search, they also have inline search for searching specific galleries or groups, and we've userlists for advanced searching of users.

AnTw: I try to explain my request a little better. I want to use the group/page profile properties as a database table or a form.
Example: There is a page category "product". All products have properties encoded in the page profile, like product name, product type, product size and price. Additionally, there is a property "producer". This is a reference to ANOTHER page type. In this custom field, I want to select a producer from a dynamic  lookup.
In the page type "producer", these pages have other properties. The KEY (for the reference) is producer and then there are other depending properties like country, phone number, blabla...
I am looking for a simple form / SQL database, which links different page types.
So when I dispay a product (profile), I can see the producer. I click on the producer, I can inspect the producer page. (Hopefully, I can create some kind of product list of this producer)

Under EasySocial I have solved the problem with producer pages pointing to a marketplace of the producer, where I define the products. Thus, I have two "tables": Producer and product.
If I wanted other "relational connections", I needed to edit the generated tables on DB level.....what I don't like..

So the key is a custom field "reference to other page".

Which discussion board and blog functionality is available and what is the integration into CB

We don't provide forums. We just integrate with Kunena for that. As for blogs CB includes CB Blogs that can store blogs to Joomla content allowing most Joomla article features to work with blogs (e.g. searching, displaying, categorization, etc..).

 

Does CB have SEPARATE categories for groups, events, photos, videos, audio? E.g there are group categories cars and motorbike, event categories racing and market , and video categories combustion engine and electric.
Now, I post into the car group a racing event and a combustion engine video. Looking at the group, I only have one event and a video. But when I access the event group or the video group, then I will find all videos of this cateories with the group event and video being one of them. Thhis function did work well under EasySocial and it gives a great "surfing experience, because you hop from groups to related videos and events and from there to pages. On all levels with different categories.

No. Groups are placed in categories and all the group features are available to the groups regardless of their category. That's an interesting feature though. To be able to limit group features based off category. Currently you can only limit group types based off category. Have added a feature ticker for this as it sounds interesting.

forge.joomlapolis.com/issues/9635

Taking a quick glance internally at the code I could probably have this implemented in a day or 2 if there's a rush to have this. You'd then be able to make a group category that only allows photos to be uploaded for example.

EasySocial offers the most common video platforms as a standard, i.e. YT, Bitchute, Odysse, Twitch, Vimeo...You just paste the video URL and the video appears as an iFrame.

As do we. If there's any I haven't accounted for in CB Gallery or CB Activity though it's easy enough to add them on request. We work pretty quickly here. Most bug and minor feature requests are dealt with in a matter of days not weeks or months.

The ES treats podcasts the same way as videos. You give the podcast URL e.g. spotify and this will appear as thumbnail of the show with the detail information

Audio embeds are already supported in CB Activity and will be available in CB Gallery 3.0.0 after the rewrite, which I'm working on as we speak. So yes those are supported.

I try to explain my request a little better. I want to use the group/page profile properties as a database table or a form.
Example: There is a page category "product". All products have properties encoded in the page profile, like product name, product type, product size and price. Additionally, there is a property "producer". This is a reference to ANOTHER page type. In this custom field, I want to select a producer from a dynamic lookup.
In the page type "producer", these pages have other properties. The KEY (for the reference) is producer and then there are other depending properties like country, phone number, blabla...
I am looking for a simple form / SQL database, which links different page types.
So when I dispay a product (profile), I can see the producer. I click on the producer, I can inspect the producer page. (Hopefully, I can create some kind of product list of this producer)

Under EasySocial I have solved the problem with producer pages pointing to a marketplace of the producer, where I define the products. Thus, I have two "tables": Producer and product.
If I wanted other "relational connections", I needed to edit the generated tables on DB level.....what I don't like..

So the key is a custom field "reference to other page".

We don't have a solution for you in that regard as we don't have a marketplace plugin. It's something we'd like to implement in the future. You'd need a 3rd party form builder extension or just use a shop extension for that (e.g. HikaShop is pretty good). Integrating 3rd party extensions into CB is relatively easy with either a custom CB plugin, CB Code Field (PHP based field), CB Query Field (SQL based field), or CB Auto Actions (render custom tabs).

krileon wrote:

Does CB have SEPARATE categories for groups, events, photos, videos, audio? E.g there are group categories cars and motorbike, event categories racing and market , and video categories combustion engine and electric.
Now, I post into the car group a racing event and a combustion engine video. Looking at the group, I only have one event and a video. But when I access the event group or the video group, then I will find all videos of this cateories with the group event and video being one of them. Thhis function did work well under EasySocial and it gives a great "surfing experience, because you hop from groups to related videos and events and from there to pages. On all levels with different categories.

