Hello Aidan,

Kindly please find the answers to your inquiries below:

(1) Easydiscuss has a Kunena import feature , right ? Will it bring over images in the Kunena posts ?

Yep, that's correct. It will import posts from Kunena

(2) Sharing Profiles between Stackideas extensions: Easydiscuss and Easyblog (and even Easydsocial) all seem to have different profiles.... can they share the same profile , and if so .. which one takes precedence?

If you have EasySocial installed, you can configure EasyBlog / EasyDiscuss to use the profile system in EasySocial. This way all the profile system will go through EasySocial

(3) Sharing Email subscriptions/Notifications between Stackideas extensions: The Easydiscuss subscription seems flexible (immediate/daily /weekly etc.). I seem to recall a conversation about this being made possible in Easyblog as well, but cant find it now - has this happened ? Do Easyblog/Easydiscuss share the same email subscription if installed on the same site ? Or will users get separate emails from each of the extensions ? If they are not fully integrated, do Easyblog and Easysocial have the same level of immediate/daily/weekly etc. subscriptions.

We are actually pushing this to EasySocial to have a global digest notification system. This way, all our extensions could route through EasySocial However, there's no ETA on this yet though.

(4) Automatically "subscribing" users to a particular category? I see from the backend Demo that you can see what users are subscribed, but I cant see if it's possilbe to forcible subscribe a user to a category... ie. do it for them. I have some users who complain they dont get emails (from Kunena), but yet dont click the subscribe button ! Any auto-registration facility, and if so... does this work/is available across all the stackideas extensions, if not all .. which ones will work together?

Currently this is not possible We do have plans to create an import feature which allows you to import users in a subscription list in the future though.

(5) Better use of vertical space One of the problems I find with Easydiscuss (whenever I check in on the latest Demo's) is that is takes up *soooo* much space for each post, when a one-liner (like a traditional forum) is much more frugal with space. I can't seem to find a template that displays Easydiscuss posts with less white space used - a few posts fill a screen, whereas you can see dozens on a Kunena screen. Any ideas, any settings that will compact it a bit ?

EasyDiscuss was never built to behave exactly like a forum. Hence, it was built with the idea of a hybrid system between a Q&A and a forum system. We don't have a theme that looks exactly like Kunena but you can nonetheless customize it however you want

(6) Reply by email I think I recall reading that Easydiscuss can handle replies by email & take them as comments (presumably this works only with immediate digests, if you reply to a daily digest which one would you be responding to ?). Anyway, I;m wondering is this feature supported across all stackideas products now, or is it different on the different products. ? If so , which ones support it ?

Unfortunately you can't reply to digest e-mails because it wouldn't make sense. If a digest e-mail were to send you daily updates and there's 5 - 10 new posts daily, we wouldn't know which post are you referring to.

(1) You could develop the email notification system as a *separate* extension, and had Easydiscuss, Easyblog and Easysocial all integrate with it (think Techjoomla J!MailAlerts)

Our goal is to make use of EasySocial for this purpose rather than creating a separate extension

(2) Why are there so many ways of users talking/discussing across the different Stackideas offerings.... Easyblog (comments), Easydiscuss (discussions), Komento comments), and Easysocial. All of these extensions include capability for users to "post" information, and all seem to re-invent the wheel. Couldn't the Easydiscuss engine be used under the covers in Komento (or vice versa), and also in Easysocial ? This would focus your efforts in one place, benefiting all extensions. It should be possible to post text/photos/videos/weblinks in or in response to an Easyblog Comment, a Komento comment, an Easydiscuss reply, or an Easysocial "status update" or whatever it is.... all using the same consistent interface & underlying code.

I do wish that this is possible but because of the way Joomla extensions works, it's quite cumbersome to really achieve this. I wouldn't say that this is not possible but it requires quite a bit of work. We do have plans for this too

(3) Why not integrate the menu bars for all the StackIdeas components ? It seems like a site with all three Easyblog/Easydiscuss/Easysocial would look like three different sub-sites with the three different components
(4) why not a single, shared Profile across all extensions ? One profile (avatar etc) across them all. Each could integrate with the "profile" extension, pulling the common data from it and providing their own plugins to capture & share extra data. This could be a popular extension that might gain third party support if done properly. Many rely on Jomsocial etc. just for the profile & wall info.

