Hi I have been using Buzztouch for a while now, have developed 3-4 apps, and think it is really excellent. I now have ideas for more apps that I want to develop that will use more sophisticated features and wanted some advice on how to go forward. I am considering self hosting but haven't been able to see what the big benifits are... Is is correct that you can't add custom plugins to an app if it isn't self hosted? Is it correct that you have to pay $29.99 per month to self host? If i am still starting out with just a handful of apps would there be any reason to upgrade? I think the service i have already is excellent so am struggling to justify upgrading... Any advice on this would be great! Thanks!

Is is correct that you can't add custom plugins to an app if it isn't self hosted? That's correct because to add a custom plugin you need administrator access, not something Buzztouch could allow to a user. Is it correct that you have to pay $29.99 per month to self host? That's correct, unless you were grandfathered in. If i am still starting out with just a handful of apps would there be any reason to upgrade? It's not a question of how many apps, but what you're doing with them. Are you a hobbiest , some hobbies are more expensive than others. Try competitive fishing, $29.99 is cheap by comparison.I I think the service i have already is excellent so; Then be happy. I self-hosted because in the beginning that was the only option. I'm struggling on learning to create plugins, self-hosting is a must. Fred

Hi Fred Thanks v much for the info. That clears up my main questions. I guess it will come down to what features I need to add and if they need to be custom plugins.

Hi Fred Sorry for all the questions! But... I have been looking into v2.0 and self hosting and it appears that: - not all the features (standard buzz touch plugins) that are available in v1.5 are available if you self host using v.20. Is this correct? - at present there isn't really much sharing of custom plugins going on. I looked on buzztouchmods.com and there are just 5 plugins there and they all seem to be things that are available on v1.5. I think Buzztouch is amazing, understand it needs funding and am keen to contribute, however I just want to be sure that I won't be losing some of the excellent functions available in v1.5 by self hosting. Thanks for your advice- much appreciated!

Hi Sepala I am careful to comment. I only started 6 weeks ago and got the self hosted package. As i understand it (stand to be corrected) is that the versions before 2.0 did not really have plug-ins. I don't know what they were called but it appeared as plugins. I think what the problem was then, is that creating plugins by open source community was not possible. Since the move to 2.0 I think they have made it possible for others to create plugins as in Word Press and Joomla. The chances that BT can become a great app is very good now. (not that it isn't already) We should see some plugins spring up hopefully made by others. The incentive would be that they could sell the plugins. I think our dilemma is most people who uses BT are not coders. So to think that a regular user will build a plugin, I am not sure. As for me I an scouting the net to find someone I can pay to build some plugins for things I think will be cool. I would like to see the following: 1) Page flipping with touch - not the "next" button at the top 2) Search functionality - I know BTmod made a "page search" plugin, but I could not get it to work yet. Maybe its due to my lack of understanding The gang at BT has done a wonderful work - I really believe this is going to be the app. that will revolutionize Mobile app building. (already started) I am just a nobody giving my 2cents worth of nothing. Move to self hosted server because you will be in the right position when everything comes together. There are enough Plugins to create a very nice app. All you really need is 2 plugins. The Simple menu and the Custom/ text plugin and you can create almost anything. Best Regards Naas

@naastie, that's a fairly good explanation. But don't forget to take a look at the Launch Native app plugin. With that plugin you can stream music & videos and more. There's only a couple of screens that are not available in BTv2.0 iOS and if you're Android you have more BTV2.0 screens than in BTv1.5. The biggest hole in BTv2.0 is the following: Menu Search Headers Menu (list) with icons BTv2.0 brought many screens to Android: Splash Word Excel PDF PowerPoint Via Launch Native App (9 options): The following are new to Android Stream audio Streaming Video YouTube So except for the following screens that are available in BTv1.5 iOS: Quiz Share by Twitter Share by Facebook For Quiz you can use HTML and have a quiz in BTv2.0 A couple of BTv2.0 screens have some issues but there's and easy workaround. BTv2.0 is not missing much, and for Android it's bringing a lot to the table. Fred

