Major Additions - Zoints LOCAL. Social networking, enhanced profiles, blogs and MUCH more

Zoints Local 2.0 - Enhanced profiles, social portal, networking, blogging, and more

Zoints Local is now Gold!

Before installing, we encourage you to make backups and take the appropriate cautions that you would with any significant addition to your forum community.

We would also like to encourage developers to share hacks with the community at dev.zoints.com . Your improvements and enhancements are helpful and appreciated.

What is new to Zoints Local? What makes 2.0 worth the wait?

We know that many of you have waited patiently for this much anticipated update and we love you for it. Let's discuss why 2.0 is just plain awesome and why your forum users would want the creativity and connection it provides.

Zoints Local still brings truly customizable and unique profiles, unlike any free system out there, and is simple to install but let's check out the bullet points of new features for 2.0.0.2 RC1.

Community Central by Zoints - Your Forum's Social Hub

To develop a well connected and devoted user base, members need a personal connection to your forum. Community Central ties members together by creating personal connections and curiosity. Think about it like a community portal for your members and everything they do that isn?t posting a thread.

Activities on non-forum based aspects of a site are often lost or go un-noticed. Community Central is the hub for your users: to see who has updated their profile, to know who is interacting with others, to read the latest blog entries, to find popular tags on profiles/blogs/threads, and more. Community Central shows what?s going on in your community and encourages more connections, more community, and more fun. And, Zoints Community Central is completely controlled within your vB Admin CP!

Community Tag Pages show for each popular tag who is tagged with it, what blog entries are tagged with it and what threads are tagged with it (threads tagged by Zoints Thread Tags.) It's almost as if it is the ultimate search on an accurately and frequently tagged forum and brings content not found through any other function to connect it all.

Community Central is completely controlled within your vB Admin CP for easy access to manage it's system, templates and so on.

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Completely Overhauled, Total Blogging Solution

Another great addition to Zoints Local is its totally revamped blogging system. No longer will you need to seek out expensive paid alternatives to find a full feature blog for your forum. The blog page itself is now a block page with AJAX drop and drag technology, which means users can add relevant (and of course irrelevant) blocks to their blogs' content. Users can now create multiple blog categories for all of their entries which allows for improved organization of a user's entries and easier search for content. All blog entries can now be tagged with entry moods and entry tags, so if this was a blog entry on my page likely my mood would be Teary (tears of joy) and my tags could be Zoints Local 2.0 - vBulletin.org - ZL etc. There is also now RSS Syndication with the blogs so guests or other users would be able to easily subscribe to a user's blog and creating another path to your community. As far as new blocks; there is the blog panel, blog archive, blog tag cloud, recent blog comments, blogroll, and a blog categories list. When you put it all together, the blog is vastly improved and will offer a more rewarding experience to users.

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Activity Blocks and the XPSF MP3 Player

Other new blocks added to the profile page, include the Network Activity Block, Personal Activity Block and an XPSF Music Player. The activity blocks increase the chances members will continue to network with one another. The Music Player adds depth to the user?s profile. These additions are a huge addition to any community and help create and foster a need for members to return to your forum.

vB Product Improvements

The vB product has also seen a few changes to help further integrate Zoints into your community and improve the likelihood of profile interaction for your members. Member profiles now show within the postbit the last date they were updated and can be highlighted if they were updated on the same day you see their post (to encourage members to view updated profiles.) Also, you can display recently updated/created or random profiles on forum home. So whether you want to see the active and updated profiles getting the attention or for your new members to get a few warm welcomes, this will help.

Tighter 3.7 Integration

With the 3.7 version, there has also been integration with new features from vB 3.7. Both on Community Central and on individual profile blocks, there is use of the new 3.7 Social Groups and Photo Albums (including displaying a user's albums if the profile block for it is enabled.) You can see both of these in action on various screens in this thread.

What is Zoints Local?

Installed on your forum and under your control, Zoints Local is what you want it to be for your community. If you want to provide your members with a homepage they can personalize, you can. If you want members to share more about themselves via greatly enhanced profiles, you can. If you want members to have access to a complete blogging solution, you can. Networking? Resumes? Photos? Video sharing? No problem. Via Zoints' page and block management system, you can do what you want, how you want, with ease. Learn more about pages and blocks.

Zoints Local takes your forum's basic profile and turns it into a portal where a whole new world opens up, all on your website. As you can see below, your members can have everything from a personal homepage to an enhanced profile, blog, network, pages to show off their vehicle and anything else that can be dreamed up. And don't worry, we even include a page that shows the entire default vBulletin profile if you want it.

