SocialEngine PHP 5.0.0b1 Released!

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 27, 2019 11:21 AM EST
    iKori said:

    Donna! I just realized that I should wait until the stable or upgrade V5 comes out since the one available now is only for new sites. Is this correct for us the ones that have a built site?

    If you want to try the beta on a development site you can do that per the license terms once you have access. Or, you can wait until there's an upgrade path for stable release. 


    This post was edited by socialenginestaff at December 27, 2019 11:21 AM EST
    • 303 posts
    December 27, 2019 3:32 PM EST
    I was rather annoyed about the access fee especially as I’m a licence holder for 13 months, however this is a great thing for everyone and for there to be an incentive to continue development and support then I see the need for this.

    Great work everyone involved.
    • 629 posts
    December 27, 2019 4:03 PM EST

    I'm not made of money but I get the need to pay for a license. I will see if I can afford it.

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 27, 2019 4:47 PM EST

    Thank you both for your understanding. We hope 2020 will be a great year for everyone!

    Don't forget the free mobile apps coming with the stable v5 release! Those will be great to have, I'm sure. 

    • 25 posts
    December 28, 2019 1:20 PM EST

    Hello Donna,

    I am back following my fresh install of the latest version of SEPHP v5.0.0b1.

    I am very pleased, I found SEPHP v5 : Awesome ! it is very fast and very nice looking, it brings major changes and improvements.

    Congratulations for the devoted work and thank you very much by providing the v5 tutorials.

    Regards.

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 28, 2019 1:48 PM EST
    Bruno31 said:

    Hello Donna,

    I am back following my fresh install of the latest version of SEPHP v5.0.0b1.

    I am very pleased, I found SEPHP v5 : Awesome ! it is very fast and very nice looking, it brings major changes and improvements.

    Congratulations for the devoted work and thank you very much by providing the v5 tutorials.

    Regards.

    I've shared this with our team as it'll make them all so happy.Glad you noticed the speed improvements too! I do believe this is one of our best releases. Also, the mobile apps coming for iOS and Android will be wonderful to have. 

    • 303 posts
    December 29, 2019 10:00 PM EST

    I just saw that there is a fee. I have not logged on to download so not sure where the fee is or the explanation. It got convoluted in the long list of minor updates for the software. How much is it per lic and what is it for? None of the major things we need so we don't have to pay "experts' to do them are included. What happened to the photos page and simple functional control of that to include the number of photos at least. 

    and, what about the chronology of showing oldest videos or photos first in widgets or in any display. It should be most resent first or give the function of choice of ascending or descending.


    This post was edited by whatonearth at December 29, 2019 10:09 PM EST
    • 24 posts
    December 30, 2019 12:58 AM EST

    Donna, i have 4.10 installed on one server, can i install 5.0 on another server instead of upgrading?

    and if so how much will the full version of 5.0 be for existing clients?

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 30, 2019 5:00 AM EST
    whatonearth said:

    I just saw that there is a fee. I have not logged on to download so not sure where the fee is or the explanation. It got convoluted in the long list of minor updates for the software. How much is it per lic and what is it for? None of the major things we need so we don't have to pay "experts' to do them are included. What happened to the photos page and simple functional control of that to include the number of photos at least. 

    and, what about the chronology of showing oldest videos or photos first in widgets or in any display. It should be most resent first or give the function of choice of ascending or descending.

    It is not a per license fee. If you pay the fee and have more than one license, it covers all of your licenses. There are quite a lot of improvements in this version and new features including free mobile apps coming with the stable release. Those are worth at least about $900. Your feature requests, as I said, could not be put into this version as it was too late in the process. We will consider those for another release later. 

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 30, 2019 5:03 AM EST
    AJFortin said:

    Donna, i have 4.10 installed on one server, can i install 5.0 on another server instead of upgrading?

    and if so how much will the full version of 5.0 be for existing clients?

