BuddyZone vs. PHPFox vs. Handshakes, which is better for a college social community?

So yes, looks like i'm responding to you again C....

that's where I am in my development - Alicia (phpizabi) let's me change ANYTHING I want! Which is key. Just seems to me like 'so far' not enough Coders have taken intrests in these scripts to dig in and figure out what needs to be added, changed, modified to keep everything Open Source.

Flash Chat is fantastic; what do you mean by there is No intergration? I haven't tried - but it would seem to me that logically speaking, one would need to get the User/Password feilds to be the Same for both FlashChat & Izabi.

Now I'm more of a designer than a coder myself - and I'm more than willing to take a stab at this on my own - but for now I'm gonna throw a theory out there and if anyone who's better at coding than I am can figure something out, please feel free to chime in.

Show us all the way!

So, Izabi uses a database to store our usernames and password - FlashChat uses a database to store usernames and passwords - and It would seem to me, that all one would have to do is modify the code for FlashChat's username/password feilds to Point to the username/password feilds in the Izabi Database.

But I'm guessing it's much more difficult than that? I mean I can't be the first person to think of that.... right?

Anyways, someone please let me know if I'm on the right track there.

 

Hi,

I've looked at many of the scripts, but not necessarily in any depth, since none seemed to be what I was looking for. What I found missing were:

1) A unique point-of-view that would attract members to stay on the site.

2) Good security mechanisms that would protect the webmaster and the members.

3) Good spam control that would protect the integrity of the sites.

For the most part, all of the scripts struck me as being superficial and probably not worth attempting to implement since they would probably end up failing. The one script that interested me most was In-Portal, but without a user support forum, it was a non-starter for me. So, I am still looking for a good script to run on my site.

Rich

 

I personally believe that it's up to the Designer to give a site that Personalized Look.

These script/platforms are in my opinion meant to be built Upon. In a nutshell anyone can Lay out a unique design... but what Needs to happen is controlled by the script.

What do I mean by 'needs to happen'?

The basics... users can sign up, their information is stored; users can modify their profiles, their settings are stored; users can comment on other users' profiles, pages, pictures, users can send messages to each other - join in the forums, chat, write blogs - you know... the basics.

Most of these scripts have that - and as far as what they are missing, I feel that is what we should be discussing solutions to - If one were to add what is missing to Izabi's Alicia, what would that be? How would they do it?

What many seem to agree upon, from reading this thread and others - as well as from my own personal experience with Izabi (and some too with osDate) is that Their Community Forums are severly lacking; there do not seem to be Coders, Programmers and people who are taking enough intrest in these platforms to start discussing solutions TO the problems - To start coming up with Add-ons that will Improve the script. (from a functionality standpoint.)

I actually don't need any help with the design; Which is the problem with osDate - It's too rigid; You can't really give the site a look 'of it's own' - this however is not true for phpIzabi - where like others have mentioned, you can change ANYTHING you want to change; I've seen some impressive uses of their platform around the web in these past recent nights - so I'm excited about what I can do with this once I get the 'missing parts' added....

A ccbill payment modifcation that restricts access to certain areas of the site for UnPaid members; while allowing members to sign up for free and browse profiles; Also an Intergration Modification for FlashChat - I may attempt to build some of these on my own; the Ccbill Mod I'm CLUELESS on since I've tried working on postback solutions in the past; had no Clue where to even begin.

... still hoping Coders will join in this discussion soon to offer up suggestions, throw some ideas around; since it seems like this is not happening anywhere on the Izabi site.

any coders working with Izabi, feel free to message me.

 

The reason why there aren't coders looking to come up with solutions to how to do things with a script can be:

(1) It's too difficult

(2) Too few care enough to make that effort

(3) The people who own/control a script have ticked off people in the community who might have cared

(4) There are better options elsewhere

Regarding phpizabi, I can give you a dozen reasons why it died, including the way the entire development process was handled and the attitude that seemed to emanate. I've looked at all the "showcase" phpizabi sites and all of them have malfunctions unfortunately. There are several fundamental things missing with phpizabi even though on the surface it looks very cool - and some sites at first glance really look great. But there is too much missing and the only way to get it "there" is to make a serious investment unfortunately. I looked in the forums a while ago and what I read just made me turn away quickly.

 

My experience with Buddy Zone…

I have to say first of all I do like this script. So I am not bashing the script completely..
I have tried phpizabi, and a few others and it came down to two script

Buddy Zone
And PHP Fox

So I went with this for my site at www.thesocialrave.com

I have to say the ONLY reason I didn’t go with phpfox was it didn’t allow users to just drop in myspace codes like Buddy Zone does… I love all of the other features and the admin features in phpfox are great..If they ever change this. I will defiantly buy this script.

