SocialEngine: How was SocialEngineAddOns founded? When did you begin SocialEngine development?

SocialEngineAddons: Our team has been developing social networking software for a long time. In 2008, we came across SocialEngine for the first time when it proved to be the best platform for a Client's project. We had developed modules for other platforms previously, so moving to plugin development for SocialEngine was a natural progression for us. Thus, SocialEngineAddOns was born!

SocialEngine: That’s great. You have quite the plugin selection! Which ones are the most popular?

SocialEngineAddOns: The Directory / Pages Plugin is our most popular and most appreciated plugin. We are ourselves surprised to see the numerous ways in which this is being used by our Clients. Our Advanced Photo Albums Plugin is also a favorite of a large number of SocialEngine communities and seeing it display photos beautifully on sites brings a proud smile on our faces :). The Advanced Activity Feeds / Wall Plugin is one plugin which was developed due to popular demand and we incorporated a lot of features from Client suggestions. Our Advertisements / Community Ads Plugin is used by many to monetize their social networks. Our other popular plugins worth mentioning are: Advanced Facebook Integration Plugin, Suggestions / Recommendations / People you may know & Inviter plugin, Listings / Catalog Showcase Plugin, and Documents / Scribd iPaper Plugin.

SocialEngine: You generously offer free plugins to the community as well, why’s that?

SocialEngineAddOns: The plugins that we are offering for free are high quality plugins and have been in popular demand. We decided to offer these plugins for free to thank the SocialEngine community for showing appreciation for our work, and we believe that the features provided by these plugins are essential for all communities. Just like our other plugins, we are committed to provide regular upgrades for our free plugins as well.

SocialEngine: How do you decide on what new features to develop? How is developing with our platform?

SocialEngineAddOns: We believe that for a feature to be successful on a site, apart from its specifications, its user experience and administrative flexibility are equally important. Whenever we have a new idea for plugin development or feature enhancement, we ask some of our Clients for their views, who give us valuable suggestions in the process. We hold brainstorming sessions within our team over these ideas. In this way, we are able to get the right functionality specifications for our products. We also take up those ideas for development for which we receive numerous requests from Clients. Our team enjoys developing for SocialEngine because of its modular architecture, code quality and the endless possibilities that can be achieved with it. We have worked on other platforms as well, but SocialEngine is by far the best and will surely continue to be so. We are committed to contributing our best for the growth of SocialEngine.

SocialEngine: What types of customization services do you provide?

SocialEngineAddOns: We receive frequent requests for customizations ranging from complete new plugin developments, customization of our plugins, feature enhancements, etc. However, we are able to take up very few of these because of time and manpower constraints. In many cases, when Clients' requirements could be fulfilled with an existing 3rd-party plugin or administration setting, we provide them with appropriate options.

SocialEngine: What future plans can you share with your fans?!

SocialEngineAddOns: We have some exciting releases coming up in the next few weeks. One of our goals is to develop products which increase the applications in which SocialEngine can be used and you will see some plugins in this direction. We've got some surprises for you :)

SocialEngine: What tips do you recommend to new SocialEngine users? Any tips for SE veterans?

SocialEngineAddOns: We have observed that many new SocialEngine Clients are not able to make the most out of the powerful core SocialEngine features like Member Levels, Networks, Profile Types, Performance & Caching, etc, although these could be very useful for their communities. Eventually, when they realize the worth of these features, the re-configuration of site's settings becomes cumbersome. Thus, we advise everyone to go thoroughly through the Documentation, Knowledgebase and Video Tutorials on SocialEngine.net. It is equally important to explore the administration panel of SocialEngine core and the plugins so that all possibilities are well known before beginning site configuration. We provide helpful FAQs in all our plugins.
Once the community is set up, it is very important to get the site buzzing with activity. Users should get to see something new everytime they visit the site. Site administrators should identify some loyal users and gather feedback from them.

SocialEngine: Some great tips, thanks! So our clients give you positive reviews for the quality of your plugins and support service. What motivates you to provide good products and support?

