Planning for site revisions

So, here's my first question: given my needs, does Group Jive serve a useful purpose?

Not likely, you need mandatory group participation which CB GroupJive does not enforce. It's entirely optional if they join/leave a group. I suppose you could force the behavior, but that'd take some work likely by altering its template a bit and adding some auto actions to block leaving a group.

My third big question: would auto actions be helpful? Some of what I do is tedious to keep track of. I just don't understand these things enough to know. But I don't want to waste my limited brainpower to learn it if it won't be useful.

For your first question it'd be helpful, but beyond that I don't know. CB Auto Actions is basically designed to be "if X has happened then do Y" as it's meant to perform actions on various events via their triggers.

My fourth question is about "Activities". I don't understand what that is for, how it connects. Is that to make administration easier or easier for users? Or both?

CB Activity is just an activity stream like you'd find on Facebook or other social networks. It's very good for connecting users and getting them active as that's its entire purpose. They can post on their profile, their connections profiles, comment, and share media, etc.. from their activity stream.

To me it sounds like you need a basic social network with a few adjustments to fit your specific case. A good starting point would probably be CB Quickstart as it's designed to give you that out of the box and get people interacting. As for your few adjustments you haven't really been detailed enough for me to suggest something beyond maybe trying to block GJs ability to leave groups.

I loaded Quickstart and like what I see. This is more helpful than you can imagine. It might not seem like much, but I was afraid to install Quickstart because I thought there were decisions about the type of website to make and that it might make more changes than I could understand. Seeing the result actually helped me understand a couple of things that had escaped me. It also helps me set aside the AutoActions and Activity, for now, uncluttering my mind a bit. I see that Group Jive is engaged, so I'll need to see how that works.

I'll work with this and deal with more specific questions as they come up.

Thanks.

I hope it is acceptable to pose followup questions on this thread. I will try to be concise.

I am simplifying. I have gone over the Joomla Components, Modules and Plugins, uninstalling the odds and ends I don't need, leaving CB and a few others I consider important. I have done the same thing with CB Plugins. Presently, all CB Plugins are installed and enabled. My goal is to reduce the clutter to what I need. Aside from Core Joomla and CB, here is what I have.

• JCE Editor
• Kunena
• JoomlaShack (templates)
• CComment compojoom (Disabled)
• uddeIM

Questions:

1. Is uddeIM necessary? Is adequate messaging built into CB?
2. Are there any other Non-CB extensions or modules that would be especially helpful at this point?
3. I want to redo some material on registration. New users will see that. How should existing members deal with these changes?
4. Logging in goes to an "edit profile" screen. I haven't seen that before. Is this a Joomla thing or a CB thing?
5. One element of this screen is a requirement to agree to Privacy rules. A cursor-over popout has two lines: "Privacy Policy" and "Read the full privacy policy" The popout is not clickable. It disappears when the cursor is moved. There is no way to see what the Privacy Policy is. Is this a Joomla thing or a CB thing? Where is it?

Thanks, Doug

Is uddeIM necessary?

Nope.

Is adequate messaging built into CB?

Yes, CB has built in private messaging.

Are there any other Non-CB extensions or modules that would be especially helpful at this point?

I've no idea. It's your site and usecase so only you can really determine that. Anything that gets your users engaging in a way you want them to could be potentially useful.

Logging in goes to an "edit profile" screen. I haven't seen that before. Is this a Joomla thing or a CB thing?

CB will do that if you've terms and conditions fields marked as required and verify consent is enabled in CBs system plugin. All of which CB Quickstart enables and configures. So yes in this case it is normal until they accept the sites terms and conditions field. This assumes you're being sent to CBs profile edit page. If you're being sent to Joomlas then you're using Joomlas privacy consent plugin which is doing that redirect.

One element of this screen is a requirement to agree to Privacy rules. A cursor-over popout has two lines: "Privacy Policy" and "Read the full privacy policy" The popout is not clickable. It disappears when the cursor is moved. There is no way to see what the Privacy Policy is. Is this a Joomla thing or a CB thing? Where is it?

Sounds like you maybe using Joomlas privacy consent plugin and functionality so that would be Joomlas.

I hadn't noticed that the Privacy components showed up with the recent Joomla update. I understand why this is a big deal for everyone, but I haven't dealt with it. It appears that it is necessary to find/write a policy. I see various Joomla addons that will address. Is there a part of CB for privacy policy? If so, where is it and what do I need to do? If not, I'll need to figure it out elsewhere.
d

OK, I found the CB stuff about this. I will read on and let you know if I don't understand it.
d