Now back to buddy zone….well nothing but a headache from day one… and I am sure that Ankur will be posting in here as he does every time that someone talks down on BZ or his support. But I don’t care at this point. First you have to pay for the script…. Then after a few days of emailing asking where is was…. I was sent an agreement to print out.. sign and scan, then email back to him. Then a day or so later. I got the script…. Great im in business….WRONG….. very easy to setup and get going.. but with any software script there are bugs.. no big deal… but when you email Ankur for support…ok I have to be honest here… after you email Ankur 6 or 7 times for support… he might get back to you with something like… I’m looking into it….. then you hear nothing else…There have been a few issues that he answered back on that he called a customized job… well I don’t see it that way… the main reasons people use social networking sites are for
Videos
Journals
Bulletins
Music
And the ability to use myspace codes to make it their own


Well
The video section didn’t work right off the bat.. needed some work…. Got it working

The journals.. as everyone knows, people like to copy/paste bulletins from one user to another… and comment on them
This didn’t work right off… For example because I know he will post in here about this..
The journal was just a big mess… no one wanted to use it. So I asked him to fix this for almost a month…. Then finally he finally did get that fixed. and told me that it was a customized job.. and way.. some other problems like the musicians profile has a mp3 player where they can upload music and have it play with a picture beside it.. this never did work …. So after emails after emails. On and on.. he finally came out with a fix…. Which made it worse… now if you delete a song. .it stays there. Until you clear out your temp files…ok.. simple enough? No one is going to do that over and over.. so he refuses to fix that… and a lot of people are complaining… the script is all over the place. he uses css to be able to modify the page colors and the look.. easy enough? Sure supposed to be.. its taken me over a month to get my site changed the way I kind of want it.. not perfect but……anyway… he shut his forum down because people including myself were complaining about his support…. He basically sits in there all day watching you post but wont post any answers to ANYTHING…..he states that he doesn’t support his software in the forum… well seems he doesn’t support it in the emails either… Me and Ankur have had it out over and over about his support… you get 6 months support for his script after that if you want help you pay another $150.00….. right…. So he ignores your emails for the 6 months then you are done….On the FrontPage of his site he advertises that his script can and is available to be integrated with things such s Flashchat, and PHPBB….well after several emails again asking about this… no answer…post something in the forums for him… ignored….. my frustrations are coming for the lack of support that this software comes with… it isn’t because he is a busy man at all.. As a matter of fact I put this to a test one day as I sat here at work using his forum… saw that he was in there IDLE……so I posted a few questions that went unanswered…..so….I posted a comment about his bad support and how I wanted something done about it… I counted and it took him a total of 30 seconds to jump on that post and make a reply… So I told him that was the kind of support that I wanted for my help and it turned out very bad that day and he ended up calling me at home and swearing at me calling me names and telling me that he was taking his license back and that I could no longer use his software… after about an hour of that. I just adv him that he didn’t have the right to just cancel my license for whatever reason…so basically if you cross him or complain about his script then he will threaten to take you to court and so on… so you decide whether its worth the trouble.. at this point I wish that I had went with PHPfox…

There are almost (0) mods available out there for Buddy Zone.,.. maybe because the lack of users. Or the lack of support from vastal. I dunno… but I just thought you should all be aware of the problems that some of us have went through…..
Here is an open site since Ankur decided to close his forum for help we have all been going here to register

http://www.cyberdatecentral.com

so unless Ankur steps up and starts offering REAL support.. I see a lot of people jumping ship……


n1c02

 

n1c02, I'm very sorry for your bad experience!
Also, none of the social softwares are good enough!

Any good word for Elgg?!

 

About Abledating
I hate those losers who can not properly install anything and then complain and tell everyone that the software sucks. If you can not work online, DO NOT START! And do not blame the software.
I own it 1 year, have 35 000 members. I HAVE WORKED HARD ON IT ALL! And I never complained.

 

Looks like I will dismissing any plans of using PHPFox. I just read on their website that they've changed their minds about enabling integration with the popular forum softwares out their and will instead try to make the in-house software better. Anyone who wants to add it to an existing site will probably have issues. Well I'm not officially done with PHPFox

 

I think that Rayzz script is the best solution. Even though it has 100 bugs it still most powerful out of any scripts. I have it and highly modified it. If you want to see my site please PM me.

 

The only losers are postings like this one. Abledating is a SCAM

 

the future looks promising

 

what do you guys thing about boonex dolphin ?

 

Someone who purchased multiple licenses of abledating could give me a licence abledating get that I can test on my site, and to review impartially?


Send me MP

 

So instead of pretending you want info on Abledating (as you are probably Abledating by the number of your posts lambasting me today) why dont you do a
google search and type in Abledating Scam where you can view alot of info on different forums and you will see a pattern, the good reviews are by Abledating with very few posts, bad English grammar and praising Abledating as the second coming.

So go back to your hole you Russian Scamster

 

Zero support, even if you pay the $1000.

Entirely too much Ajax.

The code makes Windows ME look like Unix.

The best thing to do is install it yourself and test it out. That alone should tell you that it's the wrong choice.

 

do not use it.. its a joke, im running a site with it now.. switching over to phpfox i purchased a version a couple years ago for a site i took down and thought i lost it but i found it they said they would upgrade me to the newest version for $40 .. from what i remember it had a few bugs but nothing major. most of the features that had bug im not going to be using on my new site anyhow, keeping things very simple.

 

By The way, I have a HS lisence with brand free license....I will sele it for a reasonable offer. Still have like 6 month free updates!
Include source code for templates, flash music player and flash video player

 

Anyone know what happened with PHPizabi ???

Downloads seem to throw me up errors all the time, and by the looks of the community, those who are running it seem to have disappeared.

With regards to all the similar scripts out there - which one ( free ) is there out there that I can download and play about with to see how the whole social type sites work.

Alex

 

PHPIzabi is changing their name to PHPUstuckwithit.

I think the owner violated parole, lol. If you go to phpizabi.com, the other partner's site, it still has a pulse. BARELY.

 

They barely had a pulse to begin with. Like most of these sites, it went to the founders' heads and that turned development on its head.