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Sociable

Sociable is a comprehensive social networking extension for Joomla 5+ that transforms your website into a full-featured social community platform.

Overview​

Sociable provides a modern, React-based frontend with a robust PHP API backend, enabling you to build engaging social experiences for your Joomla website. The component follows a single-page application (SPA) architecture for smooth user interactions while leveraging Joomla's security and user management features.

Key Features​

User Profiles​

  • Customizable profiles with display name, bio, location, website, and birthdate
  • Custom handles - Users can set unique profile handles (e.g., @username)
  • Profile visibility - Public, friends-only, or private profiles
  • Avatar and cover images with multiple size variants
  • Social links integration
  • Profile types - Assign different profile types to user groups
  • Custom fields support for extended profile information

Activity Feed​

  • Activity stream with posts, media, and shared content
  • Media uploads - Images, videos, and file attachments
  • Reactions - Like, love, laugh, wow, sad, and angry reactions
  • Comments with nested replies
  • Sharing - Share posts with followers or to groups
  • Visibility controls - Public, friends-only, or private posts
  • Mentions and tags - @mention users in posts and comments

Groups​

  • Group types - Public, private, and secret groups
  • Group management - Create, edit, and delete groups
  • Membership controls - Join requests, approvals, and invitations
  • Group roles - Owner, admin, moderator, and member roles
  • Group activities - Dedicated activity feed within groups
  • Group categories - Organize groups by category

Events​

  • Event creation - Create online or in-person events
  • RSVP system - Going, interested, and not going responses
  • Event invitations - Invite friends and group members
  • Recurring events support
  • Event reminders - Automated reminder notifications
  • Group events - Events associated with specific groups

Connections​

  • Following - One-way follow relationships
  • Friendships - Bidirectional friend connections with approval
  • Blocking - Block users from viewing your content
  • Connection suggestions - Discover people to follow

Private Messaging​

  • Direct messages - One-on-one conversations
  • Group conversations - Multi-participant chat threads
  • Attachments - Share files in messages
  • Read receipts - See when messages are read
  • Typing indicators - Real-time typing status
  • Message archiving - Archive old conversations

Gamification​

  • Points system - Award points for user activities
  • Badges - Achievement badges with multiple tiers
  • Leaderboards - Public ranking of top users
  • Points rules - Configurable rules for earning points
  • Badge rules - Automatic badge awards based on conditions

Notifications​

  • In-app notifications - Real-time notification center
  • Email notifications - Configurable email alerts
  • Push notifications support
  • Notification preferences - User-controlled notification settings
  • Email digest - Daily or weekly summary emails

Moderation​

  • Content reporting - Users can report inappropriate content
  • Auto-hide - Automatically hide content after threshold reports
  • Spam filter - Built-in spam detection
  • Banned words - Configure prohibited content

Authentication​

  • Social login - Sign in with Google, Facebook, or Apple
  • Joomla integration - Override Joomla login/registration pages
  • Configurable redirects - Custom post-login and post-registration URLs

Theme Customization​

  • Multiple color themes - Pre-built themes to choose from
  • Dark mode - System, light, or dark mode options
  • Style customization - Customize card styles, avatars, buttons, and more
  • Custom CSS support

System Requirements​

  • Joomla 5.0 or later
  • PHP 8.1 or later
  • MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.4+
  • Modern web browser with JavaScript enabled

Package Contents​

The Sociable package includes:

  • com_sociable - Main component
  • plg_system_sociable - System plugin for authentication overrides and AJAX handling
  • plg_user_sociable - User plugin for profile sync
  • plg_content_sociable - Content plugin for activity integration
  • plg_privacy_sociable - Privacy plugin for GDPR compliance
  • plg_authentication_sociable - Authentication plugin for social login
  • mod_sociable_feed - Activity feed module
  • mod_sociable_members - Members display module
  • mod_sociable_groups - Groups display module
  • mod_sociable_notifications - Notifications module

Developer SDK​

Sociable includes a comprehensive SDK for third-party developers to integrate with the social features:

// Get SDK instance
$sociable = Sociable::getInstance();

// Access profile data
$profile = $sociable->profiles()->getById($userId);

// Award points
$sociable->points()->award('com_myext.action', $userId);

// Trigger badge rules
$sociable->badges()->trigger('com_myext.achievement', ['count' => 10]);

// Create notifications
$sociable->notifications()->send($userId, 'type', 'Message');

Next Steps​