[DBTech] DragonByte Social Groups [Paid] 1.3.0

[deslocotoco]

Hey Mr. Dragon,

Very nice. I will use in the future for my law office.

There is any kind of Calendar support for each group?

If no, do you plan to implement? Would be nice to track events.

 

[DragonByte Tech]

Hey Mr. Dragon,

Very nice. I will use in the future for my law office.

There is any kind of Calendar support for each group?

If no, do you plan to implement? Would be nice to track events.

Calendar is in my private issue tracker, I will likely look into integrating with an existing calendar solution as opposed to creating something entirely custom. I’ll make another post like the Sections intro post when I know how things shake out or if I’m looking for feedback

@DragonByte Tech
This is awesome! Thank you for your hard work!

This update brings me much closer to upgrading my XF1 big board to XF2.
Please consider the following features:

1. Language settings. This will make social group interesting for those sites who want to have a multilingual setup. TruongLV Social Groups has this and many of our social groups are language groups. i.e. our main board language is English, but we have social groups for many countries / languages. For example we have a Spanish group where Spanish speaking members gather.
   More information in my post above:
2. Import language setting from TrougnLV Groups

A demo would be really useful BTW.

Interesting, I didn’t know that’s why the language setting was there. Shouldn’t be too much trouble to add

No plans for a demo at this time, sorry.

 

[TimeWizardCosmo]

Language settings. This will make social group interesting for those sites who want to have a multilingual setup. TruongLV Social Groups has this and many of our social groups are language groups. i.e. our main board language is English, but we have social groups for many countries / languages. For example we have a Spanish group where Spanish speaking members gather.

This would be excellent. Our site gets a lot of non-English visitors who might otherwise hang around if we had this ability.

 

[Alpha1]

Integration with @Bob 's Article Management System and User Blog System would be really nice and useful in social groups.
So group members can post an Article or Blog Entry to the group.
Maybe people would find the other CMS addons by @Bob useful as well to have implemented in Social Groups. You can find an overview here of whats available:

Products

XenForo add-ons

xenaddons.com

Maybe you see something there that sparks your interest...

 

[DragonByte Tech]

DragonByte Tech updated [DBTech] DragonByte Social Groups with a new update entry:

1.2.1

Update highlights

This version is a minor release with mostly bugfixes, but it does contain a few new features as well

If enabled for social group owners, group owners can now set their group's locale / language. You as the administrator must ensure this feature is enabled in the XenForo Options for SocialGroups if you want this feature accessible to group owners.

Other than that, there's now a new notice if a group is owned by the "default group takeover user".

Lastly...

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[DragonByte Tech]

DragonByte Tech updated [DBTech] DragonByte Social Groups with a new update entry:

1.2.5

Update highlights

This version, named 1.2.5 due to the size of the changelog, mostly focuses on bug fixes and UX improvements.

It does contain one notable new feature, however; Group Member Log. Supervisors and group owners can now view a log of events, such as users joining/leaving/banned/unbanned, etc. Please note the log will only start accumulating events after upgrading, there are no historical records to view.

Please refer to the full changelog for a list of...

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[CallingHome]

Some time ago I read a suggestion to implement a shoutbox-like feature for each group and that a product by another developer has such a feature.

Such a shouldbox is displayed on group home, so new group members can immediately see what's going on and start participating in the discussion.

So, here is my suggestion:

Add a featured discussions functionlity

• Each group can have 1 featured discussion. This discussion acts as shoutbox on group home. So, it can be accessed on group home and in the discussions list as well.
• The last X messages (there should be an admin cp option for this) from that discussion are displayed on the group's home.
• New messages to that discussion can easily be created directly on group home.
• To make the view compact, we could only display a preview for longer messages; with an "expand" functionlity.
• On group creation such a featured discussion is automatically created with the group owner as discussion starter (or alternativley with a bot user as starter; ther could be admin cp option for this as well).

Advantages of this approach:

• We don't need a new content type.
• All discussions can act as featured discussion and the group staff can easily switch between discussions or create a new discussion, that should act as "shoutbox" on group home.

What do you think about this feature and my approach? It should be easy to import such shouldbox-like content form any other "social groups" add-on.

 

[Alpha1]

Xenforo 2.3 introduces a Featured Content block for all content types.

XF 2.3 Thread 'Featuring content'

Oct 3, 2023

While the first few 'Have you seen...?' posts for XenForo 2.3 have focused on mostly aesthetic or performance changes, today we are taking the opportunity to talk about one of the first new major pieces of functionality we've been working on. Every release cycle we like to focus on at least one significant feature related to content discovery and 2.3 is no different with the introduction of what we are calling Featured content.

"But wait, don't we already have featured resources?"

Indeed we do but the ability to feature resources is now joined by threads...

• Chris D
• Replies: 103
• Forum: Have you seen...?

• 
• 
• 

So it seems to me that it would make sense to have exactly the same for Social Groups.