There are times where some users only purchases EasyBlog and not all of our products. If we were to rely everything from a single product, it would be as if we are forcing users to purchase everything Hence, we still offer the ability to integrate with EasySocial.

(5) Split up Easysocial... I've stopped using Jomsocial , it was nice, but there are better Photo modules than Jomsocial's one, there are better Events modules than Jomsocials one, the Groups functionality is lacking ... the invidual implementations let it down. If you made these "pluggable" in Easysocial, then third party vendors could compete to provide "plugins" for the various elements - creating a kind of ecosystem for a social site.

I do agree with this absolutely but many other users doesn't think that way If you go through our forums, everyone is asking for an Event / Video / Groups functionality in EasySocial . Anyway we do believe that when we're building these new stuffs, we are pretty sure that it is good. Take a look at our groups for EasySocial 1.2, http://stackideas.com/blog/easysocial-1-2-status-report

Many Thanks Mark, just a follow up Q on a few of these. I realise you're busy (and have been - Easysocial 1.2 looks promising), so I appreciate you taking the time and I won't be offended/will be happy with terse answers !....

[ If you have EasySocial installed, you can configure EasyBlog / EasyDiscuss to use the profile system in EasySocial. This way all the profile system will go through EasySocial

Unfortunately, I don't plan on installing Easysocial (or at least not until I saw your 1.2 update with groups just now) - but, with Easysocial, Easyblog and Easysocial all on the site it would be a bit dis-jointed I think - three different ways for users to carry on a conversation (Our users wandered between Kunena posts, Jomsocial discussions and Easyblog comments - better to concentrate the community I think). But Easyblog, with Easydiscuss used as comments engine would be OK - or maybe Easyblog with Easysocial 1.2 + group discussions. Question is though... will Easyblog/Easydiscuss share profiles without Easysocial installed ?

We are actually pushing this [email notifications] to EasySocial to have a global digest notification system. This way, all our extensions could route through EasySocial
However, there's no ETA on this yet though.

OK, so right now Easydiscuss/Easyblog/Easysocial all have their own separate , incompatible non-integrated notification mechanisms ? :-( How did that happen ? I soooo wish you wouldn't make it Easysocial's job to do that. Digest notifications would be much better off disconnected from Easysocial. You could still "package" it as part of Easysocial of course, but why not offer it separately and let Easysocial, Easyblog, Easydiscuss and other 3rd party extensions all publish to it ? I don't know if dependency injection is common in the Joomla/PHP world, but couldn't you "inject" an independently developed notification extension into Easysocial, Easyblog and Easydiscuss... it encourages good design/separation of concerns & gives better design anyway... even if you dont make it available (for sale) for general community use. Missing a trick though.... a site with EasyDiscuss & Easyblog would still not share notifications unless they install..... EasySocial ? I wouldnt want to have to do that just to get notifications (Straight away EasySocial group discussions overlap with Easydiscuss discussions. I dont mind paying for the notifications, but the less baggage the better. You could even make the "Notifications" non-payable if you want, and force people to buy one (any one) of the extensions in order to get access to it.? the responsibility for this API should rest with Joomla really, but in the absence of some common API's .... It would be nice to see many third party extensions publishing to the Stackideas "notifications" system in the same way that they publish to Jomsocial (or soon Easysocial)'s "wall" ?

EasyDiscuss was never built to behave exactly like a forum. Hence, it was built with the idea of a hybrid system between a Q&A and a forum system. We don't have a theme that looks exactly like Kunena but you can nonetheless customize it however you want

OK, point taken.. but I don't really buy the difference between a Q&A and a traditional forum. The differences are really just differences in the history/tradition - the core features are the same. The fact that Kunena uses less vertical space is not because it;s a "forum" (although I agree that tends to be the style). There's no reason Easydiscuss couldn;t be more economical with space - It would be nice to have some options in the layout settings. I have limited time, so prefer to run extensions out of the box, but maybe I will have to learn how to customize it :-( Seems like there must be lots of others out there with the same view though - ex Kunena users must be a target market for Easydiscuss ? I don;t want it to be "exaclty like Kunena" (not even remotely), but I do find that seeing only a handful of posts means less at-a-glance information & more scrolling. In general, though I am happy with it I've actually been a little frustrated that moving to Easyblog has limited the display options (100's of third party display joomla article display extensions wont work)... just a little concerned that I might meet the same frustration with Easydiscuss, since none of the templates that support either Easyblog or Easydiscuss seem to deviate much from the standard display layout (apart from colour & styles)..