The key to Zoints Local is that the power is in YOUR hands. We know that today?s forum member is looking for something beyond a basic layout that they can find on any forum they joined powered by the same software, it?s just not worth their time to invest in creating a profile that many on the forum will overlook. Zoints Local 2.0 addresses this issue by expanding on the connectivity to provide you with a social networking solution that will make your dedicated members even more committed to your forum. Through measures such as our new central page, new activity blocks and postbit profile update indicators, your members will have a reason to check out other profiles, make new friends and get to know their current ones better. In a world where forums now have to compete with so many other time competitors online, forums need more than just content to drive members back, they need a true community aspect. By building a connected community, your members will not just remain loyal but they will be much more likely to recruit for your forum as they have such a positive affinity for the community. Zoints Local will help to provide the tools to make that possible.

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Some sites using Zoints Local
Hundreds of forums are currently running Zoints Local. Here are just a few:

Forum: http://www.strike3forums.com/forums/
Zoints Local: http://www.strike3forums.com/forums/z/missionhockey21/

(If you would like your forum featured above, please contact Doug)

What will Zoints local bring to my forum?

Zoints Local brings a new level of possibilities to your community development and overall website appearance. There are so many features and options that it?s impossible for us to list them all here. As a community based platform that allows forum owners to share blocks, the opportunities to expand your site with Zoints Local continue to grow every day ? there?s just no telling what feature, block or idea will come out next. At the Zoints Development Forum you can download blocks posted by other community owners and developers. This way, if you own a writing forum, a software forum, a nursing forum, or a forum dedicated to any other topic, you can contour pages and blocks to specifically fit the needs of your community. Learn more about sharing blocks.

A few of the blocks and pages packaged with Zoints Local:
About Me, My Activity, My Discussions, My Links, Instant Chat, XSPF Music Player, My Media, My Photos, My Interests, My Communities, My Network, My Network Activity Quick Comments, Ratings, My Blog, RSS Feeds, Social Actions and many more. Virtually any existing "widget" shared on the internet can quickly be converted into a block, many in just a few minutes.

What else does Zoints Local offer?

Zoints Local is a state of the art product with all sorts of amazing features that go beyond the normal forum profile.

Drag and Drop technology - Do you want to move a block from one part of your profile to another? Do you want to change the order of your pages? No problem, just drag and drop! It's that easy.

Social Networking - Forget just friends, Zoints Local allows your members to create as many "Groups" as they want. We all have friends, family, colleagues, forum friends, and various other people in our lives.

Comprehensive privacy controls - Your members can create a variety of groups and show each group different content on a page by page basis. Zoints allows you to show what you want, when you want, to whom you want. Learn more about Zoints' Privacy Controls.

Style Sharing - When your members create custom styles, they can easily share them with other members of your community via the Styles Database.

Global Search - Zoints Local includes a global search that bridges communities and creates a virtual freeway between forums on the internet. Searches conducted through Zoints return results from every community that uses Zoints Local. Think of it as Google, for people. Google sends you a lot of traffic, and so can Zoints People Search.

The best part about Zoints Local is that you pick what to let your members use and what not to let them use.

What sort of administration options exist?

The Zoints Local system gives you extensive control of how your Zoints profiles should behave. You can turn features on and off, determine if you want your members to be able to edit/create/manage styles of their own, define default styles, define the default block layout, default pages, edit block options and much more.

Zoints Local 2.0 now implements a file-based phrasing system which will allow the system to be ported to other languages in a much simpler way. If you create a language system, please share it with us so you can help out other forums in need of the same one! Also with 2.0 is improved Module API and block management, all of which are detailed in the links below.

Zoints Local 2.0 also brings new user control options to your forum. You can login in as a user or edit their options from one click on their profile page. If a user is deleted or banned, their Zoints Profile account is closed. You can list reasons as to why an account is closed in case other members are curious. And you can now view comments left by each user in case you had a troublemaker or a spammer that you need to quick seek and destroy all traces of.

You can now find zAdmin by simply accessing your vB Admin CP and going to the Zoints Profile Settings section. If you are in a panic, in a rush or new to Zoints, all of your settings can be found from this simple area.

Here?s a couple screenshots from the admin control panel:

How do I get started? (Installation, Support, Update Instructions, Changelog)

Getting Zoints Local running on your site is a quick and painless process. Just follow the simple steps below and you can have your site running Zoints Local in a matter of minutes. Once you have the system setup, it?s completely up to you to decide how you want things to work. Customize, add on or leave the system exactly as it comes out of the box ? Zoints Local gives you the power to choose!

Step 1 ? Download the attached zip file.

Step 2 ? Upload everything under the "upload" folder to your forum's root.

Upload the /z/ folder to your forum's root directory (one of the below examples should fit most setups):

yourdomain.com/z/ or
subdomain.yourdomain.com/z/ or
yourdomain.com/forumdirectory/z/


Step 3 - Run the installation script found at /z/install/index.php and follow the directions

Step 4 - During the installation you will need to register your forum with Zoints to obtain a token and authentication key

Step 5 ? Once installation is complete, log in to your vBulletin Admin Control Panel and upload the plugin product file found in the /products/ folder

Step 6 ? Configure Zoints as you see fit! The new Community Central feature can be configured under the Zoints Local vBulletin options.