SocialEngineAddOns: Developing for SocialEngine has become our passion. I think this is what enables us to develop awesome plugins. We love what we do. Appreciation for our work from our Clients is also a big motivating factor. Testimonials via emails or positive reviews inspire us to provide quality support and enhancements in our products. Top-notch customer support service complements our software products. We realize that providing effective support is an important part of our Client relationships and crucial for their websites.

SocialEngine: Any closing thoughts?

SocialEngineAddOns: SocialEngine's and the community's growth is our growth. We would like to thank our Clients for their trust in us, and the SocialEngine team for their great product. Thanks to Alex, Charlotte and John to give life to SocialEngine. A special cheers goes out to our team which works hard and enjoys together. By the way, our whole team recently went for an exciting camping and rafting trip in the Himalayas :) Finally Matt, thanks for this opportunity to connect with the community.

SocialEngine: Thank you, guys. We look forward to your release surprises!

SocialEngineAddOns is offering a special discount of 10% on all orders till 31st May via the Coupon Code: THANKS10

Stay up to date with SocialEngineAddOns news by following them on Facebook and Twitter.

SocialEngine: How was SocialEngineAddOns founded? When did you begin SocialEngine development?

SocialEngine: Our team has been developing social networking software for a long time. In 2008, we came across SocialEngine for the first time when it proved to be the best platform for a Client's project. We had developed modules for other platforms previously, so moving to plugin development for SocialEngine was a natural progression for us. Thus, SocialEngineAddOns was born!

SocialEngine: That’s great. You have quite the plugin selection! Which ones are the most popular?

SocialEngineAddOns: The Directory / Pages Plugin is our most popular and most appreciated plugin. We are ourselves surprised to see the numerous ways in which this is being used by our Clients. Our Advanced Photo Albums Plugin is also a favorite of a large number of SocialEngine communities and seeing it display photos beautifully on sites brings a proud smile on our faces :). The Advanced Activity Feeds / Wall Plugin is one plugin which was developed due to popular demand and we incorporated a lot of features from Client suggestions. Our Advertisements / Community Ads Plugin is used by many to monetize their social networks. Our other popular plugins worth mentioning are: Advanced Facebook Integration Plugin, Suggestions / Recommendations / People you may know & Inviter plugin, Listings / Catalog Showcase Plugin, and Documents / Scribd iPaper Plugin.

SocialEngine: You generously offer free plugins to the community as well, why’s that?

SocialEngineAddOns: The plugins that we are offering for free are high quality plugins and have been in popular demand. We decided to offer these plugins for free to thank the SocialEngine community for showing appreciation for our work, and we believe that the features provided by these plugins are essential for all communities. Just like our other plugins, we are committed to provide regular upgrades for our free plugins as well.

SocialEngine: How do you decide on what new features to develop? How is developing with our platform?

SocialEngineAddOns: We believe that for a feature to be successful on a site, apart from its specifications, its user experience and administrative flexibility are equally important. Whenever we have a new idea for plugin development or feature enhancement, we ask some of our Clients for their views, who give us valuable suggestions in the process. We hold brainstorming sessions within our team over these ideas. In this way, we are able to get the right functionality specifications for our products. We also take up those ideas for development for which we receive numerous requests from Clients. Our team enjoys developing for SocialEngine because of its modular architecture, code quality and the endless possibilities that can be achieved with it. We have worked on other platforms as well, but SocialEngine is by far the best and will surely continue to be so. We are committed to contributing our best for the growth of SocialEngine.

SocialEngine: What types of customization services do you provide?

SocialEngineAddOns: We receive frequent requests for customizations ranging from complete new plugin developments, customization of our plugins, feature enhancements, etc. However, we are able to take up very few of these because of time and manpower constraints. In many cases, when Clients' requirements could be fulfilled with an existing 3rd-party plugin or administration setting, we provide them with appropriate options.

SocialEngine: What future plans can you share with your fans?!

SocialEngineAddOns: We have some exciting releases coming up in the next few weeks. One of our goals is to develop products which increase the applications in which SocialEngine can be used and you will see some plugins in this direction. We've got some surprises for you :)

SocialEngine: What tips do you recommend to new SocialEngine users? Any tips for SE veterans?

