Hello Christopher,

I am really sorry for the delay of this reply as I was currently not available during the weekend as I was attending a Joomla conference in Thailand.

Thanks for sharing this Would love to hear the feedback too.

Like I said, I need this integration in the near future, so I am open to discussion with others, but I would like to start working on that seriously in beginning of 2014.

The best in my opinion would be that this integration comes from within Stackideas team so it is more stable, but I would be open to work with other ES/Zoo users for it to happen.

I must add that I am not a programmer, so I was thinking on hiring someone for the job !

But really, it would be great if we could do this with Stackideas ! Don't you think Mark ? ;-)

And I agree. I want to use ES as a central point for my community website. So been able to create ES application that would display Zoo Layout would be the best way to integrate it all with the other point I mentioned !

Looking forward to 2014 ;-)

B.

Sounds great

Yea... I completely agree that something official would be best.

I suggested that we pool our resources because there were not many votes for this and I know that Mark and his team have loads of other things to deliver... like groups (which I also need desperately).

Though I was once a programmer, I do not do much programming any more... so, yes, if it comes to a collaboration, it would need to be outsourced.

I think that if we create a really good specification, get the design right and don't pay till everything is perfect then there is a prety good chance that we can get a freelancer to provide us something pretty decent.

Let's discuss again in the new year, once we know what the Stack guys can do.

Chris

Thanks for the feedback guys. If you don't mind me asking, can you please elaborate more on this please?

I think that the ideal solution would be to have an EasySocial App that allows an administrator (or perhaps even a user) to select a Zoo App, Type and Layout and then display records, using the selected layout, that have been created by (or are owned by) in the App area of EasySocial.

Hello Mark,

Theses are a very quick design representing what I think it could mean. Basicaly :

- ability to create ES app that are actualy Zoo content (either main layout, category or specific items layout)
- ability to show layout like "full", "teaser", etc...
- categories and items links would open to the specific url like when you select a EasyBlog post or EasyDiscuss post ?

This would allow to make ES as a centralise point for use to explore and view content. There, an admin could easely show the featured items from each Zoo app.

Honestly, with such a intergration, I would probably get rid of my website's menu and headerbar. It would be a great way to bridge a database website and a community website. Allowing users to stay on the community portal will looking around for Zoo items.

B.

Hello Mark,

Perhaps it is the terminology you do not understand. It took me a while to get used to what Zoo could do and how it did things.

The building blocks of a Zoo solution include Apps, Types (which we call App-Types for simplicity), Elements (or fields) and Layouts.

An App is a high level collection. It contains one or more Types and multiple Layouts (which are organized into Themes but that's too much information for now).

An Element is a self contained object/field. All the code that is required to render, edit and persist a field is contained within an element. There are elements around for Date, Categorization, Text, Checkbox, Pictures, Boolean, etc, etc, etc... There are many that are included with Zoo and many other off the shelf elements around.

Types are containers for elements within an App. I think of them as objects. A type includes one or more user configurable elements that are bound together. I think of these as the attributes of an object. In fact, Zoo stores Types as JSON objects within data blobs in MySQL... (we use Mongo to store these objects but that's another story). Finally element are specifically configured for use in a Type. For example an element can be configured to be repeatable or have a particular title or only allow Numeric data, etc.

A Layout is a preconfigured set of regions (divs) and a subset of the elements that are configured for a Type. For example, there are Layouts to show a full/detail view of a Type, a teaser (short form view), search results, a related view (used within other Types when related to each other) and a submission layout . A full layout might contain more elements/fields/attributes than a teaser.

Consider one of the sample apps ... like Blog. It contains 2 Types: Article and Author. Article contains (as elements/attributes/fields) a blog abstract, the blog text, one or more blog picture, a date, categorization and a pointer to the author (as a related Type). Author contains biographical text and a picture of the author. You then configure Article Type Layouts to display a list item, a full view, summary view, edit view, etc, of the Articles and Author Type Layouts to display a list, a full view, summary view, edit view etc of an author. The full view might include a full size picture while the summary displays a smaller image. etc, etc, etc.

