Ever seen one of those social-networking sites that have a spiffy-looking message board for each user, and perhaps even lets users send picture messages to each other?

How about one that can also double-up as a picture gallery? Even better, one that doesn't require page reloads to send messages/upload pictures/refresh?

Now you can have one at your site too. CB Buzzboard 2 is an advanced Community Builder plugin that does all these.

It allows every user to have his/her own message board on his profile. It can be restricted to viewing and posting only to people in the user's connections list, or to every logged in user.

On top of that, the user can also upload photos that he can then use to send along with a message to other users.

CB Buzzboard 2 makes heavy use of AJAX technologies. This translates into a smoother user experience. No longer do your users need to click on a Send Message button, wait for the page to load, type a message, wait for it to get sent and see an acknowledgement page, then click on another link to go back to the initial page.

When a user's profile page is loaded, CB Buzzboard loads its required data in the background, without affecting the page load. Then the message board and Showcase are displayed. When the user sends a message, the page is not loaded again; instead, a nice popup widget is displayed, allowing the user to select the recipients as well as enter his message. Even when the user presses the Send button, the page is still not reloaded. The message is sent in the background regardless of how many recipients there are.

And then we have the Showcase. The Showcase allows the user to upload pictures so they can be sent along with a message. No page reloads required still. If there are too many pictures to display on one page, there will be pagination, and as usual, the entire page doesn't need to reload when the user wants to see the next page of his pictures. 

The Admin can also upload pictures that every user can use in the messages. This is separate from the Showcase system.

The maximum size of each picture as well as the total number of pictures per user can be configured using the comprehensive Administrative interface.

Demo

CB Buzzboard 2 is a totally different piece of software from the original CB Buzz Board that leaves the old CB Buzzboard in the dust. 

Instead of showing you screenshots from the front-end of CB Buzzboard 2, you can try it out for yourself at the Demo Site.

3 demo users are provided, as detailed at the demo site. Once you log in as any of the users, be sure to visit your own as well as the 2 other users' profiles and try it out. 

You can send messages to other users and upload nice pictures, which is set to around 3MB max filesize per picture. 

Every hour, the demo site gets refreshed, so a clean slate is presented. Users will then be logged out automatically.

Screenshots

For the Administrative interface, please read on.

There are a total of 5 tabs in the Administrative interface. Please click on the thumbnails to see the bigger pictures.

Click on the pictures to get a larger view

The first is the General tab, where we can configure various settings like sizes of pictures, dialog boxes, the number of messages to show per page, etc.

Next, we have the Pictures Management tab. This is where the Admin can upload pictures that all the users on the site can use when they send messages (unless they are banned). Using an advanced grid system (akin to a spreadsheet), the Admin can see all the pictures that have been uploaded, sort the view and also delete them. When the mouse goes over each picture thumbnail, an enlarged version of it is shown.

Then there is the Showcase Management tab, where we can see all the pictures that users have uploaded, sort the view (for example, by picture name) and delete them. Like the Picture Management tab, when the mouse goes over a thumbnail, the enlarged version displays.

The Rating tab comes next. This is where the Admin can choose whether to use the Rating system or not. It also shows all the users on the site (sortable, for example by User Name or Rating), and ban them if they're naughty.

Features

1. Promotes interactivity between your site's users as well as providing them with an image gallery at the same time.
2. Uses AJAX so that there is virtually no need for page refreshes in order to use CB Buzzboard 2. This provides users with a smooth and pleasant experience and encourages them to use CB Buzzboard 2 even more.
3. Allows users to leave messages on each other's Buzzboard. Users can leaves messages either by visiting other users' profiles, or by choosing the recipients if Community Builder's Connections functionality is enabled.
4. Users can give ratings to each other, and Admin can see each user's average rating on the Administrative interface.
   
5. Showcase (Image Gallery). Each user has a Showcase where they can store pictures which they can then use to send as messages. Users can also view each other's Showcases, which functions as an Image Gallery.
6. Users can choose to restrict the viewing and/or posting of their Buzzboard and Showcases to only those in their Connections list.
7. Ability to control the total number of pictures allowed per user, as well as the maximum file size per picture.
   
8. Users can be banned from using CB Buzzboard 2 via the Administrative interface.
   
9. When typing messages, a richtext editor is available for the users to use.
10. Admin can create his own language files and they can be easily selected as the default language.
11. 3 colour themes to choose from for the tabs and accordion.
12. Very comprehensive Administrative interface. It uses a sortable grid interface which shows the following:
    a) All the Showcase pictures on the system.
    b) All the users on the system and their average ratings and Ban status.
    c) All the Admin-uploaded pictures on the system.
13. Admin can upload pictures for users to include in their messages. This is separate from the Showcase system, so even if a user had not uploaded any picture himself, he can still send messages using the pictures that the Admin has uploaded.

Requirements

1. PHP 4 or 5
2. MySQL 5
3. Joomla 1.0 or 1.5
4. Community Builder 1.1 or 1.2 RC4  

Availability

CB Buzzboard 2 is now available from the store.

FAQ

• frontend_tabs.php - this file controls the words and phrases used on the front end of the application
• admin.php -  this file controls the words used on the Administrative interface. 

Usually you don't have to modify admin.php, if you're just concerned about what your users see.

Q: How can I change the language used in the frontend?
A: Whenever you create another directory inside the directory “plug_cbbuzzboard/language/”, it will show up in the Administrative Interface as a new language. Here's how to do it:

1. Duplicate the “English” directory and rename the copy as, perhaps, “Latin”.
2. Edit the files “frontend_tabs.php” and “admin.php” to your liking, preserving the file structure.
3. Go to your site's Joomla Administrative interface, go to Components -> CB Buzzboard. In the first tab, look for “Select language file to use” and choose the appropriate language (“Latin”, for example). 
4. Click the Save button.

Do you have other information you would like to see added in the FAQ section? Leave me a note using the Contact form!