The thought of adding faq's, a knowledge base or support for users of my bt install fills me with horror and panic, so I knocked up a quick and dirty hack. It's not nice, but it'll do until bt, or anyone else, integrate something good :-) It just uses google custom search on the buzztouch forum, so it brings up search queries from within a post or title, rather than just from the title like the buzztouch search function. What would be really cool is if someone registers on my site, they get registered on the bt forum at the same time... David?... screenshots: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/52/14619917.png/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/839/35378006.png/ If anyone wants something similar but don't know how to do it, and there's enough interest, I'll knock up a guide and post it here. Don't forget, it's not pretty! Also, of course, if there's an update and you overwrite the account folder, the changes are lost...

Good stuff! I like the idea of extending the BT API (the one your server calls) to allow registrations. On the list! Note: If you move your custom script to the /files/custom folder it will not get overwritten on updates. Thats the exact purpose of that folder - custom stuff you create and point to and link to and do whatever with that does not get changed on updates.

Hi David, it really is just a dirty hack - A cloned html page and the knowledge base links hardcoded into the existing php screens. Not sure how to include the knowledge base link on every screen in the menu without them being overwritten when the server is updated? I guess the ideal solution would be to further extend the api to include calls to the forum. Guess you have to be careful not to dilute the big G power of the forum though with multiple duplicate content all over the net. Suppose it would need some funky javascript integration?

Maybe a forum-posts API that included ads? LOL. If you're adding the posts to more than one screen for sure you'll need to get tricky. I can think of all sorts of ways to do this. Some cool, some not so cool. We'll get this on the wish list and think about a few ways to integrate it while keeping the interests of boths sides (you and us and everyone else) top-of-mind. Gotta be a way? Our new site / forum is coming along nice so it's a good time to consider this kinda thing.

And... all the buzztouch visibility all over the net due to thousands of bt installs, all linking to the buzztouch app marketplace?... Obviously, apps can be submitted to the bt marketplace via the server control panel... :-)

I have a question a little related here... if your trying to acquire clients, when they see that they can make the same app on buzztouch, wouldn't that defer your clients to the official source, rather then your source? I was wondering this when people started talking about starting their own little buzztouch business.

I'm sure there are many people with a whole ton of ideas to make their business unique. Just a matter of research and more research.

For sure it's something to consider - folks 'finding' buzztouch. Of course that will happen. If you're interested in using open source software to literally compete for the same market as the folks behind the project, you may re-consider your plan. Not saying it wouldn't work, just saying that it's very very likely that unless you offer a compelling reason to 'use you' you'll have a hard time competing with the original source. Especially if that source offer the 'same' type of thing for free. What it boils down to is what value are you actually adding for the customer. If you're not adding any value, you'll not get far. If you are adding value (help, assistance, installs, support, etc) you'll have great success and won't have to worry about 'hiding' the original source. Customers get it and won't mind how you help them, afterall, that's what their paying you for. Lastly: If you're interested in literally making an app-builder-manager control panel and want to isolate yourself 100% from us, you'll have to do it on your own, without our help. That's not at all what we're trying to do. Of course you're welcome to do this and for sure you could learn alot from the open-source code we distribute. Just don't choose this route without first understanding exactly what you're getting into - it's not easy. And, it gets even harder when you think about what you can legally 'sell' and 'claim' to be your own.