So... in an ES app, ideally, one would want to show one or more App/Types that are related to the app owner using a particular Layout. Lets say that you could have the ability to create several views within the ES app (or that you can have several simultaneously configurations of the App ). One might be for the app owners blogging profile (the Blog/Author App/Type using a summary Layout). Another might be for a list of published Blogs (the Blog/Article App/Type using a summary Layout)... Perhaps even a latest Blog view (which would be the Blog/Article App/Type using a detail view Layout)... Perhaps even the ability to edit in place, one of the App/Types... but let's not get too carried away... Anyway, the possibilities are endless.

This is why I suggested that "the ideal solution would be to have an EasySocial App that allows an administrator (or perhaps even a user) to select a Zoo App, Type and Layout and then display records, using the selected layout, which have been created by (or are owned by) in the App area of EasySocial." Get the idea?

While writing this... it occurs to me that the best guy to talk to is Miljan at Zoolanders. the Zoolanders guys would be the first to ask if we decide to either have this done for ourselves or sponsor a new Zoolanders feature but I agree with Benoit that the best outcome would be that you guys build this as part of ES. It would result in an INCREDIBLY powerful way to build social apps.

I hope that this helps.

Chris

I worked with Mijan and the Zoolanders guys before. They are really a great team, I would love to work again with them, but I have 3 projects in stand by with them that they don't have time to work on currently because of other projects. Not sure this one could become a priority for them neither.

Looooooking foward to this

B.

Hm, still a little lost here but I will try to play around with Zoo Not too sure about those layouts though.

Maybe this could help a little bit : http://www.yootheme.com/zoo/content-builder

If it can help putting this project to priority, I would prefer to financially support you guys to do it than any other team.

Like I said, for me January 2014, I'll want to start looking for a team to work on that !

I can always let you duplicate my website, it has Zoo and all of your extensions installed !

It would be so great if this can work with you Mark !

Let us know if we can help in anyway to.

B.

And don´t forget K2. If you could integrate K2, there would be no reason to use JomSocial again

Hm, still a little lost here but I will try to play around with Zoo Not too sure about those layouts though.

Yea... might have been the way that I explained it... It did take me a while to get my head wrapped around the way YooTheme organised things in Zoo but once I did it all started to seem quite intuitive.

I've preped a sample site for you to take a look at and mailed the details. Feel free to do whatever you like to it. It's disposable and only exists so you can take a look.

At the very least, I think that you will find the way they have built zoo very interesting.

Chris

Thanks for the heads up on this guys

Hi.
I am involved in creation of integration.
The other day I will publish Authorlink Element for ZOO v. 3.1.3 with support first step of an integration - User integrations - the avatar and user's name.
The following is MyZooItems for EasySocial - displays user's items they made. (Release within 1.5 - 2 weeks).
The rest is planned before the New Year.

Hi Attavus,

Sounds fantastic! I look forward to trying.

Are you integrating with Zoo to retrieve and display items or are you grabbing the records frem the database and de-constructing the objects yourself?

Thanks for sharing Attavus

Hi Attavus,

How is your MyZooItems app coming?

Thanks
Chris

Hi guys, hope you are all well,

Like I said I would, I am starting to work on a Zoo app for Easyocial, I got a developer currently looking at my project.

I would like to present it to you, get some feedback and eventually if you are interested, maybe some of you would like to chip in to get the app. Not sure if Stackidea would like to get the app too ? Mark ? My dev and I have no intention to make money out of this, I would just like to get some help to pay for the work and then I would be more than happy to sell/give the app to someone.

Ok, let's go. So the project is to create a EasySocial App that allows an administrator to select a Zoo App and then display items/records from that App, using different custom Zoo layouts.

This ES app would display 4 different layout (see attached pictures) :

- All items - show frontpage layout of the selected Zoo application (meaning this zoo file /media/zoo/applications/app_name/templates/template_name/frontpage.php
- My items - show items created by the user
- My favorites items - shows items that are selected as favourites by the user, through the use of the new «Add to favorites» Zoo element.
- Viewed items - show items viewed by the user

For this project we need to build 5 plugins:

1. ES app that you can install multiple times for each Zoo application
2. Zoo element «Add to favorites»
3. Zoo extension «My items» that create a Zoo extension layout
4. Zoo extension «My favorites» that create a Zoo extension layout
5. Zoo extension «Viewed items» that create a Zoo extension layout

Other integration in the future would be

- Share specific Zoo items to stream, in message, etc.
- Activity stream integration - new items created are published in EasySocial's stream, and maybe add a filter for each Zoo app ?
- Points integration for users who contributed to the Zoo database

Let me know what you think !