No. Groups are placed in categories and all the group features are available to the groups regardless of their category. That's an interesting feature though. To be able to limit group features based off category. Currently you can only limit group types based off category. Have added a feature ticker for this as it sounds interesting.

AnTw: I try to be more precise. :--)
- For each group / page / event category you can define a DIFFERENT profile. The profile is like a "table definition".
- The categories of videos, pictures and  audio don't have a special profile.


forge.joomlapolis.com/issues/9635

Taking a quick glance internally at the code I could probably have this implemented in a day or 2 if there's a rush to have this. You'd then be able to make a group category that only allows photos to be uploaded for example.

EasySocial offers the most common video platforms as a standard, i.e. YT, Bitchute, Odysse, Twitch, Vimeo...You just paste the video URL and the video appears as an iFrame.

As do we. If there's any I haven't accounted for in CB Gallery or CB Activity though it's easy enough to add them on request. We work pretty quickly here. Most bug and minor feature requests are dealt with in a matter of days not weeks or months.

The ES treats podcasts the same way as videos. You give the podcast URL e.g. spotify and this will appear as thumbnail of the show with the detail information

Audio embeds are already supported in CB Activity and will be available in CB Gallery 3.0.0 after the rewrite, which I'm working on as we speak. So yes those are supported.

I try to explain my request a little better. I want to use the group/page profile properties as a database table or a form.
Example: There is a page category "product". All products have properties encoded in the page profile, like product name, product type, product size and price. Additionally, there is a property "producer". This is a reference to ANOTHER page type. In this custom field, I want to select a producer from a dynamic lookup.
In the page type "producer", these pages have other properties. The KEY (for the reference) is producer and then there are other depending properties like country, phone number, blabla...
I am looking for a simple form / SQL database, which links different page types.
So when I dispay a product (profile), I can see the producer. I click on the producer, I can inspect the producer page. (Hopefully, I can create some kind of product list of this producer)

Under EasySocial I have solved the problem with producer pages pointing to a marketplace of the producer, where I define the products. Thus, I have two "tables": Producer and product.
If I wanted other "relational connections", I needed to edit the generated tables on DB level.....what I don't like..

So the key is a custom field "reference to other page".

We don't have a solution for you in that regard as we don't have a marketplace plugin. It's something we'd like to implement in the future. You'd need a 3rd party form builder extension or just use a shop extension for that (e.g. HikaShop is pretty good). Integrating 3rd party extensions into CB is relatively easy with either a custom CB plugin, CB Code Field (PHP based field), CB Query Field (SQL based field), or CB Auto Actions (render custom tabs).


AnTw: My product / producer example is not the requested feature. Of course, this can be achieved by HikaShop or something else. My marketplace setup was only the solution to the product-->producer issue.

I give you another example for my requested custom field type "group reference".

I create two page/group categories with a lot of profile properties: SAP transaction and SAP program.
The users accesses the group/page for a certain SAP transaction, let's say KS03 (display a cost center). The users should be able to discuss problems of the transaction here, post video clips and training sessions. The idea is to attach all information the this data object KS03.
Here the relationship model of SAP for this transaction: www sap-tcodes.org/tcode/ks03.html

In the profile of the group/page SAP transaction is a field SAP program. I want to choose from the existing groups/pages of SAP programs. If I have already created the correct SAP program page (which is SAPLKMA1), I can connect the SAP transaction page/group to the respective SAP program group/page. I click on this reference property and I land on the page/group SAPLKMA1.

In this group, the users might talk about custom coding, authorization issues, related tables and data structures.
Again. This is ONLY an example. The basic ideas is:
- Each category has its own profile properties
- There is a special property called "reference to other category group"
- The profile properties of the groups pages act like a  table or form
- The reference property is a pointer or external key.

I have been requesting this feature at Stackideas. But they didn't pick up this idea.
This concept establishes multi-dimensional discussion groups, which are connected with this reference type. All content is attached to the respective group/ page = object.
--> I think, this would be a very powerful feature

The programming of this feature is not too complicated (I guess....I program in SAP ABAP)
- Creation of a new custom field type "group/page reference"
- Programming of a generic  lookup of all keys in the table of the target category groups/page
- Search function in the lookup
- Display the reference group/page on the event "click" on the profile property

My idea is the merger of a social community, discussion board and custom field /forms.
By the way, greetings from Lugano......