Social Ninja

Social ID Manager & Content Creator

• created: 03/10/2011
• latest update: 10/22/2015
• by: InspiredDev
• email: iamrock68@gmail.com

Thank you for purchasing the script. If you have any questions that are beyond the scope of this help file, please feel free to email via my user page contact form here. Thanks so much!

Setup

First unzip the files into a folder.
Open your browser and navigate to the url where you copied the scripts.
For the first time, the app will redirect you to the setup page.
If your server meets the minimum requirements for setup, the setup wizard will allow you to continue otherwise it will show error message. Please adjust your server settings if any error message appears.
If there is no error message but warning message (brown colored warning messages), you can edit server config for optimum performance. However if you wish, you can ignore those messages but remember that some features may not work properly if ignored.
Input your database info into the input boxes as shown in image 1. Test your connection and press next button. This will copy sql tables into your database.
In the next step, most of the fields will be auto detected and auto filled. See image 2. If some fields are not auto completed, please complete those fields with appropraite values. Take help from Setup Guide section if needed.
Next step is App Setup. See image 3. You do not have to complete this right now. Please check Setup Guide section for more info. 
Next step is Add Admin. See image 4. Add an admin account so you can manage the site and create users.
In the final step (image 5 & 6), the app attempts to add cron task automatically in the server. However, if it fails to do it automatically please follow the instructions shown on the screen and complete the tasks manually.
After setup is complete, login with your admin login and password and start creating campaigns and folders. If you did not add an app while setup, you have to add app from dashboard > settings tab before you can add social accounts.

Image Preview

Video preview

Server Requirements

In order to use Social Ninja, your server must pass the following requirements-

Apache Webserver
PHP version must be at least 5.2 or higher
Mysql Database engine with php mysqli extension
Server must allow htaccess rules
PHP must have write permissions to folders and files. It is suggested that you use SuPHP instead of modPHP
curl library must be installed and enabled to use in PHP
mysqli library must be installed and enabled to use in PHP
Upload max size and post max size at least 10MB
PHP must be permitted to override max_execution_time set in php.ini i.e. set_time_limit() function must not be disabled

The following requirements are suggested but not necessary. However some functions of the script may fail if these requirements are not fulfilled-

exec() function enabled and callable via PHP
ffmpeg installed on server
open_basedir and safe mode disabled in PHP
Upload max size and post max size 512MB
If you actively use video editor and video watermarking with large and high resolution videos, you must have enough CPU and RAM in your server to encode videos. Low CPU or RAM may result in encode failure

*To change maximum execution time, allowed memory limit, upload and post max size, you have to edit php.ini file
*The software will override maximum execution time using set_time_limit() function. In some cases, PHP is not allowed to increase time limit using set_time_limit(), in those cases scripts may fail while watermarking or posting albums
*Low memory allowance for PHP may result in ffmpeg encoder failures
*Changing max execution time and memory is not necessary until long running scripts fail to work correctly

ffmpeg installation

If you want to use video editing, watermarking and slideshow creation function enabled, you must install ffmpeg on your server.
ffmpeg installation guide is available here https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/CompilationGuide
After installing ffmpeg from this guide, ffmpeg is copied in to /root/bin directory which is not accessible to PHP. So you must copy those files to /usr/local/bin and use that path while setup. For windows use compiled ffmpeg.exe from https://ffmpeg.org/download.html#build-windows
If you don't install ffmpeg please uncheck Video Watermarking Enabled and Video Editing Enabled options while setup

Please note that ffmpeg installation is not covered in support. You will have to install it yourself or hire someone to install it for your server.  

Database

You need a mysql database engine to run this script. In database setup side, you just have to create an empty database and an user (if needed). Actually you can use any user with access permission to the created database. Remember this user details, database name and enter them in setup step-1. Setup wizard then automatically creates the tables for you.
 

Misc Setup

The following fields are needed for setup-

Site URL: THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. Site URL is the url to the directory where you copied the script. This value is automatically filled. However, you must double check if automatically filled value is correct or not. If incorrect please ammend it before submitting.
Site Name: This is upto you. Choose any sitename. This name will be displayed in the home page and title
ffmpeg command path: Put the ffmpeg path that you installed in ffmpeg installation section. This value is usually /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg or /usr/bin/ffmpeg. ffmpeg is necessary to watermark video, creating slideshow and screenshots of video. If you have spaces in the path of ffmpeg, please double quote the path. For example : "/usr/local/bin/test folder/ffmpeg"
seo url: Enable seo url options will generate SEO friendly URL. Anyways, the server must allow rewrite rules to be overridden to use this feature.
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube Enable: If you uncheck these options, login or posting to the corresponding sites will be disabled
Media Plugin: Media plugin lets you edit, crop, watermark images and also lets you create meme from images. This option does not consume any server resource. All editing and effects are applied using HTML5 Canvas. So you can allow this plugin without any hesitation. Users can import created images through the plugin to their folders
Downloader plugin: This plugin allows users to download videos from youtube, dailymotion, vimeo, facebook and import them to their folders. This plugin will consume bandwidth while downloading videos. So enable this plugin considering your bandwidth allowance.
Image/Video Watermarking: As the name implies
Image and Video editor: You can optionally select which editor will be enabled. Media plugin lets you enable/disable both of these editors together where image and video editor options allow you to enable/disable them selectively.

