Joomla! social networking with JomSocial: enhance your social networking with JomSocial: learn how to develop a high quality social network using JomSocial

A practical guide, this book provides step-by-step instructions for building your social networking system, showcasing real-world examples throughout. This book is for individuals or institutions desiring to develop a social networking system using the Joomla! content management system. It is suitable for both the novice and the advanced Joomla! user. There is no need for scripting or programming knowledge. All that is required is enthusiasm and the determination to implement a project. Cover 1 Copyright 3 Credits 4 About the Authors 5 About the Reviewer 7 Table of Contents 8 Preface 12 Chapter 1: Not Another Social Networking Site 18 Overview of social networking 18 Why create your own social network? 19 Principles for setting up a social networking site 20 An overview of JomSocial 21 Building social networks with JomSocial 21 Social Networks on JomSocial 22 Let's get started: Joomla! Installation 25 Setting up the localhost 26 Installing XAMPP 27 Downloading Joomla! 30 Installing Joomla! on localhost 30 Summary 32 Chapter 2: JomSocial: Setup and Configuration 34 Changing the Joomla! template 34 Installing the JomSocial component, modules, and plugins 36 JomSocial modules 37 JomSocial plugins 37 Integrator applications 39 The JomSocial Administrative Panel 43 Site 43 Media 46 Groups 47 Layout 47 Privacy 49 Network 49 Facebook Connect 50 Remote storage 50 Integrations 50 Users 51 Custom profiles 51 Disabling fields that we do not want users to fill out during the registration process 52 Modifying existing groups and fields 52 Modifying field titles 53 Creating a new group or field 53 Groups 54 Creating a new group category 54 Deleting an existing group 54 Editing an existing group 55 Video categories 55 Reportings 55 User points 55 Applications 56 Modifying plugin parameters 57 Linking to the social network 58 Modifying an existing menu 59 The social network 59 Summary 60 Chapter 3: Remote Installation and Managing User Profiles 62 Migrating the site from a local to remote server 63 Backing up the local site using Akeeba Backup 63 Creating a live website from the backup 65 Signing up for an account 68 Managing an account 71 Editing the user profile 71 Changing the profile picture 73 Setting profile privacy settings 75 Customizing our activities with applications 75 Deleting a profile 77 Summary 77 Chapter 4: Making Connections with Users and Friends 78 Creating test users 79 Making connections 82 Messaging—writing and checking mails 84 Inviting others to join the network 85 Administrator settings 86 Inviting others to our network 86 Summary 89 Chapter 5: Creating Content and Sharing Activities 90 Installing SOBI2 92 Listing apps 100 Reviewing apps 103 Displaying listings in profiles 105 Multimedia 106 Videos 108 Summary 110 Chapter 6: Community Building and Interaction 112 Creating communities or groups 115 Showing your groups under your profile 116 Building and managing our community 118 Advertising communities 118 Changing a community avatar 119 Creating group content 120 Attracting community members 122 Moderating communities 124 Promoting the network 124 Reporting group activities to the administrator 125 Leaving the community 126 Removing group content 127 Summary 127 Chapter 7: Customizing the JomSocial Template 128 Duplicating the JomSocial template 129 Changing the avatars for individuals and groups 130 Changing the background color of the template 131 Modifying the JomSocial main page 132 Identifying the code 132 Left column 133 Get connected 133 Removing a bullet 134 Modifying the code 134 Adding a bullet point 135 The Join button 136 Right-hand column 137 Creating a new menu link in the JomSocial toolbar 138 Summary 142 Chapter 8: Tips and Tricks 144 Using the JomSocial profile's positions 145 Integrating other social networks 149 Setting up Facebook 150 Setting up Twitter 151 Setting up Twitter as an application for ALL of our users 152 Setting up Twitter to share information about the site 153 Adding other items to the HelloMe module 154 Moving installed apps to above the activity stream 156 Joomla! SEF 159 Changing the messages 159 Video and photo upload sizes 160 Summary 160 Chapter 9: Other Joomla! Social Networking Extensions 162 Community Builder 162 Making connections and integrating with others 165 Directory/Review feature 165 Messaging feature 165 Changing the tab names 168 Adding multimedia 168 Community Builder groups and communities 168 Integrating Twitter and Facebook 170 Changing the layout (tips and tricks) 171 JSocialSuite 173 Other social networking components 176 CBE for Joomla! 176 Linksutra social networking 176 Odude Profile 176 Tuiyo (aka Joomunity) 176 Summary 177 Index 178

In Detail

JomSocial is a social publishing platform for Joomla! content management system. It allows you to connect with friends, integrate videos, follow users' activity stream, share photos, create groups, and customize your brand.

JomSocial is an out-of-the-box extension that enables a Joomla! website administrators to set up a social network with ease, and customize it to meet the needs of a site. By the end of the book, the reader will have built a good looking, fully functional social networking site using this hands-on guide.

Social networks have become ubiquitous in the 21st Century and have changed the way we communicate. No longer used to simply keep in contact with friends, they are used by multimillion dollar businesses to promote new products, discuss the latest ideas, and receive customer feedback on a much more informal platform.

This practical tutorial will guide the reader through the installation of JomSocial on a Joomla! platform, to configure it for complete integration with Joomla!, and help to walk through processes for integrating other key Joomla! plugins into JomSocial as applications for interaction in an online social networking environment. The guide wraps it all up by hooking up our JomSocial-enabled social network with Facebook and Twitter using identifiable Joomla! modules

Learn how to develop a high quality social network using JomSocial

Approach

A practical guide, this book provides step-by-step instructions for building your social networking system, showcasing real-world examples throughout.

Who this book is for

This book is for individuals or institutions desiring to develop a social networking system using the Joomla! content management system. It is suitable for both the novice and the advanced Joomla! user. There is no need for scripting or programming knowledge. All that is required is enthusiasm and the determination to implement a project.

Annotation JomSocial is a social publishing platform for Joomla! content management system. It allows you to connect with friends, integrate videos, follow users' activity stream, share photos, create groups, and customize your brand. JomSocial is an out-of-the-box extension that enables a Joomla! website administrators to set up a social network with ease, and customize it to meet the needs of a site. By the end of the book, the reader will have built a good looking, fully functional social networking site using this hands-on guide. Social networks have become ubiquitous in the 21st Century and have changed the way we communicate. No longer used to simply keep in contact with friends, they are used by multimillion dollar businesses to promote new products, discuss the latest ideas, and receive customer feedback on a much more informal platform. This practical tutorial will guide the reader through the installation of JomSocial on a Joomla! platform, to configure it for complete integration with Joomla!, and help to walk through processes for integrating other key Joomla! plugins into JomSocial as applications for interaction in an online social networking environment. The guide wraps it all up by hooking up our JomSocial-enabled social network with Facebook and Twitter using identifiable Joomla! modules 'This is a practical hands-on book with clear instructions and lot of code examples. It takes a simple approach, guiding you through different architectural topics using realistic sample projects. A single project is implemented using different architectural styles to make the reader understand the details of each style. There are also many small independent code samples to explain design patterns, WCF, and localization. This book is for people familiar with the ASP.NET framework using either C# or VB.NET. You don't need to be an ASP.NET guru – the book is ideal for novice and intermediate developers. If reading about application architecture usually confuses you or sends you to sleep, then this book will be perfect for you! In short, any ASP.NET programmer who is confused or disoriented reading different books or materials on architectures wondering how and what to implement in their application, will definitely benefit from this book!'