SocialEngineAddOns: We have observed that many new SocialEngine Clients are not able to make the most out of the powerful core SocialEngine features like Member Levels, Networks, Profile Types, Performance & Caching, etc, although these could be very useful for their communities. Eventually, when they realize the worth of these features, the re-configuration of site's settings becomes cumbersome. Thus, we advise everyone to go thoroughly through the Documentation, Knowledgebase and Video Tutorials on SocialEngine.net. It is equally important to explore the administration panel of SocialEngine core and the plugins so that all possibilities are well known before beginning site configuration. We provide helpful FAQs in all our plugins.
Once the community is set up, it is very important to get the site buzzing with activity. Users should get to see something new everytime they visit the site. Site administrators should identify some loyal users and gather feedback from them.

SocialEngine: Some great tips, thanks! So our clients give you positive reviews for the quality of your plugins and support service. What motivates you to provide good products and support?

SocialEngineAddOns: Developing for SocialEngine has become our passion. I think this is what enables us to develop awesome plugins. We love what we do. Appreciation for our work from our Clients is also a big motivating factor. Testimonials via emails or positive reviews inspire us to provide quality support and enhancements in our products. Top-notch customer support service complements our software products. We realize that providing effective support is an important part of our Client relationships and crucial for their websites.

SocialEngine: Any closing thoughts?

SocialEngineAddOns: SocialEngine's and the community's growth is our growth. We would like to thank our Clients for their trust in us, and the SocialEngine team for their great product. Thanks to Alex, Charlotte and John to give life to SocialEngine. A special cheers goes out to our team which works hard and enjoys together. By the way, our whole team recently went for an exciting camping and rafting trip in the Himalayas :) Finally Matt, thanks for this opportunity to connect with the community.

SocialEngine: Thank you, guys. We look forward to your release surprises!

SocialEngineAddOns is offering a special discount of 10% on all orders till 31st May via the Coupon Code: THANKS10

Stay up to date with SocialEngineAddOns news by following them on Facebook and Twitter.

SocialEngine: How was SocialEngineAddOns founded? When did you begin SocialEngine development?

SocialEngine: Our team has been developing social networking software for a long time. In 2008, we came across SocialEngine for the first time when it proved to be the best platform for a Client's project. We had developed modules for other platforms previously, so moving to plugin development for SocialEngine was a natural progression for us. Thus, SocialEngineAddOns was born!

SocialEngine: That’s great. You have quite the plugin selection! Which ones are the most popular?

SocialEngineAddOns: The Directory / Pages Plugin is our most popular and most appreciated plugin. We are ourselves surprised to see the numerous ways in which this is being used by our Clients. Our Advanced Photo Albums Plugin is also a favorite of a large number of SocialEngine communities and seeing it display photos beautifully on sites brings a proud smile on our faces :). The Advanced Activity Feeds / Wall Plugin is one plugin which was developed due to popular demand and we incorporated a lot of features from Client suggestions. Our Advertisements / Community Ads Plugin is used by many to monetize their social networks. Our other popular plugins worth mentioning are: Advanced Facebook Integration Plugin, Suggestions / Recommendations / People you may know & Inviter plugin, Listings / Catalog Showcase Plugin, and Documents / Scribd iPaper Plugin.

SocialEngine: You generously offer free plugins to the community as well, why’s that?

SocialEngineAddOns: The plugins that we are offering for free are high quality plugins and have been in popular demand. We decided to offer these plugins for free to thank the SocialEngine community for showing appreciation for our work, and we believe that the features provided by these plugins are essential for all communities. Just like our other plugins, we are committed to provide regular upgrades for our free plugins as well.

SocialEngine: How do you decide on what new features to develop? How is developing with our platform?