I would not use social groups shoutboxes. It's impossible to moderate or keep tabs on shoutboxes in 100+ groups and they are a magnet for spam and abuse. I don't think keeping track of and managing chat activity can be expected from random forum members that happen to create a group.

 

[CallingHome]

Thank you for your feedback, @Alpha1!

I would not use social groups shoutboxes. It's impossible to moderate or keep tabs on shoutboxes in 100+ groups and they are a magnet for spam and abuse. I don't think keeping track of and managing chat activity can be expected from random forum members that happen to create a group.

As stated, I don't think of a real shoutbox, but to feature one discusson per group on the "home" site of a group and present it like a shoutbox.

Speaking technically it's just an easier access to a selected discussion. And of course only members of that group will be able to post anything there (permissions for discussions in that group are respected).

 

[Alpha1]

I think that the group newsfeed function on tl groups is horrible and hope nothing similar will be added. If it is then please make it optional.

 

[CallingHome]

I think that the group newsfeed function on tl groups is horrible and hope nothing similar will be added. If it is then please make it optional.

Yes, it should be optional, indeed; permmission-based and on a per-group basis.

 

[Chernabog]

I love everything that @DragonByte Tech creates; Fillip is a trusted and excellent developer for the community. What I am curious about is how flexible and customizable the individual group ownership experience is for the forum user who wants to start a group? The screenshots don't give a 360 degree view of what that experience is like, and probably couldn't without a huge amount of them!

So, not to be annoying, but I have a few questions:

Member Roles: Can I, as site admin for example, set a predefined number of member roles for our group owners to choose from? Right now we have a total of five group roles that manage everything from newly recruited/joined members to the group leader. Also, is there any ability for the group owner to create new roles and designate permissions to their roles for use within their group?

Import from Nobita: Is the import feature a complete import of all content? Groups, members, newsfeeds, etc.?

....I started this post off with a great idea of line item questions, but that's gotten a little lost while I've been typing - either that or I really need sleep or coffee.

Since it's not something that can be tested from the front and backends, and because our members are familiar with a different product, I just want to get the best feel possible for how much control our members will have over their groups, because as an extension of themselves, they should have a good deal of control to manage their groups how they see fit internally and as seamlessly as possible, IMO.

Other than that, are there 'extras' already in the package or planned for additional customization - like vanity URLs for example?

Whoever commissioned this project (@CallingHome ), made a good call. A powerful, full featured, group module is a must have for so many community forums to provide our members their own home, within the community.

Does this integrate with XFMG, and have it's own events system built in? Very popular features.

I've been watching this off and on, as time has allowed, and am very excited about it and how it could provide my users a more solid, powerful, trusted, and supported groups platform - so I do apologize for the long post, and questions as I try to figure out if now is a time to move to this solution.

Thank you!

 

[CallingHome]

Member Roles: Can I, as site admin for example, set a predefined number of member roles for our group owners to choose from? Right now we have a total of five group roles that manage everything from newly recruited/joined members to the group leader. Also, is there any ability for the group owner to create new roles and designate permissions to their roles for use within their group?

There is the group owner (creator), who has the maximum of permissions. What permissions these are can be pre-defined in the admin cp.

Then, whenever the group owner adds a supervisor, they can give them individual permissions. So, there are no predefined roles, but every supervisor can have the permissions the owner wants them to have.

Here's a screeshot of that form:

Does this integrate with XFMG, and have it's own events system built in? Very popular features.

Yes, it does have XFMG integration: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/dbtech-dragonbyte-social-groups.9176/update/45201/

Calendar: not yet.

Other than that, are there 'extras' already in the package or planned for additional customization - like vanity URLs for example?

You mean shortcut urls for a group's home? What format do you think of?

 

[Chernabog]

There is the group owner (creator), who has the maximum of permissions. What permissions these are can be pre-defined in the admin cp.

Then, whenever the group owner adds a supervisor, they can give them individual permissions. So, there are no predefined roles, but every supervisor can have the permissions the owner wants them to have.

Here's a screeshot of that form:

View attachment 298629


Yes, it does have XFMG integration: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/dbtech-dragonbyte-social-groups.9176/update/45201/

Calendar: not yet.


You mean shortcut urls for a group's home? What format do you think of?

Thanks for the reply, @CallingHome - appreciate it. I know this is your 'baby' at its core, and I do like that the group owner can assign individual permissions to each person who joins the group that they designate as a 'supervisor,' but if I may, I'd like to suggest a little more autonomy for the group owner when it comes to their members and roles.

A lot of group owners, speaking for myself as well in the mindset of an end user, like to be able to designate the 'roles' our members or teams make within our community. Therefore, everyone being titled "supervisor" takes away our ability to customize, recognize, and showcase a hierarchy if inclined to do so.

