Nice

Thank you Mark!

vote +1 Very nice and cool idea. Thanks Attila L.

My pleasure Sam I'm glad you like it.

It's so cool!!! I want it now

Thanks Antonio for your kind words! Yes, that's the same with me. Hopefully, the guys at Stackideas will consider implementing something similar. That would add a nice touch to world-class EasySocial.

Thank you Mark! I appreciate your approach and hard-working attitude, which are the imposing signs of taking care of your customers. Hats off to you guys! Keep up that good work Can't wait for the next release of EasySocial.

Thank you Attila If you use EasySocial, please do post a review for it at http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/clients-a-communities/communities/25616

All right, Mark. I'm happy to do that right away. Consider it done.

Thanks for your support Atilla Now, back to the groups

No problem!

I too really like what I see in the above screen shot. Almost everything about it is what I'd like to see. The only thing I can suggest is to either make the text field bigger (like it is now) or to have it expand as one types. I hate typing paragraphs of text in a field box that is only one line in height. The reason being that I sometimes like to read what I wrote before posting.

I know the Stacked team has their hands tied with lots of other little things, but this is certainly worthy of investigating when the other important features are added.

After thinking it over a little more, a link to "full inbox" would come in handy. That setup is great for being quick and easy, but a full inbox view is nice sometimes too. So perhaps on the bottom of the left column there could be a nicely stylized link that says "View Full Inbox" which shows all the private messages. This exists as of right now in EasySocial. So in "conversation mode" it could show that version of the inbox (the one in the screen shot above) and then have the full inbox when clicked. This would also allow you to hide "archive" and such in the quick mode you presented (although I could go either way with how archive is presented).

If there is any confusion on what I'm talking about, I could provide a couple screen shots that would shed some light on it.

Thanks for the heads up on this Josh

Thanks Josh! That's a great suggestion. Although it was a quickly assembled illustration, the real one could be way better knowing the programming and desingning abilities of the Stackideas team. Appreciate your recognition :-)

You know what? With a bit of tweaking this could be some sort of an ES own chat system. What do you think?

Sounds great Antonio

This is a great idea but to be frank with you guys, our priority now is to push the groups, events, videos and pages

Yes, we understand that. :-) Maybe one day we will have a chance to see something like this when we navigate to our inbox But, no worries, just take your time to develop groups, events, videos and pages These are awaited features :-) Concepts are just designed to have a little daydream Either way, I'm looking forward to put my hands on the next generation of EasySocial, which supports the mentioned features above Thanks Mark for the good work!

Noted and Thanks a lot for all these feedback

I actually like that EasySocial is one nice piece of software. I was concerned with other community softwares because they required downloading many other components to get groups, events, private messages, ect. EasySocial however seems that it will be loaded with flexibility without being too heavy. Now I could see a separate chat feature being useful to some. But I like ES having it's own integrated message system without the need of another component. The biggest reason is for speed. Too many extensions slow down a site from what I've seen. You can have 100 or so. But once you start getting into 150+, then you have to evaluate stuff.

Thanks for the input Josh Again, I really cannot guarantee anything right now as we are prioritizing our effort on the groups , events, videos and pages.

The PM system is a core part of the experience and I hope it gets the attention it deserves.
I would hope also that there would be the option to silently block/unblock messages from specific users.

Mark will groups , events, videos and pages be optional meaning will we be able to enable/disable these features?

Nice Concept. You got my vote.

You know what they say, one step at a time. The next step is what Mark mentioned above: groups, pages and videos. However, i'm pretty sure that the guys at Stackideas will do our heart good. It doesn't matter if it's gonna be the same above, or completely different, they will find the way to make it happen. For now the only thing you can do is to vote for it @Voices (link provided above), and hopefully, we will achieve it someday. I really believe that EasySocial keeps getting better, and i'm going to assist these guys till i have the ability to do that. Until then, thank you all for your kind support on this concept. :-) Means a lot.

Thanks for understanding guys Appreciate it a lot.

Hi Mark, will this design be implemented in 1.3?

Hello Robert,

I am afraid we might not have the time to work on this for 1.3

I can wait.. good things come for those who wait..