    You need to conform to the license terms. It must be in a subdomain or subfolder of the main domain, named development. So if your host can set up the other server with a subdomain (I know BryZar can do that so I'm sure other hosts can), then you can install it there. You need to set it as a password protected directory or set it to maintenance mode which requires a code to access. The full version is not another fee once the access fee is paid if required to pay. Those who purchased within the past 90 days from the beta release won't need to pay for access. So if you have to pay the access fee now, you don't also have to pay it again to get stable.

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 30, 2019 5:43 AM EST
    whatonearth said:

    What happened to the photos page and simple functional control of that to include the number of photos at least. 

    One thing we will be fixing for the RC release is the view on the photos page to match the view on the album page as I had said. I don't see any feature request for the other stuff mentioned. Please post in another thread as this is off topic.

     

    • 24 posts
    December 30, 2019 6:43 PM EST
    ok so it would have to remain in a subfolder under vlogblogs. I was hoping to be able to put it on ajhosting but that's cool, I host my own servers no middle man. its all done thru cPanel on my servers here at the office
    Donna said:
    AJFortin said:

    Donna, i have 4.10 installed on one server, can i install 5.0 on another server instead of upgrading?

    and if so how much will the full version of 5.0 be for existing clients?

    You need to conform to the license terms. It must be in a subdomain or subfolder of the main domain, named development. So if your host can set up the other server with a subdomain (I know BryZar can do that so I'm sure other hosts can), then you can install it there. You need to set it as a password protected directory or set it to maintenance mode which requires a code to access. The full version is not another fee once the access fee is paid if required to pay. Those who purchased within the past 90 days from the beta release won't need to pay for access. So if you have to pay the access fee now, you don't also have to pay it again to get stable.

     

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    December 31, 2019 5:13 AM EST
    AJFortin said:
    ok so it would have to remain in a subfolder under vlogblogs. I was hoping to be able to put it on ajhosting but that's cool, I host my own servers no middle man. its all done thru cPanel on my servers here at the office

    You can make a subdomain on you vlogblogs like development.vlogblogs.com or whatever the domain is and put it in that or in a subfolder. Just make sure it's either password protected or in maintenance mode so it's not publicly accessible without password/code.

    • 24 posts
    December 31, 2019 11:56 PM EST

    Ok Cool. I might do that then. Thanks Donna

     

    • 24 posts
    December 31, 2019 11:59 PM EST

    HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE !!!!!!

    • 24 posts
    January 1, 2020 12:08 AM EST
    Will we need to buy the plugins for 5.0 or will our existing plugins work?
    Donna said:
    AJFortin said:
    ok so it would have to remain in a subfolder under vlogblogs. I was hoping to be able to put it on ajhosting but that's cool, I host my own servers no middle man. its all done thru cPanel on my servers here at the office

    You can make a subdomain on you vlogblogs like development.vlogblogs.com or whatever the domain is and put it in that or in a subfolder. Just make sure it's either password protected or in maintenance mode so it's not publicly accessible without password/code.

     

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    January 1, 2020 4:56 AM EST
    AJFortin said:
    Will we need to buy the plugins for 5.0 or will our existing plugins work?

    You need to click each plugin to download v5.0 beta. Upgrade each one.

    • 6 posts
    January 8, 2020 12:46 PM EST

    So let me get this straight, we have waited a long time for huge improvements, and after a year only the member profile had a bit of an improvement, and now we have to pay full price to upgrade to a better version? Not even a discount for existing users? And what about all the SE v4 plugins we purchased? Do we have to re-purchase them as wel? That is a slap in the face. 

    Version 4 is seriously outdated, the chat is outdated, the way people communicate with each other is outdated, the way the admin page is made is outdated for years, and i remember a time that there were a lot of ideas passed on by the community to improve the PHP version, and now these ideas has been added into a new PHP version and we have to pay full price for it??

    Is the $149 only for the basic PHP site or are all the plugins included? Because if i have to purchase the plugins on top of the $149 i'm seriously going to find a different platform.

