Here some examples about what I mean and what I would like to do:

-> Use the templates module-classes inside of the Communiy-Modules
-> Have the fonts and stuff like that taken from the Joomla-Template
-> Have the Inbox-Icon sitewide and not only in the bar of the community-pages

Maybe it´s better to understand what I mean with that thought:
I don´t want to have a "Community-Navigation" inside of the community, I want to have a "site-wide navigation" that integrates the community.
In the moment, EasySocial seems to me like a "Comunity inside of a website" and not a "Community-Website".

Do you know what I mean?

All the best, Julian!

Hello Julian,

Thanks for the heads up on this. Kindly please find the response to your inquiries below:

ARe there comming more templates soon?

Yes, in EasySocial 1.4, we have tons of improvements that we are adding

Will there be more variations in layout and not only in colours?

Yes, that is correct In 1.4, it will be a major restructuring and lots of changes will be made based on the input that we receive from customers.

Will thinks like module-designs and activity-steam be able to show up in different designs?

Not really sure what you mean by this but you can already custom style the module to your liking eh?

Use the templates module-classes inside of the Communiy-Modules

This is already do-able because we do have quite a number of modules that are already available

Have the fonts and stuff like that taken from the Joomla-Template

We are already inheriting the fonts from the template but certain sections within EasySocial cannot be overriden by the template because it will just look really odd. For instance, the dialog boxes, it wouldn't make sense if the font size within the dialog is 20px while the dialog is small

Have the Inbox-Icon sitewide and not only in the bar of the community-pages

Not really sure what you mean by this but this is already made as a module as you can see from our wanderers template here, http://wanderers.stackideas.com

Hi Mark,

thanks for your quick answers.
Unfortunatelly, they don´t answer me the questions I have in mind.
Please apologize that it´s really difficult for me to explain what I mean. I try to make it more precise:

Will thinks like module-designs and activity-steam be able to show up in different designs?

Not really sure what you mean by this but you can already custom style the module to your liking eh?

I definitely can´t. I am not a coder and I have no clue how to change css-styles. And I also don´t like to learn it.
That´s why I testet a lot of templates and decidet to use a JSN-Template, which is beautifully styled, has lots of typography-options and it´s very, very stable.
So I need to use extensions, that harmonize with the templates-css.

An example:
When a link, a heading, an image, anything like that is shown in in Easysocial, will it use the classes that come from the template?
I don´t want to be in the need to fix css-classes, because I have no clue about how to do it.

Use the templates module-classes inside of the Communiy-Modules

This is already do-able because we do have quite a number of modules that are already available

When I look on your demo, the module-styles seem to be very minimalistic.
Let´s take for example the module "Online users" on your demo-page.
Can I use this module also "outside" of Easysocial? For example on a K2-Categories-page?
Can this module use the module-classes defined from the template?
When I use the module "inside" of Easysocial, can it also use the module-classes that are defined in the template?

What I do is:
-> I use K2 for articles
-> I use Kunena as a forum component

So when I want to place the module with the "online users", I don´t want to have different designs. When I show the online-users-module beside the K2-Articles, it should look exactly the same as the online-users-module that I show in EasySocial. In fact, I want to show "the same module".
And when I show a module "Latest K2 articles", I want to show it also "inside" of the community.

The desgin of my Joomla-template and the design of EasySocial shold "match togehter". They should look like it´s all the same software/the same website.
On your demo, I "only" see the community.

Another good example is the Login-Module:
I don´t like to have different login-modules on different sites. This only distracts the users.
The login-module should be in the same position and it should look exactly the same, no matter if the user is in Kunena, on K2 or in Easysocial. So here the question is the same: Can I use YOUR Login-Module on other pages and can YOUR login-module take over the module-class from the template, so all modules match togehter?