Very cool PM, I love the flow. And since PM is a core of every community website, this would be a welcome addition.

The link to the voice is not working.

How did you accomplish the screenshot Attila? Photoshop?

Looks absolutely fantastic!! Would love to see that implemented!

Thanks for the insights on this guys

@checksum: Link to Voices is now corrected and please use the URL above the concept shot, that's the right one And yeah, i designed it with Photoshop right after the very first release of ES (But, since I'm not a professional, it's just a beginner's concept) haha

Thanks guys for your feedbacks :-))

Good job there Attila, it looks very real, I could not tell.

I'm glad you liked it The ES toolbar makes it so real hehe

More excellent ideas. I like what I see above.

But time and other priorities needs for an alternative solution that doesn't impact the SI team. I can remember back in September/October last year when early testers wanted remote storage for EasySocial. Mark leveraged the Amazon Web Services S3.

Perhaps it is time to consider the following for Messaging - voice calling - video calling?

Layer - The Open Communications Layer API SDK that frees up developers to ficus on other aspects of their development. Implemented in a dozen lines of code.

Why reinvent everything for a communications layer when things exist that allow for so much benefit for customers and the developer?

Quickly and easily implement Messaging-Voice calling -Video into EasySocial much like Amazon AWS for remote storage. Layer is the AWS equivalent for developers to quickly and easily implement the Communications layer. The Layer Team claims basic implementation for an experienced developer can completed for integration with Layer in as little as 30 minutes.

This would solve the time problem and so many other things down the road freeing up the Stackideas Team to focus on UI design and all the other pressing features.

Overview Article about Layer in Forbes magazine.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/05/09/the-next-big-thing-in-messaging-could-be-an-app-youve-never-heard-of-and-never-see/

Available from the creators of Google Voice, Apple iMessage and FaceTime. Get an expert team of developers in an accessible free SDK. The user pays for use muck like Amazon AWS S3 which is cheap.

What is Layer?
Info from the Layer.com website: https://layer.com/faq#integration
Layer is the easiest way to add rich messaging, voice and video features to your application. We handle all of the hard parts so you're freed to focus on building an excellent user experience for your customers.
Layer gives you access to a globally distributed and scalable communications infrastructure through a native API that's simple and intuitive. We’re experts in building secure and reliable global communications infrastructure with the capacity to handle all of the communications traffic you can send us. From powering the infrastructure to offering UI toolkits and mobile SDKs, we provide an end-to-end solution. We take care of everything so you can incorporate rich communications in your app today.

at kinds of communications features can I build into my app with Layer?
Layer powers rich, in-app messaging. This is different from SMS-type messaging that involves your phone number. How this actually manifests itself in your product is up to you. The Layer SDK allows you to send any type of payload including text, photo, voice recording, video recording, location data and game metadata, just to name a few. A few sample use cases include:


Simple Chat
Group Messaging
Photo Messaging
Ephemeral Messaging
Location Sharing


Who should use Layer?
Layer is for anyone developing an application that can benefit from in-app, one-to-one or one-to-many communications. Every product that involves two or more people should include a way for those people to communicate.

How does Layer work?
Developers download the Layer SDKs and integrate them into their application. From there, just a few lines of code are required to build rich messaging, voice and video into their apps. In addition to sync, message states and push notifications, we handle authentication, security, storage, search, content filtering, offline messaging, high quality p2p voice and video and provide a highly scalable infrastructure.



We will also be building the Layer open source UIKit. This will provide developers with flexible and customizable components which will allow them to build messaging UI into their product with ease.

My app is already awesome. How will it benefit from adding communications?
Rich communication enhances the user experience and helps drive better engagement and retention. This translates to a higher lifetime value for your users. Communication is a basic human need, and Layer will enable people to communicate within your product.

Why wouldn’t I just build my own communications stack?
For one, it’s difficult. And expensive. And difficult and expensive to operate and maintain. And beyond building a system that sends messages back and forth, there are complexities like syncing, offline messaging, read receipts, handling images, and handling video. There’s also a whole new set of challenges when you need to scale. Layer is about giving developers and designers the freedom to dream up new app experiences, to delight their users and scale with confidence as their creations take off.