SocialEngineAddOns: We believe that for a feature to be successful on a site, apart from its specifications, its user experience and administrative flexibility are equally important. Whenever we have a new idea for plugin development or feature enhancement, we ask some of our Clients for their views, who give us valuable suggestions in the process. We hold brainstorming sessions within our team over these ideas. In this way, we are able to get the right functionality specifications for our products. We also take up those ideas for development for which we receive numerous requests from Clients. Our team enjoys developing for SocialEngine because of its modular architecture, code quality and the endless possibilities that can be achieved with it. We have worked on other platforms as well, but SocialEngine is by far the best and will surely continue to be so. We are committed to contributing our best for the growth of SocialEngine.

SocialEngine: What types of customization services do you provide?

SocialEngineAddOns: We receive frequent requests for customizations ranging from complete new plugin developments, customization of our plugins, feature enhancements, etc. However, we are able to take up very few of these because of time and manpower constraints. In many cases, when Clients' requirements could be fulfilled with an existing 3rd-party plugin or administration setting, we provide them with appropriate options.

SocialEngine: What future plans can you share with your fans?!

SocialEngineAddOns: We have some exciting releases coming up in the next few weeks. One of our goals is to develop products which increase the applications in which SocialEngine can be used and you will see some plugins in this direction. We've got some surprises for you :)

SocialEngine: What tips do you recommend to new SocialEngine users? Any tips for SE veterans?

SocialEngineAddOns: We have observed that many new SocialEngine Clients are not able to make the most out of the powerful core SocialEngine features like Member Levels, Networks, Profile Types, Performance & Caching, etc, although these could be very useful for their communities. Eventually, when they realize the worth of these features, the re-configuration of site's settings becomes cumbersome. Thus, we advise everyone to go thoroughly through the Documentation, Knowledgebase and Video Tutorials on SocialEngine.net. It is equally important to explore the administration panel of SocialEngine core and the plugins so that all possibilities are well known before beginning site configuration. We provide helpful FAQs in all our plugins.
Once the community is set up, it is very important to get the site buzzing with activity. Users should get to see something new everytime they visit the site. Site administrators should identify some loyal users and gather feedback from them.

SocialEngine: Some great tips, thanks! So our clients give you positive reviews for the quality of your plugins and support service. What motivates you to provide good products and support?

SocialEngineAddOns: Developing for SocialEngine has become our passion. I think this is what enables us to develop awesome plugins. We love what we do. Appreciation for our work from our Clients is also a big motivating factor. Testimonials via emails or positive reviews inspire us to provide quality support and enhancements in our products. Top-notch customer support service complements our software products. We realize that providing effective support is an important part of our Client relationships and crucial for their websites.

SocialEngine: Any closing thoughts?

SocialEngineAddOns: SocialEngine's and the community's growth is our growth. We would like to thank our Clients for their trust in us, and the SocialEngine team for their great product. Thanks to Alex, Charlotte and John to give life to SocialEngine. A special cheers goes out to our team which works hard and enjoys together. By the way, our whole team recently went for an exciting camping and rafting trip in the Himalayas :) Finally Matt, thanks for this opportunity to connect with the community.

SocialEngine: Thank you, guys. We look forward to your release surprises!

SocialEngineAddOns is offering a special discount of 10% on all orders till 31st May via the Coupon Code: THANKS10

Stay up to date with SocialEngineAddOns news by following them on Facebook and Twitter.

Want to enhance the default video experience? Check out some cool add-ons created by our third-party developers. Users can upload videos straight from mobile devices with a full-featured mobile app, webchat, have a video widget, and even stream TV channels ! Or, hire developers for a custom feature unique to your community. Whatever keeps your members pressing play!

Please contact us if you have any questions!

Mootools vs. Jquery

At this point, it’s not reasonable to switch to JQuery as the switch would require significant code rewrites for ourselves and also for third-party developers. The choice between using Mootools and Jquery were based around our goal of creating a platform that could be highly customized by anyone with access to the direct code yet easy to use right out of the box. There is a debate that jQuery is more designer-friendly and MooTools is more programmer-friendly. Obviously our choice was MooTools. If you’d like to learn, check out their in-depth documentation.