Have the Inbox-Icon sitewide and not only in the bar of the community-pages

Not really sure what you mean by this but this is already made as a module as you can see from our wanderers template here, http://wanderers.stackideas.com

I can´t see it because I have no login. ;-)

But I can explain what I mean:
On Jomsocial I usually have the "JomSocial-Bar". I don´t like this bar, so I completely removed it and placed into the Joomla Main-Menu.
Reason for that is: I want to have a clear navigation. The Jomsocial-bar only appears on the JomSocial-pages. And it looks stuipd, when the users must use another navigation on the Community-pages then on the K2 or Easyblog-Pages.

I want to have all of that aligned and no need adjust every single thing.

On the bar, the "missing part" for me is the New-PM-Notification.
I don´t want to use a whole Module-Position only for the notification. And I like to have the notification on EVERY page.
When a user get´s a PM, he should get this information EVERYWHERE and not only if he is on a community-page.

So I need to place the notification-icon outside of Jomsocial.
Can I do that?

Will thinks like module-designs and activity-steam be able to show up in different designs?

Not really sure what you mean by this but you can already custom style the module to your liking eh?

Look on the activity-stream on my website.

I like the acticities in two rows with the line in the middle and the little "scrolling"-effect while loading.
The activities are more "compact", with a box around them and the line in the middle that "sorts" them.

When I look on the acticity-stream of EasySocial, most activcities are just a short sentence, but the box has 100% width. That does not look nice for my opinion. A "5-word-activity" takes the complete horizontal space. The version that I have on my page is much more compact: Most activities are nearly square. The box around them is "clearer". The heading has a light grey background, also the "navigation" under the activitie (Like, Comment, Repost,...) has a light grey background. That makes it appear much more "sorted".

This is the adjustments that would be neccecary for me when using EasySocial, so I wonder if they are possible. ;-)

Is it easier to understand for you what I need?

All the best, Julian!

Hello Julian,

Please find the response to your inquiries below,

When I look on your demo, the module-styles seem to be very minimalistic.
Let´s take for example the module "Online users" on your demo-page.
Can I use this module also "outside" of Easysocial? For example on a K2-Categories-page?
Can this module use the module-classes defined from the template?
When I use the module "inside" of Easysocial, can it also use the module-classes that are defined in the template?

So when I want to place the module with the "online users", I don´t want to have different designs. When I show the online-users-module beside the K2-Articles, it should look exactly the same as the online-users-module that I show in EasySocial. In fact, I want to show "the same module".
And when I show a module "Latest K2 articles", I want to show it also "inside" of the community.

Yes, the online users is a module and it can be used outside of EasySocial

Another good example is the Login-Module:
I don´t like to have different login-modules on different sites. This only distracts the users.
The login-module should be in the same position and it should look exactly the same, no matter if the user is in Kunena, on K2 or in Easysocial. So here the question is the same: Can I use YOUR Login-Module on other pages and can YOUR login-module take over the module-class from the template, so all modules match togehter?

Yes, we have different types of login modules available and you can publish them accordingly

Look on the activity-stream on my website.

I like the acticities in two rows with the line in the middle and the little "scrolling"-effect while loading.
The activities are more "compact", with a box around them and the line in the middle that "sorts" them.

When I look on the acticity-stream of EasySocial, most activcities are just a short sentence, but the box has 100% width. That does not look nice for my opinion. A "5-word-activity" takes the complete horizontal space. The version that I have on my page is much more compact: Most activities are nearly square. The box around them is "clearer". The heading has a light grey background, also the "navigation" under the activitie (Like, Comment, Repost,...) has a light grey background. That makes it appear much more "sorted".

This is the adjustments that would be neccecary for me when using EasySocial, so I wonder if they are possible. ;-)

I think this is only a matter of personal preference. In my opinion, feed items on a stream is too cluttered if it was only 2 columns. Everything looks extremely messy. For instance, your site looks really messy to me because I don't even know where to start reading That being said, there's really nothing wrong with having 2 columns or a single column and I guess it's just a matter of preference. I believe Tigra also has integrations with EasySocial too.