Is Layer secure?
Yes. We understand that developers and their end-users demand absolute privacy and security for their communications. We take this responsibility seriously. That means industry-best practices on all layers and active participation in making industry standards better. Lots more to come from us on this.

Can I use Layer with my own backend infrastructure?
Absolutely. We provide a full stack for communications, while you retain complete control over everything else in your product including user management. Layer plays nicely with any type of backend technology, including cloud backend services such as Parse, Heroku, or AWS.

I really value the design of my product, can I adapt the user interface?
Absolutely! Layer sits just below the interface level, so you maintain complete control over the way your product looks and feels. We’re also building a set of highly customizable, skinnable UI components that will make it very easy to build messaging features that match the existing look and feel of your product.

Integration
How long does it take to integrate with Layer?
Our goal is to make Layer integration as simple as possible. An experienced developer can complete a basic integration with Layer in as little as 30 minutes. Of course, integration times can vary significantly depending on the project’s complexity and the developer’s experience level.

Everything forCommunications
Messaging, voice and video that just work. Layer handles all the hard bits, including sync, message states, push notifications and more. Easily add communications features to your app. They also will supportWeb apps by August rollout.

Simple API, powerfulInfrastructure
Layer is all about making communications simple. Yet Layer is powered by a highly-distributed, secure global infrastructure that scales to meet your needs, no matter how large.

Made by DevelopersFor Developers
Our mission is to build the open communications Layer for the Internet, and enable the power of communications in any mobile or web product experience.

Developers love Layer
"By solving the hard technical bits, Layer lets you focus on what matters. Shaping the communication experience."

Dom Leca, Founder - Sparrow
"Layer will enable an entire set of new, creative communication products."

Chad Fowler, CTO - Wunderlist
"Layer elegantly packages the solution to a problem many developers are constantly taking on in isolation."

To learn more: https://layer.com/

That's really nice Randall Thank you for the the insight

Attila Lengyel wrote:

That's really nice Randall Thank you for the the insight

Implementing Layer would free up the StackIdeas team to focus on the UI features and your ideas fit in line with this. Imagine haing:

- Messaging
- Video calling
- Voice calling

And all the benefits of auto-scaling and whatever the Layer developers make available in the future. All for a pricing model similar to the very low cost of Amazon Web Storage.

Given the free time there is no doubt Mark and his team can implement anything, but they also have to think about support, improvement to EasyBlog 4.x and EasyDiscuss 3.5 or 4.

Using the Layer SDK would save considerable time, and everyone benefits.

Ultimately it comes down to providing a solution that works best.

Randall

Yeah, that would be great for everybody I guess, for both team and for customers So, it would be a win-win. Many thanks again for sharing.

Attila Lengyel wrote:

Yeah, that would be great for everybody I guess, for both team and for customers So, it would be a win-win. Many thanks again for sharing.

Using the Layer SDK platform would allow the SI Team to focus on the UI from your ideas. Also think about a UI for video, photo messaging and voice messaging.

Layer is currently in closed Beta, I think they open up late summer this year. How does this compare to Google Hangout as a viable alternative? Could we envision an EasySocial "Hangout App" as a viable solution for Video, Voice, Conferencing, and other leveraged features from their platform which run on iOS and Android?

Google announced the technology enabling "Layers" "SVC" is now open-sourced for Web real-time communications "RTC". Google and many others believe that an open-source, free codec will allow video applications and usage to proliferate.

SVC allows Google to deliver high-quality, free-multi-party video conferencing within Hangouts. Hangouts was initially only a video tool, but updates include PSTN audio (via Google Voice) and more recently IM/presence. Hangouts is becoming more Skype-like, but unlike Skype it offers free-multi-party video conferencing.

Thanks for the heads up on this guys. Lots of food for thoughts in this thread!

Mark wrote:

Thanks for the heads up on this guys. Lots of food for thoughts in this thread!

Mark.

When the co-inventor Team Lead for iMessage and FaceTime left Apple to join Layer.com the developer and investment VC community has taken notice.
Implementing this into EasySocial would help gain huge visibility for StackIdeas and EasySocial. Not to mention the tens of thousands of man hr expertise and messaging software in the SDK that will be leveraged to benefit all types of customers.

