EasySocial 1.2.1 is here!
We are proud to announce the release of EasySocial 1.2! This is not some normal, minor upgrades but rather a major breakthrough in the development of EasySocial. We took our users' opinion and feedback very seriously; went through few process of filtering in order to sort out the functions that is needed to be in our gem. All of our developers burned the midnight oil just to deliver the best, most valuable social networking component to Joomla! users out there.
Here are few of the key features that will be greeting you :
Revamped stream's sharebox
The sharebox's design had gone through some changes and has been made simplified yet trendy. Nearly all of the functions that the users need will be available in the sharebox -- sharing pictures are as easy as drag it and drop it onto the box. Feeling happy? Users can now share their moods! The status will no longer be a boring, one-liner-turned-long-paragraph text. The mood's text can also be modified to suits the user's needs. Who likes boring designs, anyway? :)
Photo popups
Have you ever come across a situation where you want to view a photo shared by your friends, but clicking on it suddenly sends you to a new page, showing you it's full album? I've been there and trust me, it gets annoying as time goes by. EasySocial 1.2 provides an awesome solution to that. Instead of viewing it on a new page, why not just open up a photo viewer on the page itself? Hence, photo popups. Clicking on a photo shared on your stream will open up a photo popup where you can view the full photo without leaving your stream.
Groups (yay!)
The most anticipated feature, EasySocial 1.2 now comes with groups (finally!). Users can now create and invite others to join their groups. Aside from discussing, users can also share files and pictures. To those who create groups for events, you can create milestones and assign it to members. Though the milestone itself can be a task, you can create tasks within the milestones to help you manage a project, thus making EasySocial 1.2's group a perfect function for all levels, from professional CEOs to music fans to sport enthusiasts alike.
We have received some request from our users that they wished to migrate all of their social networking datas from JomSocial to EasySocial. Previously this was quite an issue as we haven't developed Groups yet and thus the data from their JomSocial's group will be sent to limbo. With EasySocial 1.2, we've built both the group functions AND the migrator to migrate all of their user and group's data from JomSocial to EasySocial. :)
Enhanced 'Search'
Our previous EasySocial's search function only allows the search to crawl anything within EasySocial only. This can be quite frustrating to those who uses multiple Joomla! components (like EasyBlog and/or EasyDiscuss). We acknowledged this issue and have now developed an enhanced 'Search' function. Using Joomla!'s smart search, the enhanced 'Search' can now search for items/data that are outside of EasySocial, as long as it is indexed in Joomla!'s Smart Search.
Advanced 'Search'
With the previous Enhanced Search, we've anticipated an issue -- what if users only want to search for something within EasySocial? With our Advanced' Search', users can customize their search and use filters and custom fields created within EasySocial itself. This will make it easier for users to search for something, for example, a group within EasySocial (only) that shares the same interest.
New theme : Frosty
Our designers joined in the fun and have created a new theme named Frosty. To be honest, Frosty was inspired by the current hot weather in Malaysia. The weather here is so hot that the designers have decided to create something soothing to our eyes and souls. Hence, Frosty was born. Frosty was so cool that the team now doesn't mind the hot weather anymore...
....or perhaps it's our full-blast air condition.
Twitter Bootstrap 3
We're using Twitter Bootstrap 3 on EasySocial 1.2 as we believe that we should always, always, stay up to date with the current design framework. This will help and motivate template developers to build more beautiful and awesome templates for EasySocial.
Migrators for Community Builder
Users from Community Builder can join in the fun and migrate all of their data into EasySocial. The best part is that the process is as simple as a click of a button. Everything was made simple, even for the administrators and community managers.
K2 Integration
Socializing online is not complete if you cannot use a common identity (avatar). In EasySocial 1.2, avatars from EasySocial can be viewed in K2. Besides avatar, badges and points are easily pushed to K2 to better complete your profile there. All these and more can be achieved with the K2 Article app that is free to download.
Quick Register
In this new age, we want everything to be fast. Though registration fields are mostly required, there are times where we just want to hop in the wagon without the hassle of filling up forms with information and clicking next over and over again. Our Quick Register now works like a charm; simply key in your username, password, email, full name and you're good to go.
Thank you, you, you, and you!
The StackIdeas team would like to thank all of those who helped to contribute towards this build, especially our beloved users and beta testers. Without your help, ideas and insight, EasySocial won't be as awesome as it is. No words is enough to express our gratitude and we will improve EasySocial more as time goes by. Who knows, we might even put the unicorn that you guys have been asking for. :)
What's next?
As soon as we're done grabbing 5 minutes of fresh air, we will continue to camp in our secret lab and concoct the next release; EasySocial 1.3. You can check out what we have in-stored for the next release by checking our EasySocial 1.3 roadmap.
We view our work as our pride and joy, with the outcome being not a 'product' but rather a solution to help our fellow Joomla! users to build a better, stronger, and awesome social networking site. We admit that developing such component is very gruesome, but it's not without reward. What's the reward, you might ask?
The smile on each and every satisfied users. :)
Discounts!
We're now offering a 20% discount to anyone who wishes to upgrade or purchase the latest EasySocial. The coupon code is EASYSOCIAL121. However, this offer is valid within 24 hours from this blog's post; and will end approximately on Friday, March 21st, 0200 hrs (UTC+8). Time is running so I'd highly suggest for you all to make haste and use this coupon code while it's still active!