    I understand that you have to make money as a company in order to stay in business, but you can't just grab all the ideas we wanted as a community and build a completely different version so we have to rebuy the whole platform again, a discount would be the least you can do for the people who have been waiting long for a major update, paying $149 to upgrade from an existing platform that has been outdated for years is way to much.

    This is not the way how you treat your costumers, for years we have been trying to push on new ideas, telling us we have to look for 3rd parties, and now, suddenly out of nowhere the new and improved version cost us the full price? What a way to show trust to your loyal customers.

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    January 8, 2020 2:05 PM EST
    Fritske said:

    So let me get this straight, we have waited a long time for huge improvements, and after a year only the member profile had a bit of an improvement, and now we have to pay full price to upgrade to a better version? Not even a discount for existing users? And what about all the SE v4 plugins we purchased? Do we have to re-purchase them as wel? That is a slap in the face. 

    I don't think you read all of the new features, the fixes, and improvements. We have a new theme, we have FREE mobile apps coming when the full version releases, we have speed improvements, two step authentication and many, many more new features listed.

    Version 4 is seriously outdated, the chat is outdated, the way people communicate with each other is outdated, the way the admin page is made is outdated for years, and i remember a time that there were a lot of ideas passed on by the community to improve the PHP version, and now these ideas has been added into a new PHP version and we have to pay full price for it??

    Is the $149 only for the basic PHP site or are all the plugins included? Because if i have to purchase the plugins on top of the $149 i'm seriously going to find a different platform.

    It is to get access to download the main SocialEngine core files and SocialEngine official plugins for v5.

    I understand that you have to make money as a company in order to stay in business, but you can't just grab all the ideas we wanted as a community and build a completely different version so we have to rebuy the whole platform again, a discount would be the least you can do for the people who have been waiting long for a major update, paying $149 to upgrade from an existing platform that has been outdated for years is way to much.

    This is not the way how you treat your costumers, for years we have been trying to push on new ideas, telling us we have to look for 3rd parties, and now, suddenly out of nowhere the new and improved version cost us the full price? What a way to show trust to your loyal customers.

    Full price would have been $549 and if we added in the price of mobile apps, it would have been $1549 as mobile apps are valued around $1000 or so. 

    • 629 posts
    January 8, 2020 8:15 PM EST
    Donna said:
    Fritske said:

    So let me get this straight, we have waited a long time for huge improvements, and after a year only the member profile had a bit of an improvement, and now we have to pay full price to upgrade to a better version? Not even a discount for existing users? And what about all the SE v4 plugins we purchased? Do we have to re-purchase them as wel? That is a slap in the face. 

    I don't think you read all of the new features, the fixes, and improvements. We have a new theme, we have FREE mobile apps coming when the full version releases, we have speed improvements, two step authentication and many, many more new features listed.

    Version 4 is seriously outdated, the chat is outdated, the way people communicate with each other is outdated, the way the admin page is made is outdated for years, and i remember a time that there were a lot of ideas passed on by the community to improve the PHP version, and now these ideas has been added into a new PHP version and we have to pay full price for it??

    Is the $149 only for the basic PHP site or are all the plugins included? Because if i have to purchase the plugins on top of the $149 i'm seriously going to find a different platform.

    It is to get access to download the main SocialEngine core files and SocialEngine official plugins for v5.

    I understand that you have to make money as a company in order to stay in business, but you can't just grab all the ideas we wanted as a community and build a completely different version so we have to rebuy the whole platform again, a discount would be the least you can do for the people who have been waiting long for a major update, paying $149 to upgrade from an existing platform that has been outdated for years is way to much.

    This is not the way how you treat your costumers, for years we have been trying to push on new ideas, telling us we have to look for 3rd parties, and now, suddenly out of nowhere the new and improved version cost us the full price? What a way to show trust to your loyal customers.

    Full price would have been $549 and if we added in the price of mobile apps, it would have been $1549 as mobile apps are valued around $1000 or so. 

     

    PHPFox charges $1500.00 for mobile apps, $500.00 for every app and $250.00 for some apps.

