Can someone educate me about the new v5 iOS and Android apps?

    • 35 posts
    February 5, 2020 10:12 PM EST

    Mobile apps

    iOS and Android mobile apps are now available for v5.0! These apps are free for SocialEngine clients to enjoy. We know this is what everyone’s been waiting for too! You can download the mobile apps from our store when logged into your account.

    My familiarity with website apps is what I can find and download in an Apple or Google apps store. Can someone enlighten me as to why I would want to install these apps? What are they supposed to do? After installing them what happens on/to the website. Is configuration necessary? Etc.

    Thanks in advance,

    Andy

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    February 6, 2020 4:49 AM EST

    Most info is in the blog post and in the store listing for the free apps as well as the other thread for this. But, I can answer some. 

    These, once installed and configured, will be the same type of apps you are familiar with and be in Google and Apple store for you and your members to download. Then, when using their mobile device they installed the app to, your users will use your site just like you use other sites where you use mobile apps. They'll even get push notifications from the apps. You don't have to install if you don't want them. They are worth about $1000 but are listed for free in our store thanks to SNS. 

    Please follow the tutorial in the SE Learning center to install and then follow those instructions to contact SNS for further configuration which they do for free. Once that is all done, you are all set to use the mobile app for your site should you install it. Any support for these is from SNS.

    https://www.socialengine.com/support/article/163381249/se-php-installing-and-managing-mobile-apps and you can even test them at our demo which is in the store listing.

    Hope that helps

    • 35 posts
    February 6, 2020 2:30 PM EST

    Hi Donna,

    Thanks for this helpful information! I really do appreciate it and all your work and effort. laughing

    I always try to find information on my own before posting to these forums. And I found a lot of info out there on Google and in the blog, but the information wasn't useful to me because I'm not a developer. For example, there is mention that smileys require server configuration. Well, what kind of configuration? How do I do this? In another example, it says to always activate the RESTful API first after installing. What the heck is that and how am i going to do it? Then, there's guidance to see the installation tutorial before proceeding with no mention of the name of the specific tutorial I am going to have to look for nor is there a link to it.

    I'm sorry. I'm not trying to rant, but SE should really have someone like you writing this forward facing information on behalf of the user rather than developers who in my experience, really hate creating documentation. If they did, it would make your job a lot easier and give me much greater satisfaction as an end user. FYI, insufficient information for the layperson is my greatest point of dissatisfaction with SE PHP.

    Best regards,

    Andy 

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    February 6, 2020 3:54 PM EST

    Hi Andy,

    The tutorial is in the listing, https://www.socialengine.com/store/product/native-ios-and-android-mobile-apps , just to get you familiar with where to find stuff. So each listing has a Resources section. In that section is supposed to be pertinent info such as demo links, support links, and instructions if available. Once you click Resources, it'll show an Instructions link which will take you here, https://www.socialengine.com/support/article/163381249/se-php-installing-and-managing-mobile-apps . It mentions to always activate the Restful api first because you will need to. Once you install them, you will see what I mean as it'll be in your plugin list shown in step 12.

    Our blog post mentioned the server configuration would be in our requirements which is found here, https://www.socialengine.com/support/article/81788966/se-php-socialengine-requirements which would be the IntlChar mentioned in the blog post here https://www.socialengine.com/blog/2020/01/14/socialengine-php-5-0-0rc1-released and it mentions why that's needed for the mobile apps. Generally, it's good to check the beta and rc blog posts as those can contain information that isn't in the stable release blog as that one gets so long with features. 

    Both of those tutorials are in our Learning Center, https://www.socialengine.com/support/article/33022/socialengine-php . 

    I actually am the one that writes all of the documentation lol. I also write all of the blogs and forum threads for releases. I do try to make them clear but perhaps miss it at times. Sorry about that. I do my best with documentation.

    • 35 posts
    February 7, 2020 10:46 AM EST

    Thanks for all the links Donna.

    I wasn't aware you were responsible for all of the documentation. You have a lot on your plate then and no need to apologize. It must be overwhelming which changes my perspective.

    ~Andy

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    February 7, 2020 10:50 AM EST

    Hi Andy,

    It can be but it is also rewarding as I do love to help and to try to educate when I can.Always room for improvement though. Feel free to give any specifics as to where things can be clearer in the documents any time you find we've missed it. I'll make sure to put more links to tutorials in the blog posts for releases in the future.

    Donna