I think this is only a matter of personal preference. In my opinion, feed items on a stream is too cluttered if it was only 2 columns. Everything looks extremely messy. For instance, your site looks really messy to me because I don't even know where to start reading That being said, there's really nothing wrong with having 2 columns or a single column and I guess it's just a matter of preference. I believe Tigra also has integrations with EasySocial too.

I couldn´t agree more: It´s a total personal thing.
I realized for myself, that I prefer activity-item more "compact". Like "little boxes".
That is also the reason why I like a template like JA Wall: http://www.joomlart.com/demo/#ja_wall

JA Wall it NOT the right template to get something "sorted".
I don´t like to have a complete website like this. But the activity-stream for me is not the "sorted" part. If users want to have some "sorted discussions", they will find them in Kunena or Easydiscuss. If they want to have "sorted articles", I use K2. So for me (!) the goal of the activity-stream is to have something like a "fuzzy-overview of recent activities". I could imagine to have the activity-stream like a tag-cloud: Just spreaded around, and recent activities as well as active items get massive, while the old and inactive ones go to the background and get more and more transparent.

However, this is more extreme. What I mean is to get the activitystream "a little bit more fuzzy".
As your Activity-Stream looks exactly the same on every template, I wonder if it is possible and if it is planed to give different options in future.

Yes, Tigra has some stuff for EasySocial also, and I like the coders there a lot. They are quick and really good in what they are doing.
Unfortunatelly they have the template only for JomSocial. This is one of the reasons I aske about the templates. If they would offer theire Framework also for Easysocial, I would instantly switch to easysocial. Actually, there are only two reasons for me that make me hesitate on switching:

- Template/Layout
- Guru / LMS

After Guru is getting down since years and I am loosing hope, only the template-questions are left ...

All the best, Julian!

Thanks for getting back to me on this Julian. Perhaps you should try pushing them to build a template for EasySocial as your suggestions to them would only mean that they gain more profit They would be able to have a bigger pie in the market rather than restricting themselves to JomSocial

Hi Mark,

this is getting more philosophical now, but I think it might have some value for you, so I continue on my thoughts.
Today somebody told me my page looks "like facebook". I try to do everything so it does not look like facebook. I don´t like to have a "facebook-copy", I prefer to fill a niesche.

However ... one of the reasons for changing my activity-stream is that I like to have it "different then facebook". And I think, there can be done a lot, that makes this difference. Imagine stream-items that have more "physical appereance". If they look like "items", adjusted to the content. Videos have different design like links or photos. Activities get different colours, based on if they are "from friends" or not.

Imagine, Activities from friends appear "full" while no-friends-activities show up collapsed, only the title. Imagine a two-column-activitie-stream with friends activities on the left and public activities on the right?

There is a lot of stuff that can be done and that is not a "facebook-clone". I would love to see some real "action" on this stuff.

I also have another Idea, that NOBODY did pick up till now ant it would really be a great idea on the activity-stream.
I can tell it to you, but I don´t want to post it public. If you want I can sent it to you with PM.
Reason for not public is simple: I don´t want some idiot to start on that Idea. You are a company I know: If you decide to do it, you will do a great job. That´s why I would tell it to you, but I don´t want to make it public. ;-)

Back to the topic:
I think it´s not about getting "close to facebook", it´s much or about "bringing something in, that facebook doesn´t have".

Back to Tigracon: They told me, they are working on "Tigra for EasySocial".
This makes me happy. They will need at least one more month, so I will wait for it.
One question in advance: If I install EasySocial and import the Jomsocial-Content, will JomSocial still work with the content?
I would like to know if it is possible to install Easysocial in the same website, import the content, but still let Jomsocial live, so I can "test" Easysocial with real data.

All the best, Julian!