Promoting your forum through Zoints

Along with all of the features, tools and added functionality Zoints Local offers for your site, the Zoints is also interested in bringing you more traffic. Here?s how:

1. Add your forum to the Zoints directory at http://zoints.com/communities after you install. More information can be found in this thread.

2. The Zoints network will include your site in searches and other relevant results bringing you qualified traffic without any additional effort.

3. If you install Zoints Local on a Big-Board, please email us at big-boards@zoints.com with your url so we can get you added to the Zoints Enabled directory on BigBoards.com

Support

Due to the scope of this software, we ask that help requests be submitted at http://network.zoints.com in this specific forum so we can provide quick, efficient support.

Changelog

The full (and very lengthy) changelog can be found in the download.


Upgrade Instructions

Zoints Local 2.0.0.5 RC1 & RC2
============================================

Please note: Do not upload the following two files:

/z/install/index.php
/z/install/detail.php

STEPS:
* Download: Zoints Local-2.0.0.5RC1-vB3.6.x.zip ... that is all that is needed for 2.0.0.
1.0.4b .zip is available for archive purposes.
* UPLOAD THE ENTIRE CONTENTS of the /upload/ folder found in the
zip.
* After uploading the new files, access the following page in your browser:

http://yourdomain.com/forum/z/install/manager.php
(Replace "http://yourdomain.com/forum/" with your forum's URL)

And select to upgrade Zoints Local
* Import Zoints Profile vBulletin Product titled product-zointsprofile-2.2.3-3.7.x.xml and make sure to select the "Overwrite" option!
* Alter the Zoints Profile vBulletin settings to configure the new Social Portal via the vBulletin AdminCP

You're done!


***System Requirements***

Zoints Local requires the following:

- A linux or windows based webserver. Windows in ISAPI mode is not currently supported.
- vBulletin forum software (additional platforms will be added soon).
- PHP 4.3.3 or greater.
- MySQL 4.1 or greater.
- Your server must allow port 80 post and get requests to be made to Zoints.com
- Safemode is not currently supported.



*** Zoints Local 2.0 does not support Autonomous mode.

That's it!

[bc3tech]

Man, y'all need to play w/ this ish before posting up if you can/can't do something.

Originally Posted by Jah-Hools

...If so, do you have any tips on how to steer forum members towards the Zoints profile pages and get them to invest time in filling out the data fields?...

um, you can fully disabled the ability for users to view the "old" profiles via the Zoints control panel area. simply set the option for every user group.

Is there a way to 'kill off' the VB profile area - and force folks to use the Zoints Profile area? In other words.. What do people do with a VB CP area AND a Zoints Profile area running at the same time?...

people edit their profiles on my site to set their location since Zoints hasn't provided the ability to pull user data out of a zoints profile and show in a post/threadbit as of this build. otherwise, the only profiles they view / use are the Zoints ones

Originally Posted by The-Ensemble

This mod looks great but is there a way I could just use the blog feature without the rest? I don't wanna have loads of features I'm not gonna use.

shut off all the other pages in the zoints profile via the zoints administration area.

Originally Posted by jameshotmovies

This is a very basic feature so I was surprised it didn't work.

i have no problems with it.

Originally Posted by Jah-Hools

...OK another one - how do i change the "My Vehicle" display to say something else?...

visit the zoints administration area.

[Strike3ForumsMH]

Originally Posted by Jah-Hools

I am only interested in:

an expanded user profile that is easy & fun for my forum members to use to
Upload photos, videos, MP3's, Give detailed info about themselves and interact with other members of the same forum

I am not interested in:

providing my members a conduit to go networking with members of other forums

with that in mind is this the right product?

If so, do you have any tips on how to steer forum members towards the Zoints profile pages and get them to invest time in filling out the data fields?

Is there a way to 'kill off' the VB profile area - and force folks to use the Zoints Profile area? In other words.. What do people do with a VB CP area AND a Zoints Profile area running at the same time? Zoints doesn't seems to commandeer the User CP admin area of VB, its its own separate area.. Any tips for me..?

Is there a forum to discuss this - I could NOT find it... Thanks v much in advance..

If you do not want any links, what so ever, coming out in which your forum members could go elsewhere, likely this isn't the perfect solution for you. Although I should remind you that it is a two way street in that just as easily as your members could leave elsewhere, members from elsewhere could leave for your site. But with that said, in complete honesty, I don't think significant recruitment or member dropoff has yet been attributed to Zoints having a Communities button, as typically members are already happy with the forum they are already at and would no longer be there if they weren't. I am very concerned about those types of issues with my own forum members (for instance, new members can't PM for 5 days and 50 posts on my forum) but before I was a staff member on Zoints, I used Zoints and never felt any noticeable ill effects from it with members being tempted to elsewhere.

