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This plugin works wonderfully with one exception I found. Though I had jquery disabled in the plugin's options, this plugin causes issues with Jomsocial's Mini Calendar on the event creation page. User unable to select event date (not calendar popup) as long as external links plugin is enabled.

I was previously using Flexicontent for front-end article management by my Joomla members but for some reason I cannot recall (as I was very happy with Flexicontent) I found it necessary to come up with another solution. That solution was Form2Content LITE. The layout is simple and clean, pretty straight forward to accomplish the task. This review in no way takes away from Flexicontent (It's still a great extension). I just prefer Form2Content LITE. They are both free so I would advise anyone to give them a try.

First off, I have tried the two other group deals components currently available for Joomla and they don't even begin to compare to CMGroupBuying. They cost more (one of them costs MUCH more) and they do far less. Additionally, the other two components are full of bugs that the developers either refuse to or do not have the skills to rectify.

With that said, I give CMGroupBuying 5 stars, 2 thumbs up, 5 mics, whatever the highest ranking available on your scale of choice. It is quite feature rich and the developer releases a new version (with new features and fixes for any issues reported by license holders) every month.

Yes, paying for a new license every month can get a bit expensive but if you only need/want the features of the current version then you'll never need an upgrade/update. Of course, you can also pay for a license to a longer license (or even a lifetime license).

As for bugs, I only have found one. I had an issue with CMGroupBuying and Jomsocial but the developer responded to my support ticket within an hour, pointing me to the forums where the fix had already been posted.

I also happened to run into two other issues but both were a result of issues on my end. Still, the developer explained the cause of the issues and provided the solution to each.

I recommend this extension 110% to anyone wishing to run a group deals site. Keep in mind this won't give you a "groupon clone" but for the most part, you should be happy with your purchase.

I've been looking an easy way to do two things:

1. Allow my site members to submit content for news sections I specify while enabling me to control what is published.

2. Allow my site members full control to post, edit and publish blog posts in categories I specify while enabling me to display those posts in a nice, clean, customizable layout.

I have found a few great blog components but was not satisfied with what is available for member content submission.

FLEXIcontent solved BOTH my issues! It's intuitive, powerful and, though it is well worth a license fee, it's absolutely FREE.

*Hint: When adding a menu item for item submission be sure to choose the categories to which the member group has permission (set in FLEXIcontent global config or category config) to post. Also, it is wise (if not necessary) to set a default posting category for this menu item. I neglected to to this at first, which resulted in my members being forwarded to a menu item that was set as default for anyone without permission to post. (This will all make sense after you have installed the component.)

I would recommend FLEXIcontent to anyone who wants to allow member/team article submission and/or member blogs.

Personally, when I still had an active license (and when the Jomsocial forums were still up) I got the majority of my help from other end users. This is not to say that the developers were not around to help, however getting support from them was quite a bit slower than getting help from other paying customers who had the same issues as I did with my own site. But, this was when the forums were still live. Since the forums were taken down the support from the Jomsocial community is not as strong, mainly because the structure of the new community doesn't allow for as much (as as easy) interaction between users. Keep that in mind before you purchase a license.

With that said, aside from (typically) minor annoyances the bugs in Jomsocial are minimal. There have been occasions when the issues were a bit more significant but mostly the software is pretty solid.

Feature wise, the Jomsocial team has gone all out in meeting the needs of a Joomla-based social community. No, you won't be able to launch the next Facebook with JS, however you you shouldn't expect to match FB with a component that costs less than a couple hundred dollars.

Aside from the minor support issue, I still recommend Jomsocial to anyone who wishes to launch a social network. The software is worth 5 stars but if you are unfortunate enough to run into issues you may understand why I rated it with just 4.

Sincerely, I don't really know where to begin with how great this extension is and how useful it is for my site. I run an online independent art and talent community and the foundation of it is split about 50/50 between Music Collection and Jomsocial. Music Collection provides a simple, very easily modified means of promoting and distributing music created by our artists. Germi, the developer is responsive in the forums (and via email) any time a customer (like myself) runs into an issue, even when creating custom modifications. The one thing the component lacks is "native" commercial (to sell music) capabilities however, all songs/albums can be easily linked to purchase pages from within the component. I, however, am working on adding music sell options directly to Music Collection and the structure of the extension make that quite possible. I would recommend this software 100% to anyone wishing to run a Joomla-based music portal.