Hello Julian,

To be honest with you, any social network sites that I see today would remind me of Facebook. Simply because this has now become more of a "technology" rather than a site. Look at reputable social networks like Yammer, Ning. They all behave pretty similar like what Facebook offers. The reason is simply because we no longer need to educate the users on how they could post their updates. It has became the "norm" in everyone's life

Every social site that I see today will automatically have the impression that it either looks like Facebook, Twitter or Google+. In fact, having 2 column stream would make it look a little like Google+ too

As for your super secret ideas, sure, you can drop me an email at mark AT stackideas.com

Julian, not to intrude on your presale conversation with Mark. However, as someone who has subscribed to both JomSocial and EasySocial... I can tell you, you really should switch! Once you do, you will never look back.

In terms of it looking too much like Facebook, I agree to some extent... and I do hope that future versions are more inspired by Twitter and LinkedIn, as they are more focused on Social Networks where you follow influencers and content based following.... and LinkedIn simply has the best and most in depth profile pages I have every seen. However, one thing I can tell you from being a long time Stackideas subscriber is that Mark and his team are VERY good at implementing changes that are suggested by subscribers. So if you have specific ideas of how to improve EasySocial that can benefit the vast majority of subscribers, the likelyhood of them being implemented are actually very impressive. In fact, there is even a Voices section where you can suggest ideas, and the community can vote on them. Every version update they actually go through that list and implement the changes that they feel are most likely to please subscribers.

In terms of getting third parties to create templates and such, no team is more willing to support third party developers than the team here at Stackideas. So if you want say Tigra to develop a template, and you think they need support getting a license or have some important questions on where to start, they generally can contact the team via crm.stackideas.com.

Also, I know that they are planning on some excellent revamps and more templates in 1.4 if I am not mistaken.

Also it is veery easy to do CSS overrides to the existing, if you look at my site on statusselect.com and go to activity stream, you will notice I have tried to make it look less like facebook with a few lines of code to your templates custom.css file. If you do not know how to achieve the changes you want, odds are if you ask nicely on how to achieve a certain look, that either someone from the Stackideas team or a subscriber like me will reply with some tips and maybe even a sample code you simply can copy paste. Generally speaking, I consider the community here at Stackideas to be the most helpful out of any Joomla community that I follow... and I am subscribed to many extension providers.

I also saw that you were looking for a LMS system like Guru that is compatible with EasySocial... there are actually two great ones being built one by techjoomla.com called
Shika http://techjoomla.com/shika-lms-for-joomla/shika-lms-development-progress.html
and
one by LMS King http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/living/education-a-culture/lms/25164

Anyway, I think Mark answered most of your questions quite well, I will leave him to keep answering your questions. I just thought it might be valuable to hear from a subscriber. If you have any subscriber related questions, or have questions regarding how to change the look of the activity stream... I might be able to help you with some .CSS overrides to get your desired look

Hi Jannik,

well ... I totally agree to your words.
iJoomla was a good company, but since years the quality of the products is not improved anymore and the quality of support is getting down. In addition to that, as a customer I feel like I am "disturbin" when I like to report a bug or something like that.

This is a completely different feeling with StackIdeas. I am using EasyBlog and EasyDiscuss, and whenever there is something, the Team of StackIdeas is unbelievable motivated and competent and "willing-to-solve". There is no discussion about, customer are always supportet. So I am sure I will switch ... I am just not sure about the right moment.

The LMS is something very special for me. Guru started in the time, iJoomla was still a good company. I gave them many suggestion and they "missplaned" one of the most important one: The "gradual release" of lessons. It´s a totally unique feature that for my opinion is very important for an LMS. As I am doing seminars my whole life, I know what it needs for participants to learn something. A REAL LMS is not about Quizzes and payment-gateways, it´s about the communication between students and the long-term-motivation. On this feature, ALL LMS lack so far. But still, this is the ONLIEST reason for me that I really worry about. Maybe I will have to do my courses in a simple way: AcyMailing is a solution that would also be possible.