As for tips, I would suggest running a contest for who can create the best profile. Whether it's for an actual prize or cash, or for something on the site (like points if you have a point shop or something creative that your members would like) and have people post their profiles for you and your team to look at. Narrow it down 16 or whatever, and do brackets (leading to an ultimate winner) or just have an outright vote on it.

And with removing the Edit Profile functionality of vB, I would suggest simply removing the links to that part of your site or change the link to go to their Zoints profile (I can help with this if you would like, let me know.)

Originally Posted by jameshotmovies

This is a very basic feature so I was surprised it didn't work.

That is a feature that works James, can some forums have problems with it though? Sure. Open up a ticket if you haven't already and one of the guys on the team will be sure to try to help you out with this.

Originally Posted by The-Ensemble

This mod looks great but is there a way I could just use the blog feature without the rest? I don't wanna have loads of features I'm not gonna use.

Hi Ensemble, this is possible. As Danny (I believe) responded, you can disable pages from the ZAdmin, including the profile and network and such... so only the blog is showing. If you need more detailed instructions, let me know.

Originally Posted by Jah-Hools

I wonder if there are any guestimates on when the VBulletin networking option might be available...??

Jah, I really couldn't tell you, you would have to ask them.

Originally Posted by Jah-Hools

So there is a big forum for the SEO plug in - where can folks discus this one? Is this thread it?

So - I am wondering if some of my brainier forum members might make a far better job of the profile lay out than I ever could? Then I could take their 'style' and perhaps 'lock it down.. as the default style for everyone? Thats possible right?

OK another one - how do i change the "My Vehicle" display to say something else?

Thanks in advance..

Hi again Jah, this is the only thread to discuss Zoints Local at vbulletin.org, but we have additional forums of our own at network.zoints.com.

Hmm, that's an interesting question and I think it is possible. After someone has created a style, go to your ZAdmin, click Pages and then click Edit Name/Style for a particular page and look for the name of the style that the individual created. If you don't see it, let me know as while I think that should work as is, there might be one holdup that I'll tell you to account for if it arises.

Alright and as for changing the name of My Vehicle, go to your Zadmin, click Pages, and then click Edit Name/Style (like listed above) and simply change the name of the page to what you would like.

- Reid


(Edit: Thanks for the help bc3tech! I didn't make my way over to the next page yet.)

[inciarco]

The Communities System Is Not Managed In My Own Forums!!

When Clicking On The Communities Link, Is Drives The Users To The Zoints Web Site, Leaving My Community Into The Zoints Community!! :erm:

But Congratulations For Your Community Is a Great Development!! :up:

The Blogs Are Really Cool, I Think I'll Try Them On My Forums!! :up: :up: :up:

My Best Regards!!

[Jah-Hools]

I have the official VBulletin blog installed and will get another blog option via Zoints Local

Any ideas on how to manage that?

Disable the Zoints one?

or

Just use the Zoints one and disable the Official Vbulletin one?

Thanks in advance for any power user tips & tricks

[entreplanet]

How come when I navigate to www.mysite.com/forum/z/sammy it doesn't go directly to my profile?

[bc3tech]

Originally Posted by Jah-Hools

I have the official VBulletin blog installed and will get another blog option via Zoints Local

Any ideas on how to manage that?

Disable the Zoints one?

or

Just use the Zoints one and disable the Official Vbulletin one?

Thanks in advance for any power user tips & tricks

you paid for the vB one (right?)... why would you disable it...

[Jah-Hools]

Originally Posted by bc3tech

you paid for the vB one (right?)... why would you disable it...

Indeed, I am looking for power-user tips (if possible) before I unleash this on my members.. they are a very picky crowd and if there are two blogs running they will give me a hard time about it. If someone out there believes one blog is better than the other - I would be interested in hearing their opinion on the subject. I don't want to go live with it with 2 x user profile areas and 2 x blogs - that would seem dumb / look bad to me..

[k.sharma78]

Hello zoints,

Your script seems to be very nice. But when i am trying to install it on my Server It stuck on Details.php page.

I tried every thing but it is giving me a BLANK Page When i click Proceed on Database Option Page.

It seems that somehow it is not creating tables in the database.

Can you please Help on this issue

Regards
Kshitij Sharma

[entreplanet]

Does anyone know how to get rid of the "Zoints Communities" section on the profile page?

[dagger77]

I Tried to install it . everything went well and easy.
but the pages became messed up because I'm using Arabic language forum. as we know Arabic forums use right to left content and styles. so this is not worked for me .. although its a great hack

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