Layer.com is well financed with recent $14.5 million and the team developing and making it available is the Who's Who of messaging communications world.

The developer behind iMessage (Andrew Vyrros) leaves Apple for a messaging startup.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/8/5694794/andrew-vyrros-inventor-of-imessage-leaves-apple-for-layer

The Verge
Andrew Vyrros, who led development on iMessage and FaceTime while at Apple, has left the company for messaging startup Layer. The company announced the news yesterday, but Vyrros left Apple several months ago, sources tell The Verge, where he was also responsible for Apple's push notification services, iTunes Genius, Game Center, and Back To My Mac. Prior to Apple, Vyrros held leadership roles at Yahoo and Xerox PARC, and was a developer at Steve Jobs' NeXT computer company.

Not much has been written on Vyrros, who has remained mostly under the radar during his time at Apple, but his contributions were immeasurable, sources say. Vyrros becomes CTO at Layer, a startup we profiled back in December that hopes to let any developer add chat features to their app with only ten lines of code. Layer also provides push notification services, cloud sync, offline storage, and most other services a message app would need. These kinds of services could take several months to build from scratch. Layer hopes to offer up these services for a small fee.

TechSpot
http://www.techspot.com/news/56692-the-developer-behind-imessage-and-facetime-leaves-apple-for-messaging-startup-layer.html#commentsOffset
Vyrros will now take on the position of CTO at Layer, a start-up company focused on adding chat and other features to any app via a few simple lines of code. Essentially a communications platform in the making, Layer provides other developers a simple and easy way to integrate chat, video, cloud sync, and notification services into their apps for a small fee, rather than having a custom system built from scratch. Layer also offers devs its UI kit which allows them to customize various features within their apps offering users a unique experience.
The focus here is to offer companies scalability and security among other things and it seems like co-founder Ron Palmeri, which is one of the individuals behind the technology that later became Google Voice, is bringing together the right people to accomplish that.

Techcrunch
http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/07/layer-raises-14-5m-from-homebrew-jerry-yang-to-be-the-communications-platform-for-mobile-and-web-apps/
Layer is a communications platform that can be added to any mobile app by adding fewer than 10 lines of code into the mix. Once that Layer code snippet has been placed in an app via an SDK, users will be able to send text, voice, and video messages, and share files across different applications. We’ve compared the service to a Stripe for communications.

The startup also offers a set of open source components called the Layer UI kit which work with the SDK, allowing developers to quickly build out specific user interface features, like an address book or a message sorter. In addition to making it easy for app developers to add messaging to apps, Layer also wants to eliminate developer concerns surrounding infrastructure or how to manage scaling. The grand Layer vision involves support for web apps, too, but for now the team is releasing an SDK for iOS and Android developers.

For background, the company was founded in March by Tomaž Štolfa, founder of vox.io, and Ron Palmeri, who previously launched a number of companies as managing director of Minor Ventures, including Grand Central (now Google Voice), OpenDNS, Scout Labs and Swivel. Palmeri is also the founder of MkII Ventures, and co-founder of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2011 runner-up Prism Skylabs. The company also recently brought on former Apple engineering lead Andy Vyrros as CTO. At Apple, Vyrros led development of iMessage and Facetime.

Though still in private beta, Layer expects to roll out to a larger number of developers. (August 2014). The company has ambitions of being the go-to framework for adding text, video, voice and other services into apps. Clearly investors are betting on the fact that developers want simple SDKs, and ease of use but without sacrificing security and scalability. If Layer can add that with a few lines of code, then that’s a win for developers.

Thanks for the heads up on this Randall! I didn't know that Layer.com was built by the developers from imessage That would explain why the development of imessage isn't progressing.

A nice design concept but, as I have said in another thread, we need to be able block users that send unwanted messages.
It needs to be done in a silent way "shadow block" so as to not let the other party know they are being blocked. Please ensure this feature gets added in the future.

Mark wrote:

Thanks for the heads up on this Randall! I didn't know that Layer.com was built by the developers from imessage That would explain why the development of imessage isn't progressing.

Yes. Apple iMessage needs an update. The Team Lead left for Layered several months ago, and Apple just announced it last week that he was gone.