B.

Looks pretty good

Hi there,

I think that Benoit Gonneville Damme idea is good. I would love to hear more about it (e.g. amount that is needed to get this app published? how long will it take?). Also, might be a stupid question, but everything a user does like, adding to favourite, 'liking' something on Zoo, etc, will appear on the users timeline and thereby other users newsfeed?

Hi Benoit,

This is excellent news. What you are proposing sounds great. We would be very pleased to contribute to it's development.

I'll give your overview some more thought and come back to you.

Chris

David Judah wrote:Also, might be a stupid question, but everything a user does like, adding to favourite, 'liking' something on Zoo, etc, will appear on the users timeline and thereby other users newsfeed?

Hi David, I'd like to add these in the future but the dev I work with is pretty busy and I had in mind to keep those feature for the future.

I would hope that Stackidea would be interested in helping out for that actually. Mark ? If we build this app, would you be interested in adding it to the core of ES and add some stream and integration feature to it ? I know you guys are pretty busy and ES 1.2 and 1.3 are priorities in my opinion, but a clear position and answer from you could help me decide whenever we can expect support from you toward this project ? Maybe helping my dev, if anything

Thank you guys ! I'm glad that some people are willing to help out for the development. I will let you know about the quote and time really soon.

B.

Good work Benoit Gonneville Damme:D

Perhaps you guys should try to work out something to share the cost?

Works for me. Anyone else?

Mark wrote: Perhaps you guys should try to work out something to share the cost?

Yes for that, it is clear, my question was more if we could count on you guys to do the ES stream and point integration at some point ?

B.

Depends on the price and what the app can offer, I would be interested

I also think that stream and point integration is important too. Mark surely you guys cold kick in a little time to assist with this part?

+ 1 on Stream

Let's make this a deal, if you guys could get this app ready, I will build the points, stream and badges integrations. How about that?

wohoo! Now that's what I call world class support

That's fair

HAHA ! I could not hope for more ! Excellent Mark, you got yourself a deal

OK, I'll keep you guys in touch with a quote and time estimation from my dev !

Sweet, we'll get a new ES app !

B.

Great! I am looking forward to this

Hi guys,

I got news from my dev. He thinks it will take approximately between 40-50h (testing + support is included) because we need to start from scratch and it's just not displaying the layout, but the whole user information that we need to track (viewed, created, etc.) and obliviously the Zoo element for favorites items. His price is usually 25-30$/h so he told me to expect the project to cost 1 000 - 1 500$ max.

Not sure what you expected but I'm fine with the price if we can find maybe 2-3 people more (would be nice). In any cases, I trust the man, I worked with him on 2 other projects (a Timeline extension for Zoo and a Map combining information from Jomsocial events and users and Zoo database, that by the way I will be updating to supporting ES events once it's release, but that's an other project).

So here you go ! Let me know what you think ! In the meaning while, I will go post this on Yootheme forum to get some more people involve in this.

Maybe you guys know other forums we can post this ?

Cheers.

B.

I'm in for a share.

How about the rest of you guys?

The more of us there are the cheaper it's going to be for all!

My dev is starting to work on the project

Mark, anyway you can advertise this more to this wonderful community ? ;-)

B.

It's already in the forums and it's open to everyone so I guess it should be good

Surprise, surprise

1. http://screencast.com/t/g7ij2oXZ0N7
2. http://screencast.com/t/QthrVFunYr
3. http://screencast.com/t/TcJS1Dq9uen

Enjoy!

Very cool. Perhaps part of this can be used to accelerate the zoo version?

Is this something that you are working on or is it from someone else?

I think someone here was supposed to build the app and when it's done I'll help to plugin the Zoo badges / points.

Sounds interesting. But I don't use zoo or k2 at all. I am subscribed to this discussion to see how it goes.

Hey Benoit,

Any news on the app? I was wondering if it would be possible to integrate Zoo comments with EasySocial profiles? Also wanted to let you know that I can commit to $100 if it helps

Yes, my dev is currently reading the ES documentation :P

What do you mean by integrate Zoo comments with ES ? I suggest you to use Komento honestly :P

Hmmm as for the 100$, I was more thinking that each person that wants the app split the cost equivalently...so the more we are the less it cost.

B.

It was also my understanding that we would all be contributing equally.