Being able to have predefined members' roles to utilize, or even being able to pick a member, add them to the group owner's choice of 'titled' role and then choose their permissions is good -- a little redundant if you are constantly promoting or adding new members rather than having predefined roles, but it is still nicer than being pushed into a naming dynamic which may not fit the group or creative behind it.

If this is something that resonates with you, as it has no impact on your core implementation, it simply makes the addon even more versatile and functional for other creative purposes -- I would be willing to buy into the development of that particular modification to assist with it.

Thanks for the XFMG link! Love it....

As for the calendar, we use XenAttendo ... but if you guys link with anyone there's also the calendar by Nixfifty. I am just familiar with Nobita's built-in but I've never been too pleased, as it would be better if it could link to and/or be pushed to a widget location to alert people with the proper group ownership or everyone if public that an event exists.

As I said, I am extremely excited by this because I've felt stuck using the other social groups' addon whose support is nonexistent anymore.

The vanity URL while not important is nice. It's a feature of the other addon currently. So basically, it would allow someone to choose their own endpoint:



Look forward to hearing back from you... thanks again!

 

[Ineos Forum]

I'll second the vanity URL mentioned by @Chernabog. My forum is an automotive based one and currently we're onboarding independent clubs using this add-on, having their real name in the URL is a big thing for them.

Also calendar integration this again is something that is important to my community.

As touched on above I'd be happy to buy into this being developed.

Stu.

 

[Chernabog]

I'll second the vanity URL mentioned by @Chernabog. My forum is an automotive based one and currently we're onboarding independent clubs using this add-on, having their real name in the URL is a big thing for them.

Also calendar integration this again is something that is important to my community.

As touched on above I'd be happy to buy into this being developed.

Stu.

I agree with the calendar, you really need a calendar for events and what have you - even if the event calendar exists only within the actual group and showcases the event within the group - because that's where it really matters in my opinion. It may be complicated to code a calendar function to work with the various ones out there. Although I really think there is only NIxfifty's and Jaxels for calendars.

The same with the vanity URLs. @Ineos Forum is a great example of actual need, whereas my users really like the feature because it gives them a sense of ownership, a home base, and an attractive way to promote their group from within our forums.

I don't like to be a whiner (Ozzy might think differently about me with that one -- lately I've felt a bit needy lol) but the roles thing is such an impactful need for myself, and I know it cannot be something that would not have meaning to other future or current users.

Like @Ineos Forum I would be happy to buy in with him, or in collaboration with him, to see these items make their ways into this amazing project - if it resonates with @CallingHome and @Ozzy47

 

[Chernabog]

Hey @DragonByte Tech .. something with Nobita's SG has caused forums attached to a group to show incorrect post counts, and no matter what I rebuild from the XF side it simply won't fix.

I am not sure I can give any more information on why or what is happening, but do you think there's a chance when upgraded to your SG and it imports, that those issues may be fixed??

Last question ... Has there been any thoughts about integration with Jaxel's of NixFifty's calendar (that way in group events can be pushed to the main communities calendar) ... as well as perhaps indvidual google calendars?

Just a thought

 

[DragonByte Tech]

Hey @DragonByte Tech .. something with Nobita's SG has caused forums attached to a group to show incorrect post counts, and no matter what I rebuild from the XF side it simply won't fix.

I am not sure I can give any more information on why or what is happening, but do you think there's a chance when upgraded to your SG and it imports, that those issues may be fixed??

My Social Groups don’t use nodes (forums) underneath, so assuming you’d delete those nodes after uninstalling Nobita’s (or it happens auto on uninstall) I don’t see why not

Last question ... Has there been any thoughts about integration with Jaxel's of NixFifty's calendar (that way in group events can be pushed to the main communities calendar) ... as well as perhaps indvidual google calendars?

I was rather hoping calendar would be a part of 2.3 so I’ve been holding out, but I would definitely look at NF’s calendar for integration going forward.

 

[Gemma]

Hey @DragonByte Tech .. something with Nobita's SG has caused forums attached to a group to show incorrect post counts, and no matter what I rebuild from the XF side it simply won't fix.

I am not sure I can give any more information on why or what is happening, but do you think there's a chance when upgraded to your SG and it imports, that those issues may be fixed??

We're waiting for the importer to work so we can convert our groups over from Nobita's Social Groups to DBT. Not sure why Nobita changed the group forums in v3.6.3 but it completely buggered our site and I needed to reinstall a backup. Unfortunately, the importer isn't working for us yet so we cannot complete the process but hopefully this will be addressed soon.

 

[DragonByte Tech]

We're waiting for the importer to work so we can convert our groups over from Nobita's Social Groups to DBT. Not sure why Nobita changed the group forums in v3.6.3 but it completely buggered our site and I needed to reinstall a backup. Unfortunately, the importer isn't working for us yet so we cannot complete the process but hopefully this will be addressed soon.

Can you please clarify what you mean by not working? I can’t fix any problems I’m not aware of.