Some questions (from a Social Engine user)

Hello everyone, I'm a user from Social engine who's fed up with it and its problems and I'm currently checking out jamroom

Almost every skin I'm seeing is strictly for Music stuff, or photos, I'm looking for a theme that is layout like https://www.socialengineaddons.com/themes/socialengine-responsive-captivate-theme as close to this as possible

the goal is for a social networking community so the colors can't be too bright, or too dark, and should simply look clean... I'd like to keep the layout as close to this as possible.
updated by @spiritwolfie: 10/17/16 06:51:22AM

If you look deeply into the skins they are easily customized. We have skins with a similar layout and can be focused on whatever you desire with a few clicks. While the demos are focused on music (music clients have been a our biggest crowd). The new skins have a config page that allows you to change focus easily and quickly. Even the videos are easily replaced.

http://mskin.n8flex.com/
http://iskin.n8flex.com/
http://mogul.n8flex.com/
http://celebrity.n8flex.com/

Hi spiritwolfie, welcome to the Jamroom forum

It is possible to make your Jamroom site look (and work) however you want it to.

Whilst some of the themes (we call them skins) are music based you can configure your site to use them in ways where music isn't a factor at all. They should work for you "out-of-the-box".

If you need to customise the skin to look different or have a different layout you can edit templates in the control panel or via ftp. You will probably need to know some html and css to get a good result.

If you need things to work differently and beyond control panel configuration you'll want to know or learn a little smarty and/or javascript, but most users don't need to go that far to create a unique site.

You can get great help here on the forum, and there are a range of premium support and hosted options as well. The help and support is great here, set up a trial and give it a test drive.


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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)

Hi Nate, you beat me to it


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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)

But it's good we basically said the same thing. Shows we're confident and correct.

I already have a trial with jamroom, I've invested far to much money and had to much 'hair pulling' frustrastions with SE and the countless bs (Having to pay to uninstall a plugin?) having to pay to do anything...

If anyone would be willing to perhaps do a skype call with me and maybe walk me though this, (i'm a fast learner and by no means am I not a techie) That'd be great!, I'm just sadly at that stage where your past 'table flipping' because the platform you're on you've invested about 10k(USD) and it still doesn't work anywhere near what you want

@spiritwolfie Having to pay to uninstall a plugin is outrageous. We don't have anything like that around here for sure. I only do skype with clients and sorry but I can't take any more clients at the moment - my best advice is to dive into your trial and post to the forum for help if you get stuck with anything. My guess is that Jamroom will be fairly intuitive compared with your current solution, and you definitely won't have to pay to uninstall a plugin or anything like that!

@nate Very true


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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)
updated by @ultrajam: 07/09/16 02:50:12PM

Maybe Paul or Brian would be good with the Skype call.

I can assure you of one thing. We don't charge annoying fees. You can install/uninstall with 2 or 3 clicks. When you edit a template, it's maintained in the DB, so at anytime can can just update or delete it and start over. Best of all our forum is world class and users are always helping each other. For example, Steve is a user and 3rd party developer.
updated by @nate: 07/09/16 02:58:52PM

Well if someone is feeling really helpful, I'd love to exchange skype info and perhaps they can help me get the layout to look like my current site, I'm so drained and hair pulling from all the crap I've put up with Social engine and all the investments that are pretty much pointless since settings wont save, color schemes mess up, (Paul Asher saw first hand, as I screen shared him my website to him over skype)

Any free assistance would be greatly appreciated as I've killed my entire finances with SE Money pit.

$19 a month gets you access to 100+ modules, 30 skins, blazing fast hosting and VIP support. We don't do the work for you but you won't feel alone.

In addition, I am one of the new skin designers. I just joined the team last month. We'll be having new skins regularly. Web standards change from year to year. We'll do out best to keep current and fresh skins available.

@Nate, that's the plan I'm considering, but right now I'm just so brain dead and would be greatful for any help if someone is willing to talk with me and walk me though it..

I'm willing to do the work just would be nice to have a guiding hand.

I love your new skins @Nate, when I've cleared my current workload I'll be using those for sure. Very nice!