    Social Engine wants about $200.00 since they release version 3 in some clients cases. Plugins included. Mobile apps included. Future development included. Main release included if paid 90 days from the release of beta. The last time many clients had to pay to get access to Social Engine, was back when Drew Free and John were working at the company before Donna and Ray and Kile and James's time. The Github only started with Kile and James for Room214. So much has improved since the last time people had to pay for v4 on the company side of things, that a product update fee is the least anyone could ask for when taking into account the whole picture. If regular developers on freelancer.com were involved to make this, you'd be charged about $100000.00 in retrospect for each site. I was myself quoted between $1000.00 to $6000.00 just for a logo and a single page of custom code.

    Social Engine has a deep code base due to the MVC architecture. While it is true that third party companies come out with app ideas much faster, that's all they're building. So Social Engine approached (I'm assuming several) of them, after previously briefly stating they wanted to retire Social Engine PHP, in an effort to keep clients happy. Social Networking Solutions fit the requirements they needed, to directly handle core code and updates. No third party app product has done this before in the history of any provider that I've ever seen. In the case of PHPFox, a third party provider actually bought the company and now run it, Younet. In the case of Ning, Scripts4ning was bought out by Gina in 2008 around the same time that they stopped making source code available to customers. In the case of Boonex Dolphin, Zarconia was bought out by the company because it offered hosting to clients, in an effort to increase cloud offers for Boonex. So as you can see, they're either bought out and prevented from working as a business, or they're incorporated directly into the company, making their separate business itself somewhat meaningless. But Social Engine for the time being, decided to let their existing business thrive while working with Social Networking Solutions to make things in a faster timeline for us, because we had so many feature requests to improve PHP and it is thanks to this client interest, it is happening. IT is the best news we could ever hope for, and with that being said, Social Engine has their own cloud platform Social Engine Unite they're working on to make sure that if people want to use a combination of PHP and cloud, that it is done using an API.

    Nobody's perfect, but we try our best. Everyone wishes for something more, and while I Agree with you that Social Engine from v4 to v right now looks like minor updates for now, I can assure you due to the MVC architecture, if you take a look at just how many files were changed since the last release, it is not a silent development process. Consider the time zone differences between Colorado and Mumbai for a start. Everything's being made professionally, otherwise it doesn't get released. And if it does, we find the bugs and make it better if it isn't working like we need it to as a platform or community collective site license holders. Glad to know SE has my back.

    • 66 posts
    January 9, 2020 9:26 PM EST
    I agree, as a very long time SE user and supporter, I have been waiting many many years for a big improvement and options for this new version, to only see that long time, loyal users, whom have been more than patient, were just kicked to the dirt, asked to pay just to see a beta version of the software we have been hoping for. Yeah, its small like poo alright. Seems no different then YouNet when they wanted money for every fix or change just to get things fixed halfway right. They have allowed two developers to have, questionable practices as well, only because they are the only companies to provide modules for SE. If those developers were made to do the right things or told they were not doing things appropriately, SE would die for lack of modules and improvements. And frankly, I am not sure "all the improvements" are really anything that big or great as I see from the list. New and updated SE would have massive new feature and options which add value to the software, things that the users do not have to keep paying developers untold sums of money just to have common sense options and features. How about a standard Pages plugin? A standard user verification system? Better back end billing options? A better designed member profile and activity feed? No, just leave those things to the developers so we have to pay for basic items that should fall under the purview of a software "core" 
    Fritske said:

    So let me get this straight, we have waited a long time for huge improvements, and after a year only the member profile had a bit of an improvement, and now we have to pay full price to upgrade to a better version? Not even a discount for existing users? And what about all the SE v4 plugins we purchased? Do we have to re-purchase them as wel? That is a slap in the face. 

    Version 4 is seriously outdated, the chat is outdated, the way people communicate with each other is outdated, the way the admin page is made is outdated for years, and i remember a time that there were a lot of ideas passed on by the community to improve the PHP version, and now these ideas has been added into a new PHP version and we have to pay full price for it??