Come on guys... many people have said that they need this. Benoit has been kind enough to produce a spec and to organize everything.

Let's all show our support. As he stated, the more of us there are the less it will be for all.

Chris

Have you guys found anyone to work on the Zoo app yet?

Hey Mark, quick question ! Would it be possible to make this topic open to everyone ? I just realized only people with a valid ES subscription can follow and reply to the topic.

There is a guy from the Joomla forums that would like to join the conversation, not sure he has a valid subscription yet...

B.

How many people are committed to chipping in yet?

Hi Mark, I think that Benoit has a guy working on it now. Last I heard his guy was reviewing the ES documentation. Why do you ask? Have you found a Zoo expert?

Hello David, As far as I know, right now, it's just just Benoit and I and it sounds like he might have someone else who's not yet able to participate in the conversation.

@David - Right now we are, you, Christopher, maybe Mikeem from the Joomla forums and myself. So four of us so far.

@Mark - Hey Mark, yes we have a dev, his name is Han Tran and use to work on the Zoo Radius extension.

Update to all : Han is finishing a project right now, he will be able to start working on our app sometime next week probably.

I strongly suggest that you guys reply to these forums post to give other user the feeling that this is not a dying topic and that we are looking for more people to chip in !

http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=715&t=835626&p=3141156

http://www.yootheme.com/support/question/58990

http://www.yootheme.com/support/question/50940

Thanks for helping out, I hope we could get at least 6 people to share the cost

B.

Nice, good to know that

Hi Guys,

I don't think the app which is being created would serve the needs for my site in development. I did commit $100 and will stick to it as I did so already. Best of luck there!

Thanks for sharing David

Ok, I'm still going forward with it, but I would love to see more people joining.

If we are only two people committing on splitting the cost of this app, then I would probably not publish it for free, but rather try to sell it to Yootheme, Zoolanders or Stackideas to cover some of the expense.

Like I said, for me this is a community project, I don't want to make money out of it, but I don't want to spend 1000$ and give it await afterwards to people who waited for someone else to do and pay for the work.

I am convince this app as potentially especially because Zoo as a lot more to offer in term of user friendliness then the competitions out there.

Just my thoughts ;-)

B.

Hi Benoit,

For the avoidance of any doubt... I'm in for an equal share no matter how many of us there are.

I've tried to participate in the conversation over at YouTheme but unfortunately my subscription has expired and I cannot get into it.

I also agree that the app has huge potential but it's worth considering whether it should be distributed for free give peoples reluctance to participate but we still need Marks help for the points and activity steam integration.

Chris

Glad you are inboard, that's a relief ;-)

B.

I say sell it cheap like $10-$20. If the extension is good it will sell itself, and you can recover your investment really fast. Also, don't forget people might not have a need for it now, but maybe later they will need something like this, since both zoo and easy social are popular extension.

The thing is I don't want to setup a website or transaction website just for this, I'd rather sell it cheaper to some company who is already in the Zoo/ES/Joomla business.

B.

Selling this is easy But there's an issue about maintaining it as it wouldn't be cheap. Just by providing the support itself needs a lot of time

Agreed... This is not not what we're trying to accomplish here. I for one have no interest in setting up a business of this sort.

From my perspective, I needed something that no one else was building. The options were to wait and hope that some one else was going to build it; write or commission it myself; or work with others to share in the cost of having it built. Benoit was kind enough to create a spec, find a developer, oversee the development and allow others to share the code in exchange for sharing the cost... which in my view is extremely fair and reasonable. Either of the other approaches would have cost much more time and/or money.

Sure there is small risk that it will need to be adapted further but at least I'll be allot closer than I am now. Zoo and EasySocial are fantastic tools for building data rich, social web sites and I think that anyone who uses them would find this app extremely useful, if not essential, and should chip in to shoulder a share of the burden. The more of us there are to pitch in, the lighter the load for all.

So come on guys..... if you're here and you use Zoo... you know you need this kind of integration!

Can someone show me implementations of Zoo? What can be done with it, apart from recipes, blogs, etc..? Can I see websites relying on Zoo to create advanced contents?

Hi Antonio, Many of my sites are on intranets but you could take a look at this one: http://hobbydb.com/ . It's still in beta but we've done some pretty cool things with Zoo for it.