Server-Side PHP debugging

I generally just use var_dump() >.> but I have used xdebug with netbeans before. Here are some helpful instructions on how to install xdebug with netbeans: http://netbeans.org/kb/docs/php/debugging.html

File Permissions

Basically, if apache is running as the same user as their ssh/ftp client (ideal) then you can set the permissions to 777. Otherwise, the files and folders need to be writable as apache, which is why they should be set to 755/644 . Matt has written an excellent article on tips to selecting a server.

How is member interaction encouraged? Profile photos share personality and identity with other members. Photos promote discussion, and are often relevant to purpose of the community---members share photos of their pets on Pawsley, and motocross riding on realMotocross. Friends can upload albums, tag one another and comment. Social media curates memories of their experiences, and your community acts as the home for this engagement.

Now, time to start sharing photos, right? Great. Obviously, you can check out our Photo Albums Plugin, but there are many other resources available as well. Third-party add-ons and custom development expand photo sharing possibilities for your community. Try add-ons that improve the capabilities of our Albums Plugin if you find it too limiting, such as these from SocialEngineAddons and SpurIT. Really like Facebook’s cover photo? Do the same with Hire-Experts' Timeline Plugin. Creativity wins the game, and sometimes for the lucky ones, a billion dollars!

Have any questions?Contact us!

Highlights:

• Option for admin to receive email notifications when members register.
• Added Knowledgebase Articles to the Admin Panel: only for new installations.
• Fixed issue with editing profile question choices.
• Videos with https links can be shared properly.
• Restored paragraph capability for About Me.
• Restored paragraph capability for Event description.
• Rewrote Profile Address description.
• Rewrote Profile viewing and Profile Commenting Options Descriptions.
• Admin Settings on a member profile are no longer visible for Moderators.
• In the Profile Status Widget, title and status now have separate lines.
• Posting when privacy settings are disabled gives an error message instead of a fatal error message.

Please email us if you have any questions!

When shopping for a server, the choices are shared hosting servers, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers. Which one to choose? For optimal performance we recommend starting with a dedicated server, but you can certainly start smaller with shared hosting or a VPS, and upgrade as the resource demand grows. Using the CDN storage feature as your storage system allows you to store content externally which frees up server resources. A dynamic application like SocialEngine requires more resources than static content websites due to the amount of activity generated by members in the social network. For more detailed explanations as well as performance tips, check out this support article!

Next is installation! This tutorial guides you through the necessary steps so you can perform the installation yourself. Otherwise, we offer a $30 installation service you can purchase to have our staff perform the install, or if you’ve gone with Arvixe, they’ll install SocialEngine for you. Since SocialEngine runs out of the box, you’re good to go at this point! Use the Admin Panel to configure your settings, and build your social network!

Looking to bounce questions off other SocialEngine users? Visit these unofficial forums, SocialEngineCamp and SocialEngine Base!

Add-on: SpurIT integrated LiteCommerce with SocialEngine to offer web store capabilities.

Add-on: SpurIT also developed a Theme Selector. Members can select from available themes for individual look.

Add-on: Hire-Experts developed a Credits Plugin so members can earn, purchase and spend credits!

Add-on: WebHive developed Timeline for SocialEngine. It's just like Facebook! Check out a second Timeline add-on by Hire-Experts as well!

For the full selection of add-ons, please visit our Customize section!

Here's some resources:

• One of our developers recommended some developer tools in our blog months back. Due to its popularity, we’ve created a support article for easier accessibility. Check it out for information on setting up a local development environment, for Windows and Mac users!
• Selecting a theme was also featured in a previous blog post. Create your own theme with this tutorial.
• Interested in creating HTML pages within your SocialEngine site? Follow this tutorial to add a new page.
• Make some cash with our subscription plans! Create free and paid plans, and control content access using these plans and Member Levels.

Our third-party developers assist SocialEngine users from design to development. They provide awesome feature additions with add-ons, and their customization services allow us to focus on the continued development of a supported and evolving product. We definitely encourage working with our third-party developers, and we’re committed to advancing these relationships for the benefit of you, our SocialEngine community! That said, all you developers out there, contact us with feedback!

Have any questions? We’re always available by email - info at socialengine dot net