Excellent! Thanks very much indeed Fred & @naastie. I am experienced with Wordpress so can see how the BT plugins could really take off and become an amazing resource. Just waiting for 2 more apps to be approved and selling in the AppStore then I will move over to self hosing and BT v2.0 and start making my own plugins. I recently fond the source code for a simple app on Google Code. It is open source and I was wondering if I can incorporate it into an app of mine using a customised plugin. What do you think? Here are the files: http://code.google.com/p/isplitter/source/browse/?r=39#svn%2Ftrunk

I think, Read the how-to create a plugin by David @Buzztouch found with the Self-hosting downloads. Fred

Hi Naastie Getting back to the features you would like to see. I can help with the "page flipping". I assume you mean swiping the screen to change pages rather than using the next button, if so you can use JQTouch. I have used it for most of the screens for one of my apps and it works really well. This is the site- http://www.jqtouch.com/ Here is an example of how the swipe function works- http://www.jqtouch.com/preview/demos/main/#callbacks If you go to the above Url on your mobile browser you will see that it recognises swiping. To be honest the swipe function is one of the more complicated to set up but it is certainly doable. To use JQTouch in a Buzztouch app screen you need to create a custom HTML screen, write the JQTouch HTML code on that screen and add the JQTouch files (js & css etc) to the BT_docs folder in Xcode. JQ Touch comes with a dark theme as well as a native Apple looking theme too but it can all be changed using the CSS. I am no expert but I did one app with it and it worked really well.

Hi Sepala You made my day. I have a IT guy that does all the coding for me in the Philippines. We already created a simple CMS on our server so our clients can update several pages from a wysiwig we provide. Then as of today he added the functionality to flip "html" pages. Its still rough but looks good. But with your info it appears that we wil be able to do even more. Thanks a lot for your help. i will certainly put that to use. Fred -Thanks a lot for your info too. I always like to read your comments. You keep things alive.

Excellent! Pleased to have been of assistance.

Hello everyone, I am not a developer so i know very little about codes but buzztouch has changed my life remarkably. I have developed an ebook app which has a tabbed layout (first screenshot below) which then goes to respective sections which are in fact custom text/ html pages by using bt 2.0 android. To navigate a particular page to the next page i use next button but am amazed by the idea of page flipping naastie is talking about. @naastie your idea of having a page flip instead of next button for navigating next page is really excellent and even i would like to have such feature on my app. @sepala i followed the instructions you posted above but it seems it is not working and also i think i understood it very little. The result i'm getting after following the steps you mentioned are the following screenshots. I applied the script on the second screenshot (custom text/html page) but the script itself appears on the page instead of page flip feature. Kindly have a look at these screenshots and you will come to know what i am getting on my screen instead of a page flip function. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61663890/20120423110258.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61663890/20120423110318.png It would be really helpful if you guys help me in sorting this problem. Thank you.

Perhaps an errant " somewhere. Fred

@ Fred I tried it couple of times but the same result. It's just i cant figure where i went wrong.

This type of problem is an extra quotation mark or lack of one. Look around where the file goes haywire.

Hmmm... okk i will look for it tomorrow and let you know if i succeed in finding it.

Hi @Sandeep I have never used the JQTouch swipe function but as I said above it is one of the more complicated functions to implement. However it is possible and I recommend trawling through Google Code & Stackoverflow for more info and help on getting it to work. I had a look at your screen shots and your problem there seems to be an HTML one. As Fred said above it looks like you have left out a " or something like that. When you downloaded JQTouch you will have got some demo files. I recommend having a look at how they are layer out to see where you have a problem. I noticed that your profile says "I hate code!" which I think many of I agree with but unfortunately to use JQTouch you need to be able to, or learn how to, do a bit of HTML coding...

Thanks for reply sepala. Actually i'm an advocate by profession and i do not have any knowledge of software development, thats why "i hate code" is my profile tag. I couldn't go through those files since i was busy today but, will go through it when i am free and check whether i've left any " mark some where in those files and let you guys know about the progress. :)

Ok! To keep it as simple as possible I would recommend using the demo documents in the JQTouch download and modifying them for your own use.

Yes sepala, i will try it. Thanks for the tip.