Also look here: https://www.zoolanders.com/ (http://demo.zoolanders.com/index.php/en/)

and google "zoo joomla element"... that are a number of really nice addons around for zoo for mapping (http://georadiussearch.com/).. cool demo there too)

... and you can do recipes, blogs, movies, etc.

Also take a look at Benoit's screen shots above. It looks like he's doing some cool things with products.

There is also this one for products, etc: http://jbzoo.com/ (http://demo.jbzoo.com/)

Hey Antonio,

So I am using Zoo as the main content builder for a database website for a extreme sport community. Basically the aim is to have on one website, all the products, parts, athletes information, shops, events, documentation and tutorial and much more. I use Zoo because I think it's easier to work with, and I like the custom extensions from Zoolander, really neat ! Here are some example of how I use Zoo (site is under-construction, not everything looks nice but you'll get an idea of the potential of Zoo) :

- Products database
+ main page : http://unicyclist.info/ride
+ product page : http://unicyclist.info/ride/36-kris-holm-2013

- Rider database : http://unicyclist.info/meet/raphael-poham

- Movie database : http://unicyclist.info/watch/test-upload

Like I said, this is a website under-construction, it is far from been neat and beautiful. There are other demo website that can show you the full potential of the Zoo apps. http://www.yootheme.com/zoo/apps/

What I love about Zoo is the multiple of relation you can build between "apps". So for example, the timeline on the athlete page display videos from the Movie database that are tagged to feature this athlete. You can create infinite number of relation. Plus Zoolanders are working on a cart extension for Zoo, giving you the possibility to sell items from your "apps".

Cheers !

B.

Thank you guys, I'll take a look and try to see if Zoo can be suitable to what I need.
For now I understand that Zoo is a flexible content constructor and you guys are trying to make it "social", so users can submit their content and share it on ES-made networks. Is it correct?

Maybe I could explain what is my idea so you can tell me if it can be made with Zoo.

Yes. Correct.

Do tell...

Hi,

Here is my two cents, I could be totally wrong here but I thought Yootheme were putting more focus on their new CMS which will include a CCK!

Zoo has not received much attention over the last few years with new features, yet they put a massive amount of focus on the CMS they are building.

Unless there is something hidden within their forums about what they are planning to add to Zoo i cant see them putting much effort into ZOO.

Please do not see this as a negative post but I noted you are asking for maybe 2-3 users to front the cost for development, what if they stop supporting it at some point?

Kind Regards
Alex

Hi Alex,

I know about this situation, you are right that Zoo as not received much attention in the past. Tho Yootheme seems to say they are committing on updating and developing for both platforms (Joomla and their own CMS), it is true that there is a possibility that their Joomla extensions and template won't receive the amount of attention we would like. All in all, Yootheme is far from the service and the developing attitude I see from Stackidea.

That said, in my opinion, Zoo is a stable extension that does not require much more developing. It's really mature, very easy to use and there are a lot of custom extensions out there. Zoolanders are 100% dedicated to create extension for it and I don't see them going out of business in the near future. Furthermore, Yootheme is still updating Zoo with nice feature like their Uikit.

And to be honest, I tested Cobalt a bit and asked for help and quote to develop somethings I already had build with Zoo and it seemed very complicated and at some point they stopped answering me. Zoo is by far the easiest CCK for Joomla. I love the design, the tools, the apps, the fact that you can design multiple layout only with drag and drop.

So, yes ! Even if they stop develop it (which is not even a rumour and I would be surprised if they did), I would still go forward with this integration

Cheers !!

B.

Hi Benoit Gonneville Damme,

Thank you for your reply without any aggression

I have used both Zoo and Zoolanders do offer a complete solution, it will be very interesting to see what they come up with at a later date.

I tend to use Jreviews which can achieve all that zoo can do and in my option much better as that is one product they are dedicated to improving.

Regards
Alex

Hi Alex,

I see your two cents and raise you two cents ... The risk you describe exists any time you use a 3rd party component in a solution. It's true there is always a small chance that they would drop it but let's consider how that would play out.

- They could dump it all together... JomSocial considered this for about about 5 minutes when they introduced their hosted solution before all hell broke loose... "dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria" and an opportunity was created for easySocial so... they changed their mind. Those of us who use Zoo have hundreds if not thousands of hours invested in it and would likely never go near YooTheme ever again if they did this but even if they did I am sure that a company like Zoolanders, whose entire existence relies on Zoo, would pick it up.