I had tried every other crowdfunding and donations extension available for Joomla and nothing else fit my needs. Fortunately, I stumbled across ZD Donation last week. Honestly, the low price had me suspicious that the component would lack features I wanted but I took the plunge anyway. I am very pleased that I did! Everything installs smoothly and configuration is simple. I did have one issue with "campaign" creation but a quick email to the developer and the issue was fixed within about 10 minutes. The issue was a bug with Jomsocial integration. All has been resolved and I can not launch my crowdfunding site. This component is definitely worth a look.

The social site I have built uses a long list of components and DMS is one of the most useful and stable. The extension is flexible and powerful and even the custom work (the developer did for my site) is clean and solid. DMS has enabled me to turn social networking into profit for myself as well as members of my site.

Giving this the highest marks because I looked for something like this for so long. :) I run an independent art community that caters to artists from several different backgrounds, all of which represent themselves visually. Having a photo editor right on our site enables members to upload photos and edit them from anywhere, regardless of whether they have a quality photo editor with them or not. 5 stars!

Cons:

Selection tool has no option to lock ratio. That's the only significant feature it was missing for me.

Though it has been disabled in the back end, the footer link back to the developer's site still displays on the front end.

I wish I could give a higher rating than "Excellent" because that word just doesn't say how powerful and useful this extension is (at all). I only came across this software after revisiting the developer's site for help with another extension (Metamod) he created.

*I know very little about SQL and the developer not only wrote a custom script (called a "recipe" for use with Metamod) for me, he did it without requesting a dime, a donation, a review or any other sort of reciprocation. Did I mention I was using the free version?!! That's great support, especially considering I hadn't even licensed the paid version.

Anyway, while reviewing the help he had posted for me on his forums I took a peak at an older version of Chameleon named Meta Template. I needed to do things like load a specific template only for guests and a totally different template for members... and a THIRD template for a particular component. I started with Meta Template but quickly realized my limited knowledge of php and sql could keep my up at night, wasting the power of this software. So, I did what any somewhat intelligent guy would do- I snapped up the pro (and latest, greatest) version of the software to get me keyboard tapping fingers on a much simpler (yet just as powerful) interface.

To make a much longer story short, after installing Chameleon I was able to accomplish in about 3 minutes a task that could easily have taken me a few late nights and several support emails.

A big "Thank you!" to the developer.

I am so glad I found this component! The features help make my site more visible/viral and neither my members or I have to do any extra work to accomplish this. I could go on and on about the extension as well as the great (prompt and knowledgeable) support I received from the developer but let me just say I would rate this as 99% out of a possible 100% positive. Once they enable the option to update Facebook statuses from a member's Jomsocial status, I'll give it 100% hands down.

*The support I received was not to fix any issues with the extension. The developer actually provided custom code (at no extra charge) for a modification I wanted.

Great product! Great service!

Plain and simply, it works! The front-end uploader with a progress bar is a major plus over other players. The fact that the player is customizable is a major plus too. Many other players are not nearly as visually appealing as Pro Magic and you cannot change the look of the other players as the design is hard-coded.

The developer responded to a support request within minutes to clarify a couple things. Also, developer began work on a requested feature and will release it in an update later today.

That's a great product backed by great service.

5+ stars!

And your site will grow. All the necessary tools are there. You just make the effort to configure everything how you want. I had a few issues with how my Joomla, server and CB were setup but the developer walked me through what was necessary to get things working. Keep in mind that the problems I had were NOT related to Parainvite Pro. Mike (the developer) made a statement (after I had given up) that basically said he would accept nothing less than a satisfied customer and offered to take a look at my setup for me. I ended up figuring out what I had done wrong and all works well now. Also, the latest versions of this component have been extended to include features I suggested a few months ago. Again, that shows the developer listens to his customers. I also added the Octazen inviter script and things couldn't be better for site growth. Invitation links are sent out in a very simple manner (for the member) and they work. Any new members who accept invitations can automatically be added as a connection to the inviters. I would have to write a few more pages to list all the features. You should simply buy it!

Ok, I still use like version 1.13 of this but as of this review version 2.0.1 (something like that) is out with even MORE great features. Anyway, I can't say too many great things about this component or it's developer. This gallery looks frickin good! I love how it works with Shadowbox on the CB profile pages, especially. After adding this gallery I actually had to start upgrading the look of the profiles because the gallery out-shined everything else. Now, the one time I an issue with an updated version the developer personally emailed me a copy of the older version I preferred and stated, though he could not support every version of this component released, that he would include the feature I requested in a future update. THAT'S support! It's not the first time he's done that either. He actually LISTENS to his customers.