It would be heaven if StackIdeas would decide to built something like an LMS someday. Maybe, Mark, think about this:
For my opinion, it could be VERY easy to integrate some LMS-Features in Easysocial that would change the whole game. I am not talking about stuff like SCORM or Quizzes, I simply mean that for a good course you would need:

-> A good classroom with "classroom-features", that could be handled as a variation of a "group"
-> A was to release content on a "time-frame". This can be done in combination with AcyMailing

Maybe it would not lead into a "typical LMS", but much more into a "learning-enviroment".

However, I don´t expect something like this from StackIdeas, because it´s really a very special thing and in the moment I guess StackIdeas most important project is EasySocial and there is still urgent stuff to do (Videos in the Stream, Design-Variations,...)

Thanks for your impunt, I will have a look on Shika now (it´s new, I didn´t know about it), and don´t feel like an "intruder", your imput is welcome. ;-)

All the best, Julian!

Hi Mark,

To be honest with you, any social network sites that I see today would remind me of Facebook. Simply because this has now become more of a "technology" rather than a site. Look at reputable social networks like Yammer, Ning. They all behave pretty similar like what Facebook offers. The reason is simply because we no longer need to educate the users on how they could post their updates. It has became the "norm" in everyone's life

Yes, and there is a really interesting social process behind.
My personal interpretation is:
A social network like facebook gives users the believe, others would be interested in theire content. They post daily bullshit like a photo of theire lunch, and facebook don´t "judges" it. So everybody can feel like he would be "public important", by posting his lunch-photo, while in reality nobody is really interested in that stuff.

For my opinion, nobody is realyl interested in the millions of facebook-activity-messages. I think, the option of "everybody-can-post" definitely has to stay. But it would be interesting to evaulate the importance of a stream and show this in the activity-stream.
Imagine the "activity-stream" as a crowd of people, everybody is just shouting what he wants to shout. If you listen to all that, you will identify some voices, but most of them will just be "some voices", nothing more. Sorting them would lead into "getting tons of useless information". And that´s happening in the activity-streams: In the EasySocial-Stream there are even activities for users being logged ... who the hell is interested in that?

Now imagine, this "information-mess" would get sorted somehow. And a good example for sorting is made by google: They sorted tons of internet-informations to give good search-engine-results to users. Think about adopting a concept like "PageRank" for Activity-Streams: The "Stream-Rank".

An Activity-Stream-Item can have a "rank". Let´s say, every item has a rank, let´s start with 50.
How all "friedns-activities" will get another 10 points added. Every anonymous activities will get 50 substracted.
Then, users with high karma/many likes will get some more points added to theire items. New users, users with bad karma will get some points substracted.

On every comment an item get´s some points added. On every "hide" it get´s some points substracted.

Then all kind of items can have theire own "base-points":
- Status-postings
- Images
- Links

You can calculate on the users-base, what he prefers: If the user mostly likes images, for him all image-items will get some points added.
If he dislikes another user, all of the other users items will get some points substracted.

This is a game you can extend endlessly. The result is very interesting:
This way, you could "sort" the activity-stream for a user, so he is getting more focus on what he is really interested in. And now the design will come to a new logic:
It´s not about "sorting by time", it´s much more about "sorting by interest, but keeping the time in mind".
This is why I thought about a tag-cloud. Do you know Microsofts first experiments with "Surface"? There was a big touch-screen with photos, and you could take every photo with your finger and just "throw it out of the surface" or "move it somehwere else". But the overview was like a pile of photos mixed on a table ...

Imagine the activity-stream like an image of a desk, where many "notes" are placed around. Older notes are "unter" the other ones, and dimming away after a while. Unimportant ones are smaller, just like a small note only with the heading of the note. Oter ones, that match my interests and are by my friends are big on the top of the pile.

This for sure is total different then the actual concept.
But it would start to solve one of the biggest problesm (tons of useless informations) and still keep the old benefit (everybody can share even the biggest rubbish).

But yeah ... as you realize, I like brainstoarming a lot. ;-)

Every social site that I see today will automatically have the impression that it either looks like Facebook, Twitter or Google+. In fact, having 2 column stream would make it look a little like Google+ too

maybe the most reason for me is: I don´t use G+ or Linkedin or other networks. In germany, they are not popular.
So I "only" see the facebook-similarities.