- They could lessen support for it in favour of their new CMS... There may be a slightly stronger chance of this happening but doing so would leave issues unresolved, anger existing users and eventually people would engineer it out of their solutions and never go near YooTheme again. Again, not much of a win for YooTheme.

I agree with Benoit, Zoo is a fantastic CCK and extremely easy to use. there just isn't anything else out there that can compete.

But even IF (and that's a big if) Zoo disappeared, for anyone who already uses Zoo, collaboration on a easySocial App is something of a no brainer. It would take hundreds (if not thousands) of hours to replace Zoo with something else... even if that were possible... it would be much cheaper to write your own app to integrate Zoo and easySocial and much much cheaper to work with others and individually spend a couple hundred on getting the integration.

Finally for Antonio... You are at the beginning of your project.. Zoo is in version 3. It already does what it does really well. Don't be dissuaded by rumours (or swayed by the opinions of a just couple fan-boy users). Do look at alternatives; evaluate your options and if you do find something for Joomla that offers anything close to the elegance and simplicity of Zoo... let us know.

Well... That's my two cents

Hey Alex,

We used jReviews for a while too, till we have a conflict with 'Blueflame xajax'... I can't even remember what component used 'Blueflame xajax' any more but despite MANY attempts to get them to help us with it they never did so eventually we dropped it in favor of Zoo. jReviews was pretty good but in my opinion Zoo is in a whole other league in terms of overall flexibility. On the other hand, I have not looked at it in a couple years. It's likely moved on a bit.

Chris

Alex !

You are right to mention JReviews here, it IS a great extension, I like a lot

I contacted them to ask if they were interested in developing a integration with Zoo, to add their wonderful reviewing system to Zoo. They transferred my request to a company that works and develop extensions and custom works for them. Basically that company mostly tried to convince me to dump Zoo for Jreview.

My goal here is definitely not do some brand basing, on the opposite actually. I think that not one extension (expect Stackideas extensions ahaha) can do the perfect job, and integration between extensions is key. This is what I am trying to achieve with this project.

There are tons of great things that JReviews is doing (review for one, Facebook apps, compare system, add to favourite, etc..), but I am not a fan of their media management and the layout of their apps. Zoo does that better in my opinion, but then, I am indeed a fan-boy.

Off subject tho, I have found a very interesting and easy way that we could use Komento as a review system ;-) I was going to suggest a project/concept idea after release of ES 1.3 !

Soooo many projects !

B.

Hello.

(sorry for my bad english)

I, too, would have great interest in it.

Because I create a page with recipes and much other things for family and houses.
The recipes and other articles are created with YOOtheme ZOO.
Theme from Yootheme
Cooments in all ZOO items from Komento
and Community with Easysocial

And my idea is that user can save recipes in their ES profiles.

the last 5 days i hva elook look for apps who can do this, have make much mails and more.
- nothing found

and today i have see this post (thanks to Mark for give the tipp) and i am VERY HAPPY.

YES i want this app

and YES a can pay, donate or what other 50 - 100 dollar when you want?

ok. say what i can do

Guido

Hey guys !

Just wanted to let you know that it's not because you don't hear about me that the project is not alive ;-)

Things are slowly coming !

B.

Nice Thanks for updating Benoit

Thanks for the update!

Chris

Hey GUYS !

Just came back from vacation and my dev is done with the app ! WOOOOT !

Give me 1-2 days to setup a demo website or take some screenshots and you will be able to give your feedback !

My dev was kind enough to do the work before getting even 50% in advance. I just sended him 300$ USD to ensure he has something before we agree on how many people here want the apps !

I would appreciate if 1 or 2 people here do the same. Let me know !

I am so thrilled to share the demo with you !

B.

Nice Benoit Any screen shots of this ?

Hey guys !

It's ready ! And better than screenshots, I have a demo website ! http://demo.htrxuan.de/ login info are : admin/admin2014

Feel free to login on the backend to check the config and how the app work. You can refer to my previous forum post for that. Basically, everything is dependend of Zoo. The app loads new custom Zoo layout that you can modify easily from the backend. Plus there is a new element for the favourite items. Have fun exploring !

My dev is currently working to wrap the app into a installation package and make it possible to install multiple instance of the app. Mark, do you think you could help for that ? He's not sure if it's possible with ES...