@spiritwolfie Go for the VIP support if you can. Otherwise just post here on the forum and see who's around to help.


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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)
updated by @ultrajam: 07/09/16 03:29:56PM

What you wanna do is pick a skin. Set up a dev. Watch a few videos on our YouTube Channel, glance over the docs and then dig in a little bit. When you have questions, check the FAQ or VIP Support. Alternatively, you can search the forum. If you don't see the answer, post a new topic. Someone will respond pretty quickly.

Jamroom is really easy to edit. That's a major part of it's design.
updated by @nate: 07/09/16 06:49:32PM

@Nate I've spent all yesterday and all morning going over the documentation/youtube videos, I think the issue is I'm hitting a road block due to my lack of knowledge in coding

A example is a live activity feed like my current site has, all I had to do was drop a widget it, Nothing more.

in SE, to say have a profile and quick menus on say /home/ you just drag and drop the widgets, while in Jamroom I'm not seeing anything remotely close, I do see the flexibility of jamroom I can see that very clearly, it's pretty much got -everything- I could think of, but my down fall will be my comprehension issues on the coding end.

I believe I would have to adjust the profile box width and height and stuff by adjusting code, I know how to configure/use layout editors to some extent etc.. but at this point I'll need to ether ask my server tech if he'll mess with this or find someone who would work with me on a price to set it up how I want/our community needs

I really like what I see allot, and I understand allot of the none code stuff (Sorta) and I'm sure with someone giving me a visual guidance (I'm a disabled young adult so visual guidance works best for me) I'll start wrapping my brain around it a bit more

I've come from things like Dolphin, Druple, SE, Oxwall, joomla, so the way Jamroom handles it requires understanding of listings etc.. which is something I never had to do before, (almost all sites I've set up have been done in a layout editor using page editing and dropping widgets in and clicking 'settings' and configuring them there) I believe I already found all the modules we need in the market store though, allot of it sounds like what we already have on my main site.

Sorry to be such a pest I tend to not bring up questions unless I've tried for hours on end to figure something out and just can't without asking for help.

Paul Asher has kindly offered to help me get the layout/content started since I can pretty much handle everything else

The kindness of this dev and community has really made me smile, thank you all!

Jamroom has this too - it's called "Site Builder":

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/documentation/site-builder

You can easily create as many pages on your site as you want.

You're in good hands with @paul so you'll have no problem


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

@brian ya I've gone over that quite a few times and I guess what I'm trying to achieve is a bit more complex then simply using the site builder the biggie is going to be activity wall feed with animated thumbnail avatars. and cover photos for profiles and CSS support for profile backgrounds, (things my community are big into)

The profile tweaks module does custom profile backgrounds - i.e.:

https://www.jamroom.net/brian

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/networkmarket/2/profile-tweaks


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

@brian oh! I didn't see that, thank you for pointing it out!!

Paul Asher has done a amazing job so far on the layout, I think we're road blocked on the whole public activity feed like what facebook/social engine and them have, (which is one of our most used features of my main site) and then I'm sure arrowchat or something supports jamroom so I can probably move that over?

Jamroom can show a feed of site activity if that is what you're looking for. If you can clarify (with details) what you are looking for we can let you know if it is doable.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

@brain, I think the best way to to explain would be have you see my current site could we perhaps swamp skype info or something or something?

to try to explain https://www.socialengineaddons.com/socialengine-advanced-activity-feeds-wall-plugin

Basically a place for the community to socialize on /home/ (page) and then if we go to say users profile directly we can comment on their profile directly which is like a way to give them a notice

if you'd like to see a example of my current set up please let me know and i'd be happy to show you, As i've really really considering going VIP, but a few things are deal breakers for me if they can't be done.

Sorry - don't do skype

JR can do this - that's no problem. But like Twitter, your users will be on their own profile when they make a post (for example - I cannot POST to my timeline from twitter.com - I have to go to twitter.com/jamroom). Users can leave comments on other user's profiles as well.

We do have some big updates coming in the next revision of our timeline that will make things a bit more interactive, but you can likely do most of what you want right now.

When it comes to configuring/customization JR can do most anything you want - if you feel JR doesn't do something, just post here and we can let you know.