Layered.com has gathered a very talented team together to make their SDKs available to other developers. I sure hope you consider Layered SDK. So much benefit and it free you up to focus on other pressing matters.

Randall

Thanks Randall

Mark,

You might want to check the flattr button on your posts - I keep seeing 502 bad gateway message where the Flattr button usually shows.

screencast: http://screencast.com/t/jiiaOYsdUc

@Brandon: As far as I know, the blocking option is scheduled for version 1.6, not sure if the team is going to implement both blocking users and friends simultaneously, but i am pretty positive that they will find the way to add these features in future releases.

Attila, can you send me the PSD, I would like to tweak it a bit and may work on my own rendition of this design using the current ES template.

If I do, I will share.

Thanks,
James

Hello James,

I would really love to, but the truth is, in the early weeks of December of 2013, my external storage drive got out of order and went wrong one moment to the next. We tried to save the data, but it was not successful unfortunately, and I lost everything. Thus, this image file is my only copy I currently possess. I also have a higher resolution picture of it saved to my desktop, but it is definitely not a PSD file, since during the saving, Photoshop merged the layers.
Ultimately, you can use the elements of the picture file with selecting areas and copy and paste, but it is not a hassle-free job to do and with PSD it would be possible in no time. Either way, if I can help you out with the full-resolution image file, and you still feel like tweaking it, i will be beyond happy to send it over to you.
Let me know what you decided.
Regards,

Attila

Attila Lengyel wrote:

@Brandon: As far as I know, the blocking option is scheduled for version 1.6, not sure if the team is going to implement both blocking users and friends simultaneously, but i am pretty positive that they will find the way to add these features in future releases.

Good news! If you look at the Roadmap it has been added to version 1.3. I am happy to see that Mark and his team see the value of adding this feature as it would do great to help users from being spammed or harassed via private messages. I hope there will be an option for users to unblock previously blocked users. I am ecstatic this has been put on the roadmap.

Hey guys,

Yeah, our hands are really full right now and as much as we want to include everything, we need to do it in stages. We are also working on EasyBlog 4.0 concurrently as well and it's taking a lot of our resources

Personally, I understand it. Good things can happen, but it needs time for sure. I rather wait more, so you can deliever great quality

Thanks Attila

Mark wrote:

Hey guys,

Yeah, our hands are really full right now and as much as we want to include everything, we need to do it in stages. We are also working on EasyBlog 4.0 concurrently as well and it's taking a lot of our resources

Thanks for your reply Mark.
Does this mean that some features of 1.3 may slip to a later version (depending on the difficulty/complexity to implement) or that version 1.3 may be released later?
Keep up the great work.

Yes there could be a possibility there but I don't think it's best for me to disclose anything as of now because we are even thinking of pushing another major release as we are optimizing EasySocial heavily (on 1.2)

Hi there! I had this lying around my desktop from a while ago. Thought I would share this with you guys. I could see easysocial looking like this ( even the toolbar )

Thanks for the heads up on this Sam

That's reaally nice Sam! Thanks for sharing!

Yeah, that looks great Sam!

thank you

Nice design Sam! Very modern and would suite ES quite well.

I will try to bring these idea's / concept into EasySocial 1.4

good on you mark !

Thank you, but do take note that we will not do it exactly as the screen shot above Our awesome designers will have to come up with a brand new layout and it wouldn't make sense if we just use the layouts that you guys provide then there's no point of you paying us the yearly subscription fee's

We do however hope to inspire you folks as you inspire us.

of course !

Thanks Josh

Mark wrote:

I will try to bring these idea's / concept into EasySocial 1.4

Just an update on this, we did already have tried to implement this but the changes were too drastic that we decided to skip this on 1.4. With these drastic changes, 3rd party extensions may fail and we definitely do not want to see that happen

And how is it with an better/perfect integration with comet-chat? Comet-chat with synergy do all this. But the integration is not so easys without overrides.

According to the roadmap, "Brand new layout for conversations" is still planned.

I would not say that it enhances the integration with Cometchat but code wise, it will be using an entirely new API system as well. Changing it in 1.4 will be suicidal and that was what happened with EasyBlog 5 where 3rd party module providers / template clubs were reluctant to update their codes.