Actually this is possible you just need to edit some codes. I managed to be able to do this with some of my programmer. The file that needs to be edited are on /components/com_easysocial/models/friends.php

If you need some custom codes for this, feel free to send me an email via hacksider@gmail.com
I will be very glad to sell you the code for $30

Hi Ishi, thanks for your offer, I might go for it, but I want to have a look at it before (did not dive into the code yet).
Btw, there is no models directory in under the path you've mentioned. I'll go over some codes tonight and get back to you, have a nice one,
Eldad

Hi there, sorry for the confusion
/var/www/site/administrator/components/com_easysocial/models

you can view the sample at (still in beta) just register and try to mention some users like hacksider (me!) or admin (me again!)

If you happen to like want the code, just send me an email first since I have different paypal account than my main email (for security and WIFE purpose, lol)

Warm Regards, Ken

lol )
will check it out, cheerz

Hey,

Nice idea! However, there needs to be some control over the use of @everyone as I see this as a very useful spam tool and it isn't going to be good for your community! This is almost similar to what Trackback has to offer lol.

If you don't mind, can you please post them up at our voices page so that your suggestions doesn't get wandered off within the forums? You can find the voices page at http://stackideas.com/voices/easysocial

Cheers!

Hi there Mark,

As for this feature, you can eliminate spam by creating a backend control if you want to enable or disable this. Thus giving an option to admin for a classic like facebook or everyone like twitter.

Thanks for your insight Mark and sorry for posting it in the wrong place (still new here...).
I'm still trying to find where the restriction for friends only is happening, in what file... if you can, i'd appreciate very much if you can tell me where to look...

Thanks!
Eldad

Hello Eldad,

Hm, not sure what you mean by "restriction for friends only is happening". Can you please elaborate more on this please?

Anonymous,

Yeah, that is one way of controlling spams but it's also like giving a riffle to the site admin and tell them to use them at their own risk We experienced this with Trackbacks in EasyBlog and there are many customers who enabled this feature without knowing the implications. This resulted into millions of spams being spammed on their server thinking that their EasyBlog instance was hacked.

We have learnt from our lesson to not provide dangerous tools to site admins because this will just never work unfortunately

Hi, I meant that i'm trying to find how to bypass this.
I want to enable @everyone, I'm aware of the spam risk, but this feature is currently super important for our project.

thanks,
Eldad

Since Anonymous has already written a hack for this, perhaps he could share them with you?

Hi there Caspi, you can modify the files at /var/www/site/administrator/components/com_easysocial/models/friends.php

I'm sorry I just can't share it to the public since it's really a paid work done by my programmer and I'm selling it to share some of my expenses. Hope you understand
Though I will be sharing some of our codes in the near future (a month or so).

Hello Mark,

I also think it should be an option. As the guys have said, it's already implemented on twitter and facebook and in fact, it's away to make friends and to connect with people. I might not be your friend, but mention you on a post that me and you were part of.


ps: on instagram, you can mention people that your not friends with but they won't get a notification msg.. they need to re-visit the post to see that they have been mentioned

cheers

Thanks for the heads up on this Muhanad

Hi guys,
Anonymous, this is perfectly fine and the price you're asking sound fair. My problem with your script is that it doesn't look fully implemented (mainly, the lack of the auto-complete feature where the user can select the name to mention when they start typing), but i'm still considering buying it from you, i'll be in touch.

Muhanad, thanks for voicing your support on this.
Mark, as Muhanad said, this is a great way to meet new people and it works great on fb, twitter, Stocktwits etc., and since mentioning one's name only links to his/her profile, it's not intrusive and should not bother the mentioned user too much (of course that a fully implemented feature should include privacy and blocking settings to give users choice).

Anyway, best of luck to you all and thanks,
Eldad

Hi there Eldad, I believe it's already there. It just happens you're on the dev server and it's quite slow (you need to make the whole site load first...)

Nice! OK, i'm contacting you by mail to purchase this

Hey guys,

Thanks for sharing this however kindly do take note that we would not be responsible for any transactions that occurs outside of stackideas.com . You are transacting at your own risk

Hi there caspi! Thanks for the purchase and good to hear the code works perfectly on your site!

Mark, of course you aren't, you have enough responsibilities in your hand already

With Anonymous's permission, i'm sharing his tweak here (in ES v1.2.22 it's around line 990 in administrator/com_easysocial/models/friends.php, for other ES versions look for the public function search( $id , $term , $type , $options = array() function at the same model file and move forward from there):

// Glue back query.

		$query 		= implode( ' ' , $query );





//START OF TWEAK - allow any user to be mentioned (not just friends)

        $query  = 'SELECT b.* FROM `#__users` AS b WHERE b.name LIKE '.'"%' . $term . '%"'.' OR b.username LIKE '.'"%' . $term . '%"';

//END OF TWEAK

        

$db->setQuery( $query );

It's not perfect (the auto-complete field still suggests hashtags sometimes, and the mentioned user is not marked with "@" before its name) but it's close enough.

Enjoy everyone, if you have any further improvements to it, feel free to share
Eldad

Yes, basically I just need someone to share the expense from the development. And yes, I told him to feel free to share it with anyone since he already paid for the code.

Hi there Mark, yes, it's a custom development so no worries. Feel free to use the code too in the future.

Thanks for sharing this guys, appreciate it very much

Ah this is brilliant! Thanks for the share. Mark please consider adding that to the mainline for everyone to benefit

As per mark said, this is a spam magnet and need to be modified more. Just be careful on your email notifications or else you will get a flood. Also, this doesn't acquire any privacy settings in easysocial so be careful when you apply

Yeah, spam is a huge concern here and we'll consider this in the future of course

For 1.3 beta 2, just add the code to line 1141

// Glue back query.

		$query 		= implode(' ', $query);

		// remove below query to make it work before.

		//$query  = 'SELECT b.* FROM `#__users` AS b inner join #__social_friends as f ON b.id = f.target_id WHERE b.name LIKE '.'"%' . $term . '%"'.' OR b.username LIKE '.'"%' . $term . '%"';

		$query  = 'SELECT b.* FROM `#__users` AS b WHERE b.name LIKE '.'"%' . $term . '%"'.' OR b.username LIKE '.'"%' . $term . '%"';

		$db->setQuery( $query );

Thanks!!

Thanks for updating Ken! Love your skills