    Is the $149 only for the basic PHP site or are all the plugins included? Because if i have to purchase the plugins on top of the $149 i'm seriously going to find a different platform.

    I understand that you have to make money as a company in order to stay in business, but you can't just grab all the ideas we wanted as a community and build a completely different version so we have to rebuy the whole platform again, a discount would be the least you can do for the people who have been waiting long for a major update, paying $149 to upgrade from an existing platform that has been outdated for years is way to much.

    This is not the way how you treat your costumers, for years we have been trying to push on new ideas, telling us we have to look for 3rd parties, and now, suddenly out of nowhere the new and improved version cost us the full price? What a way to show trust to your loyal customers.

     


    This post was edited by Casey at January 10, 2020 4:40 AM EST
    • 24 posts
    January 10, 2020 1:49 AM EST

    wow


    This post was edited by AJFortin at January 10, 2020 4:00 AM EST
    • 303 posts
    January 10, 2020 3:21 AM EST
    Whilst I agree with you that the devs need to be paid you’re comparing apples and oranges when comparing a physical good with software.

    People have frustrations that these improvements were asked for a long time ago and this annoys them. They have a right to be annoyed. Who are we to tell them they are not. They’ll either pay or they won’t.

    Whether we agree with what they say or don’t they carry a voice for some of the clients and this is customer feedback whether good or bad.

    • 66 posts
    January 10, 2020 4:58 AM EST

    I will say this has been the same old song and dance with SE in general on multiple fronts be it from the company and/or individual developers. This is only my opinion, but I have been a SE costumer since the early days, I have seen and painfully experienced issues for over 13 years. For many many years, things were over promised and under delivered. If you do not agree, that is fine. It does not prevent you from paying and using these upgrades. I am not unrealistic to think that a company cannot charge as they see fit for their product and as to maintain development of the product. It is still the consumers right to not buy that product or any upgrade and to provide feedback to the company. This forum is provided for such a reason, for discussion of Social Engine. Your opinion can and might be different. Any feedback should be welcomed by company wishing to not only improve their product but to maintain client relations.

    • Moderator
    • 6923 posts
    January 10, 2020 5:03 AM EST
    Casey said:
    I agree, as a very long time SE user and supporter, I have been waiting many many years for a big improvement and options for this new version, to only see that long time, loyal users, whom have been more than patient, were just kicked to the dirt, asked to pay just to see a beta version of the software we have been hoping for. Yeah, its small like poo alright. Seems no different then YouNet when they wanted money for every fix or change just to get things fixed halfway right. They have allowed two developers to have, questionable practices as well, only because they are the only companies to provide modules for SE. If those developers were made to do the right things or told they were not doing things appropriately, SE would die for lack of modules and improvements. And frankly, I am not sure "all the improvements" are really anything that big or great as I see from the list. New and updated SE would have massive new feature and options which add value to the software, things that the users do not have to keep paying developers untold sums of money just to have common sense options and features. How about a standard Pages plugin? A standard user verification system? Better back end billing options? A better designed member profile and activity feed? No, just leave those things to the developers so we have to pay for basic items that should fall under the purview of a software "core" 

    You didn't read through the list of improvements very well then. We did add more billing options. We did add a two step verification. The new theme is nicely designed. The mobile apps coming will be a great addition for those that don't have them and want them - for free. That's a huge value right there. We added plugins to Groups so that you can have more features in that. We improved speed by improving things in the database. We fixed a ton of bugs. We worked within the zend version we have right now so that clients could still use their same plugins and NOT have to purchase new ones. An upgrade to zend would have meant that clients would have had to repurchase every plugin and theme they had bought, as well as remake all customizations. We do need a bigger upgrade but we felt that these great improvements, additions, fixes and free mobile apps, and new theme were the best option to get SEPHP improved without a HUGE expense to clients. 

    We do have more improvements coming on our roadmap. We aren't charging a fee every release. This was a major improvement and free mobile apps. It required investment. We have got to have  R & D and so we have got to get upgrade access fees at times.