Our goal is to make use of EasySocial for this purpose [notifications] rather than creating a separate extension

Oh, no !

Why are there so many ways of users talking/discussing across the different Stackideas offerings.... Easyblog (comments), Easydiscuss (discussions), Komento comments), and Easysocial. All of these extensions include capability for users to "post" information, and all seem to re-invent the wheel. Couldn't the Easydiscuss engine be used under the covers in Komento (or vice versa), and also in Easysocial ? This would focus your efforts in one place, benefiting all extensions. It should be possible to post text/photos/videos/weblinks in or in response to an Easyblog Comment, a Komento comment, an Easydiscuss reply, or an Easysocial "status update" or whatever it is.... all using the same consistent interface & underlying code.

I do wish that this is possible but because of the way Joomla extensions works, it's quite cumbersome to really achieve this. I wouldn't say that this is not possible but it requires quite a bit of work. We do have plans for this too

OK, I don't understand why not, but I don't know web/joomla dev. Good to hear you are thinking about this. You shouldn't have to code & test & maintain this stuff three times across all the products.


(3) Why not integrate the menu bars for all the StackIdeas components ? It seems like a site with all three Easyblog/Easydiscuss/Easysocial would look like three different sub-sites with the three different components
(4) why not a single, shared Profile across all extensions ? One profile (avatar etc) across them all. Each could integrate with the "profile" extension, pulling the common data from it and providing their own plugins to capture & share extra data. This could be a popular extension that might gain third party support if done properly. Many rely on Jomsocial etc. just for the profile & wall info.

There are times where some users only purchases EasyBlog and not all of our products. If we were to rely everything from a single product, it would be as if we are forcing users to purchase everything Hence, we still offer the ability to integrate with EasySocial.

No, you are missing the point...

you shouldn't have to purchase another product ... you could develop a "container" menu system, to which your different extensions contributed menu items/icons etc. By all means, give these away free with your products.... but by thinking about the UI experience holistically across the product set (and sharing the navigation code), you could provide a much more streamlined package to users who install more than one of your products. Even better, make the navigation bars optional & contribute menu items to standard Joomla Menus (or some other fancier menu alternative)... but much better for it to be general purpose, rather than StackIdeas-specific and limited to one product.
The same with the "Profile" functionality, by separating this aspect of the three products you can share code/testing and increase flexibility. Give it away free (with your products) by all means, and charge for it if used separately with third party extensions that might integrate with it. But.... I don't want to have to install Easysocial just to share a profile between your other extensions....



(5) Split up Easysocial... I've stopped using Jomsocial , it was nice, but there are better Photo modules than Jomsocial's one, there are better Events modules than Jomsocials one, the Groups functionality is lacking ... the invidual implementations let it down. If you made these "pluggable" in Easysocial, then third party vendors could compete to provide "plugins" for the various elements - creating a kind of ecosystem for a social site.

I do agree with this absolutely but many other users doesn't think that way If you go through our forums, everyone is asking for an Event / Video / Groups functionality in EasySocial . Anyway we do believe that when we're building these new stuffs, we are pretty sure that it is good. Take a look at our groups for EasySocial 1.2, http://stackideas.com/blog/easysocial-1-2-status-report

OK, I do think you guys have a good chance of making good implementations... make sure you look at the best individual implementations and aim to beat them ! Otherwise... "jack-of-all-trades and master of none" ?

The Groups functionality in EasySocial 1.2 looks *very* promising.