Okay, now is pay time. Like I said, I already send 300$ USD just for a first deposit. How many people want the app now ?

B.

Hi Benoit,

I somehow missed the message from Tuesday but did get this one. Sorry about that. I'm in for a share, as promised. Just PM me where to pay as soon as we've figure out how many of us there are to share the burden.

Hopefully Mark will do the promised points and activity stream integration very soon!

Going to go play now.

Chris

Guido... you still want in?

Chris

Benoit,

Do you think that it would be possible to view the zoo item in the easySocial pane?

Chris

Christopher,

You can start by sending 300$ USD to this email : htrxuan@gmail.com so we are now even for the first deposit.

As for the Zoo Item been displayed in the ES app directly, I have thought about it. I like the idea but it would not work for all of my needs, I like that some items would redirect to a fullwide page.

I can ask my dev about this tomorrow and see how we could do this and for how much more work. Is it critical for you ? I would need an option to disable this feature on some app.

B.

Hey guys,

Just a gentle note that any transactions performed between each other is out of our jurisdiction. Please do so at your own risk and none of this is affiliated with us. My only guarantee is that once the app is out, I will add the badge and point rules

Thanks Mark,

Yea.. I know this is outside your area and at our own risk but Benoit seems like a pretty trustworthy guy

How about activity stream integration... 'User' added a whatever record'. Would this be difficult to add?

Benoit,

Ok.. I will do as soon as I get home (much later tonight.

Also... to answer your question from above... I'll be using this for personal, rather than generic or shared records so it would be better if all was done in the EasySocial frame but I guess it depends on how complicated this will be to do. I agree that it should be an option.

Chris

Thanks Mark for the note

Anybody who would like to speak with the dev directly is free to ask me, I am trying to do the bridge between this community project and the person doing the work but I don't want to be in charge of dealing with peoples money. Plus I have an agreement to pay my dev regardless of how many people chip in. I have a good relation with him and would like to keep it that way

@ Mark, activity stream integration and notifications would be very useful, please consider putting the effort into it, thank you ! As for example, when a use "favourite" an item using the Zoo element, this could be displayed on the stream. Option to disable this is important too. Thank you again for your participation in this project

@Chris, ok perfect, I will ask him how hard/easy it would be to develop. Like I said, I too could use this feature in some situation.

@Mark(again), just out of curiosity...if we don't manage to find enough people to split the cost, would you agree to sell it on your ES app store on our behalf ? Maybe just help us get some of the initial investment ? I can't believe this app would not be more popular with the proper promotion.

Thanks to all !

B.

Hey Benoit,

This is Mikeem from the Joomla forum way back in Feb. I've used Zoo over on http://www.doindublin.ie to build an event guide.

Just got around to purchasing easysocial today so catching up on developments. My intent with the purchase is to make my events (Zoo items) more social. I've put a lot of work into custom layouts and the design of the site so I'm not looking for a complete replacement, instead I want the events to become focal points that the community rally around. So users will browse events and by 'favouriting' the ones they like this info will leak into their easysocial feed where others can comment, they can see who else is going, build groups around event categories etc.

So an event guide with social features rather than a a social community with events if that makes sense. So ideas on features:


When a user favourites zoo items these appear on the easysocial stream - Mikeem favourited 'This Zoo item'
When a users' friend favourites zoo items, these items appear on the easysocial stream
When on an zoo-items page, ability to see all the users who "favourited" the current item with an avatar that links to their easy social profile
When on a users easy social profile, others users can see all events favourited by that user
User can 'subscribe' to a Zoo category. So when a new item from that category is added to Zoo, user sees this on their stream


(Hmm...It sounds like what I'm looking for is my zoo items to behave like the yet-be-released easysocial events.)

Anyway that's what I had in mind and I'm not too sure how this aligns with your intent. There's definitely some overlap but I wonder if I've just described a different animal?

If what you're building can meet my requirements then I'm behind it.

I think what you describe is more a potential ES Event feature than the app we designed.

The current app does a lot, but all the social/stream feature you are asking are more Mark's area of expertise than mine/my dev's one.

I think the app would be a good start, with the favourite feature thing, but you seems to be looking for specific notification and stream behaviour !

Go have a look at the demo tho, maybe this will help you decide if you want in : http://demo.htrxuan.de/

Cheers.

B.