Thanks!


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

@brain is there a way I can PM you so I can show my current site to you?

That's the thing, it needs to be /home/ where this activity takes place as I think my community would find it frustrating having to socialize from each users profile.

It sounds like you're actually looking for chat then?


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

@brain sorta.. let me take a screen shot

Hopefully this is a bit clearer, basically i'm hoping to have the same look/feel and working features as my current site, the goal/idea is to get away from SE's horribleness

With JR this is totally doable - BUT - you would want to make sure you don't use Jamroom's power user and multi-user profile features, as in those instance it could break (if the user never visits their home profile after logging in then their active profile id would not be set).


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

@brain the way SE has it set up is /home/ is the public area where people can see all the content/photos uploaded music, users talking etc.. then if you say click on your avatar photo in the upper left it takes you to a page under /profile/(username here) not sure if we can set it up this way but ya. I know my server tech has agreed to look at this for me, but if he decides to not assist me with it Not sure what i'll do because this is quite a bit over my head..

JR can do anything SE can pretty much, so that's not a problem. Jamroom can easily make "community" type pages, etc, listing anything from your profiles any way you want.

If you plan on having a small niche site, that's all good. I would highly recommend that if you plan on having a lot of users online at the same time interacting with your site, you avoid "community" style pages. Imagine that page you posted a screenshot of with 500 people posting at the same time - it would be unusable. This is why when you go to facebook or twitter there is no "community" section - all the interaction takes place on your profile or other users profiles.

Of course it's 100% up to you, but having been doing this for a very long time I've seen many sites really struggle with performance as many of the features that work great on a small, intimate site suddenly blow up once they get a surge in users.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

@brian by default facebook actually has a public activity wall and when you post your stuff goes global, unless you make it a point to go into your privacy settings and configure it to friends only etc... I had to set my account strictly friends only and set my feed the same way because of the default is set to allow everyone to see it. ( just double checked and and yes it has a public activity wall that does not take place on the profile, the profile has its own feed as well) https://www.facebook.com/ vs https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011712769218

I'd be happy to have it as close to facebook as possible as thats kinda the goal of our website is to be a facebook for the furry fandom (without all the nonesense such as app spam etc)
updated by @spiritwolfie: 07/10/16 01:25:43PM

Correct - but facebook does not have:

facebook/members/home

where all 1 billion members can interact. That's what I'm getting at. You interact with your friends only. Same way in JR - you interact with people who have chosen to follow you (ala Twitter). This is the best model for avoiding spam as well - if you don't want to hear from someone you just unfollow them.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net
updated by @brian: 07/10/16 01:27:03PM

from what I can see on facebook it's pretty much just like my current site on how it functions, you have the option to set it to 'public' or 'friends only' the only difference I can see is the url instead of it saying /home/ it's simply saying facebook.com then for profiles facebook.com/profile/(ProfileID)

please forgive me as I'm not a content creator etc by any means so perhaps I'm not understanding this I've attached a photo of what i'm referring to in facebook.

Then I would say yes - JR already supports all this - the only difference is the URL. You would not post from:

yoursite.com/members/home

but

yoursite.com/yourprofilename

I though you were looking for a place where all members of your site could post without being followers - i.e. a "public wall".

Let me know if that helps.


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net
updated by @brian: 07/10/16 01:32:45PM

I think I just confused you and myself and for that I'm sorry

My current site has the ability for the community to talk on the wall with or without being friends, (I'd really like to keep it this way) our community is expected to maybe be a few thousand users? I honestly don't expect it to go anymore then that (and I honestly don't expect to have a whole ton of users on all at once based on experience)

I just know they use the public activity feed consistently on my current site and its one of the most used functions.. (Really sorry for the confusion, I was mis-understanding you until the last post)
updated by @spiritwolfie: 07/10/16 01:41:17PM

Think I know what you're after and it has been discussed in these threads

Forum: "Moving Social Engine to Jamroom"
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum/new_posts/40867/move-social-engine-to-jamroom

Forum: "Testing the Wall Widget"
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum/new_posts/37103/testing-the-wall-widget