One thing that I notice though is that in the screenshots , the "Photos" link is outside the groups. This is one of the mistakes I think Jomsocial made.... community sites tend to be more focused, more group-based with a common interest), as opposed to general social networking sites (which tend to be more open, individual, chaotic/random and "wall" based). It's a waste of time (IMO) targetting EasySocial/JomSocial and expecting a large social network.... much better chance of building a more focused community site. If you are going to have groups on a community-based site, you want to go *into* the group before you post text/photos/video/events or whatever. Jomsocial had it that you went here to post a video, there to post a photo, and into a group to post a group discussion. You should go into the group first, and then post whatever you want (text/photo/video/audio/Event whatever)... ? If there's a need for a "default" group on some sites, then so be it... that could be done... but if you are going group-based (which is good), then go group-based all the way....

The other thing I notice is that there will be a significant feature overlap between Easydiscuss and Easysocial Group discussions (just as sites with Jomsocial and Kunena create confusion about where community members are expected to congregate). I can see people asking "when will feature X from Easydiscuss be supported in Easysocial Group discussions?", or "why does Easysocial discussions get all the new development, when will feature X be available for us" ... this goes back to one of the earlier points about sharing code/testing/integration as much as possible.

Forgive me, but this all seems like it needs some thought. The requirements are pretty similar on most community sites. (A) a place where the community leaders can post to the members - text, photo, video, even audio (B) A place where the members can discuss among themselves - text, photo, video, audio - ideally in sub-groups f common interest., and (C) a good email digest-based notification system to keep users updated and coming back to the site. Seems like these are three *different* requirements (A) served (fairly well) by Easyblog (B) served by ... EasyDiscuss, Easysocial? Both? Not sure why you would want EasySocial *and* Easydiscuss ? (C) Served by .... you got to buy Easysocial for that ?

Thanks for listening .... and keep up the good work !

Mark, I just realised my previous post is probably unreadable.

Basically my points/comments are:

There's so much overlap between Easyblog comments, Komento, Easydiscuss, Easysocial - all providing the same functionality (conversations between users) in different ways, with different code, with different overlapping featuresets that its getting to be a confusing product set.....

Email Notifications would be great to do in a *separate* extension - so you dont have to install Easysocial ... just to get the shared email notifications across the Stackideas products.

It would be good for you guys to think deeply about how your products should really integrate together on the same site i nterms of UI - currently they seem to appear as separate, different , dis-jointed parts of a site, with different menus/navigation etc. Perhaps having the flexbility to use standard Joomla menus (some menu extension seem to be quite fancy/flexible) might be the answer - and provide your own menu system as a pre-configured default ?

Having a common shared profile across *all* stackideas extensions would be a good idea... but notifications, surely Easysocial is not that either ? If you did it as a separate extension (give it away free if you want, or bundle with the products), you could share it among them all .... and allow 3rd parties to integrate with it, and "extend" it with plugins.

With Easydiscuss, I was suggesting that events/photos/videos etc. should be within groups rather than @ the top level - Jomsocial's navigation was messy in that regard (at least in earlier versions) - you went into groups for some stuff, at the top level for other stuff ... I'd suggest everything should be in a group - even if its a "default" group.


In the meantime (while I wait for utopia ), If I want to use Easyblog to communicate to site members & I use EasySocial for members to communicate with each other - (in groups, and to gain the shared email notification feature when it arrives in Easysocial)- I don't need EasyDiscuss, right ? I'm trying to consolidate things... Can Easysocial handle the comments on Easyblog in the same way Easydiscuss could if I had used that? If not, can Komento be used to handle the comments on Easyblog and discussions on Easysocial ? Can you see where I am going ... what the optimum combination of Stackideas products for this purpose ? Ideally, I want the member-to-member communciation to be able to handle posting videos/photos etc. as well as text.

Hello Aidan,

Thank you for the time for explaining through this but to be frank with you, it's really long... I do appreciate your insights on this but we'll see where we can go about this.

I keep seeing the topic of subscriptions coming up. Is there a way to subscribe to individual posts? That is the most requested feature in my community and I didn't think it was possible.

Hello Justin,

Did you mean Easyblog? Easyblog does allow user to subscribe to individual post: http://screen.stackideas.com/2015-02-12_1019.png .

Aidan Cougnlan is right. Easysocial Group Discussions should be use EasyDiscuss component.

Hello,

Thanks for heads up. Our developer will consider about this