Hey Benoit,

Yeah looks like we have different outcomes in mind. That said, there may be features we could split costs on. For example a "people who favourited this item" Zoo element that shows/links to people's easysocial avatar might be useful to some in this thread.

Also Activity stream integration and notifications, as you and Chris mentioned, is a must have for me. These sounds like an different set of requirements and a another project so I'll see how this goes and may tap into your developer at a later stage.


Best of luck.


Mike

Hi Benoit, Money sent, as agreed.

Hi Mike, The other bits you spoke of are not really another project. More like another phase... Something that Mark at Stack ideas said that he would help with if we got he plugin built. re Events. Zoolanders have quite a cool events app that is based on Zoo - https://www.zoolanders.com/extensions/events . Something native for easySocial would be nice too. Is this on the ES roadmap?

Kind Regards
Chris

Hi Benoit,

I do think that it's pretty important to be able to allow people to view/edit/add records from within their 'dashboard' (easySocial). Hopefully it will not be hard to add.

Chris

Yeah perhaps, so I'm ready to step at that phase and contribute to further the integration of ZOO and Easysocial.

Cheers for the heads up on the zoolanders app. What I put together is actually a combo of zoolanders extensions. Achieves pretty much the same thing as the app but allows me more freedom to modify.

Events are on the ES rodapmap, scheduled for 1.3.0 I think.

Events would most likely come in EasySocial 1.3

Hey there !

@ Chris, so I talked about the idea to my dev and he thinks it will be very hard. ES loads the app with AJAX and it seems like AJAX cannot load .JS and .CSS but only data. The problem is that most Zoo element have .js and .css. I am definitely not an expect here, maybe Mark can help, but it seems like it would be very hard to load the items with AJAX inside the app.

An other solution he thinks would be to load the items in a iframe... Mark, do you have suggestion regarding this ? A solution would be nice indeed...

@ Mark, when can you start on the notification, stream and point ? Any thoughts on how we could sell this app ?

Thank you all !

B.

Hello Benoit,

Hm, I am not too sure what he meant by AJAX calls are unable to process js calls. If he uses our ajax library, it is possible to process javascript codes in the ajax response Utilizing our AJAX response object is pretty simple:

<?php

require_once(JPATH_ADMINISTRATOR . '/components/com_easysocial/includes/foundry.php');



$ajax     = Foundry::ajax();



$ajax->resolve('whatever contents here');

Hi guys,

I asked my dev again, he will check tomorrow again but he think it will not work. The problem doesn't come from ES but from the Zoo item detail/Full layout. If you try to load it using AJAX, it will be full of bug he says. http://demo.htrxuan.de/products/item/36-kris-holm-2005?category_id=28&format=ajax

This is waaaaaay out of my comprehension of AJAX, JS or anything else. Mark, Chris, if you guys want to talk to him directly to try to find a solution, please be my guess, I am lost here :P

B.

Hello Benoit,

Would you mind also asking if submissions present the same problem?

Thanks
Chrs

Sure, I'll ask him !

B.

Hm, to be honest I really have no idea what is he trying to achieve here so I can't really comment much on that. By the way, maybe it would be a good idea to start a new thread about this? This is getting way too long if I have to read the post from the start

Ok ! I finally got my dev to explain me the problem with AJAX and the Zoo detail layout.

It seems like the problem is that when using ajax to load the Zoo Item layout, the .js and .css of the Zoo elements are not loaded automatically. They need to be loaded on page load rather than on AJAX refresh (if that makes sense). It's fine when there are only 1-2 zoo elements and you know what they are, but every time we will want to add a new Zoo element in the layout, we will need to modify the app to load that element's .js and .css files.

Other solution would be to load on first page load, all Zoo element's .js and .css. But that would mean a very very very slow website.

Not an easy thing to work on. And it would be the same for the Zoo Submission layout. Sorry Chris

Should we check further for solution ? Maybe we can finish this work and then look for other solutions ? I am willing to support your project since you have done the same for mine.

Mark, what do you need to start the integration with ES ? I can start a new forum thread to present the final project and than we work on it ?

B.

Yeah, probably start a new thread with the app and I'll take a look at it

Ok ! I created the new post http://stackideas.com/forums/easysocial-app-zoo-integration

How can I send you, Mark and Chris, the files ?

B.

Hello Benoit,

Let's continue the discussion there