As for your super secret ideas, sure, you can drop me an email at mark AT stackideas.com

Well, it´s not "super-secret". I just thought not to just throw that Idea away.
But anyway, I don´t care too much abobut that, so I post it here. ;-)

The Idea is simple: An offline-client for activities.
Not a single social network as something like that, it it would be very usefull.

The offline-client would make it possible to "activate" users. For all of us it is an important thing to get users on our pages.
If we can offer our members to deliver activities directly on theire desktop, this will keep them "in contact" with our website even if they are not surfing in that moment.
It could for example be integrated in a screen-saver or it can be in the desktob-bar and only notifying me if a friend of me writes something somewhere. It can give a note if I got a personal message and stuff like that.
The desktop-client could be a complete alternative to any eMail-notifications.

I think, there is an "unbalance" in the eMail-notification. It fells "too much" if a user get´s an eMail just to tell him about a new "Like" in his Status-posting. By an offline-client this could be handeled easyly.

I wonder why not a single social-network-script offerend an offline-client so far.
But I can imagine, as soon as one starts, the others will follow.

And this can be a major thing if somebody offers an offline-client that handeles ALL networks.
Imagine a Joomla-Offline-Client that can integrate EasySocial, JomSocial and CB. And the user can handele different websites only with that one client...


All the best, Julian!

Hmm, I have seen some websites integrate notifications into the OS X notification sidebar/panel. It works very well. I am assuming the same can be achieved in Windows 8, as that also has a notification system now. However, I think for Windows 8 it would require an app, not sure.

In terms of offline notifications, I say unless you can integrate it into the Mac notifications system like many various sites already do... or into the Windows 8 notification system via a new Metro UI app... then it wont work. No one wants to download more programs on their computers.

The only place you can make people download stuff with much success is on mobile like Android and iOS.


Not sure how big of a task that is, but now that I think about it my facebook and twitter always notify me on my OS X notification sidebar and I like it.

Hi Jannik,

No one wants to download more programs on their computers.

It is true that "nobody wants" to do so. But still they do.
It´s the same with eMails: Nobody wants more eMails.
But we still sent out notifications.

And this is the point:
The "offline-client" must clearly state:
"All informationes - no more eMail-notifications"

This would make the people install the software.
And if it can handele different websites, it will make it a very smooth thing. The rule is also a feature:

Every webiste, that you integrate in your offline-client, will instantly stop sending you any notification-eMail

Take me as an example:
I am signed here (Stackideas), on Jomsocial/iJoomla, on Joomla.org and on about a dozen other Joomla-Networs,.
I am revieving lots of notification-emails from all of this websites. If I could install an offline-client, that gives me the options to:

-> Sign-out from ANY eMail-Notification and
-> STill get the news

I would just hit the button. ;-)

All the best, Julian!

Hmm, still think it is too much hassle. I know I wouldn't download such a program. So I wouldn't expect my site visitors to either. I would however give the site permission to push offline notifications to me via my operating system (In my case OS X). It is a simple one click option, and it works well with no extra bloat nor extra work... and we are used to look there for updates.

Sorry for joining the conversation so late guys, am really barged with too much work and discussions over the entire month. Pfft, very tiring Anyways, I appreciate all your inputs here and to a certain extend, I do agree with some points brought up by Julian and also Jannik.

As for the notifications part, I can't really give you an exact answer right now because if I do, I will just be giving you an empty promise which I will not. My only answer that I can provide is when we see that there are enough requests for such setup, we will work on this. This is how we work since day 1 and it will never change. We unfortunately cannot build ROME to occupy 1 - 5 residents

haha, yeah it has been quite a spectacular month at Stackideas. Lots of releases and lots of improvements. Keep up the good work, and thanks again for always listening to feedback.

Thanks Jannik