App Setup

App setup can be skipped primarily. If you want users use their own app, please leave these fields blank. Letting users use their own app is a good idea to avoid suspension of your own apps when users post illegal contents or bulk contents.

Facebook App Setup: Create a facebook app from here https://developers.facebook.com/apps/. After creating the app just note the app id and secret keys to put while setup.
Twitter App Setup: Create an app from https://apps.twitter.com/. Please put any URL as Callback URL in twitter app settings. Without setting this option, you will not be able to login. As usual note the app id and secret.
Youtube App Setup: This is somehow a complex task. Follow the steps here https://developers.google.com/youtube/registering_an_application?hl=en. When you create an OAuth 2.0 application, you have to enter redirect URIs. Use SITE URL + dologin.php as redirect URI. For example if your Site URL is http://abc.com/thisscript/ then redirect URI will be http://abc.com/thisscript/dologin.php. Youtube Client Id and Youtube Client Secret is the id and secret of OAuth 2.0 client ID and Youtube Developer Key is the Server API key. URL for google app management is https://console.developers.google.com/project. Make sure you enable youtube data api in google console project.

Add an Admin

In last step, you will have to add an admin account to operate the site. This account will be super admin having the administrative power to operate the Site. You will have to enter a valid email id and at least a 6 characters long password to continue.
 

Cron Setup

In linux servers, the script will try to automatically add necessary cron task. But if failed, it will alert you and ask you to set the cron tasks yourself. Necessary cron commands will be shown in the last step of setup. All the scripts must run each minute. If you have windows server, you will have to setup cron yourself as the script is not capable of adding cron in windows.

Thats all you need to know before setup. You can also change almost all the options later in admin panel. Please watch the videos below for a more clear overview-
 

Adding user accounts

A user can only be added by an admin from Admin > Admin Panel. In this page click the Add New User button and fill up the form with necessary details. When an admin adds an user, the user is emailed with their login information i.e. email and password. Using the email and password, they can access their account. However, admins can choose how much server space they can use for uploads and how many posts they can create each day using this software.
 

Adding social accounts

Each user can add social accounts from Settings tab in dashboard. However, one cannot add account from a social media which is disabled from admin panel. If admins did not configured any global app to be used, each user must add their own social media apps. Follow the next section for app setup. When social accounts are added, all the access tokens are refreshed and in case of facebook, all your pages, groups and events are refreshed. You have the options to delete an account from server once added.
 

App Setup

In this software, apps can be setup in two ways - either by admin or by the users. When admins setup apps, all the users can use that app. But if any user wants to use their own app, they can setup different app from their dashboard. If no apps has been setup by admins, users must setup their own app before adding accounts.

Facebook App Setup: Create a facebook app from here https://developers.facebook.com/apps/. After creating the app just note the app id and secret keys to put while setup.
Twitter App Setup: Create an app from https://apps.twitter.com/. As usual note the app id and secret
Youtube App Setup: This is somehow a complex task. Follow the steps here https://developers.google.com/youtube/registering_an_application?hl=en. When you create an OAuth 2.0 application, you have to enter redirect URIs. Use SITE URL + dologin.php as redirect URI. For example if your Site URL is http://abc.com/thisscript/ then redirect URI will be http://abc.com/thisscript/dologin.php. Youtube Client Id and Youtube Client Secret is the id and secret of OAuth 2.0 client ID and Youtube Developer Key is the Server API key. URL for google app management is https://console.developers.google.com/project. Don't forget to turn on Youtube Data API on your console project.

Creating folders and uploading files

You can create new folders and upload files as per your limit set by admins. Only jpg, png and gif files are accepted among images and wmv, flv, mp4, avi, mpeg, m4v, mpg, mkv, 3gp, mov, webm are accepted among video files. Maximum size for image upload is 5MB and maximum size for video upload is 512MB. These limits can be configured by editing config.php file. The mentioned limits are set by default. In case of images and text files, you can only add a caption that will be posted along the image or as a text status. But for video uploads, you have the options to set title, description, tags and categories. These values are useful for youtube uploads. To edit title, description, tags etc for a video, click the cog icon under the file title bar. You can use spintax and nested spintax in file captions, text status and comments.
 

Facebook fanpages, groups and events

You can delete imported facebook fanpages, groups or events from dashboard. But unless the groups and events are imported manually, they will be added again each time you login with the owner facebook id to refresh tokens/pages. From Settings tab of dashboard, you can import groups and events. This is helpful to import the groups you have joined since new version of facebook api does not allow fetching a list of groups the user has joined in.
 

Youtube upload default settings

This option can be set to use common title/description/tags/category for all of your video uploads. When you do not configure individual title/description/tags for each video, the default settings will be used by the app while posting them on facebook or youtube
 

RSS feeds

RSS Feeds tab in dashboard allows you to add RSS feed URLs and titles as many as within the limits set by admins. These feeds can later be used on scheduling automatic posts in facebook. Please note that RSS feed publishing is only allowed for facebook pages and groups. Twitter is disabled from publishing RSS feeds because this may risk your account to suspension. When RSS feed is used for posting, the schedule will run indefinitely until stopped manually.

Creating and managing schedule groups

Understanding the difference between schedule and schedule group

You can create and manage schedules from dashboard. In this help file we will only focus on some features that you may not understand or seems confusing at first glance.

Post Sequence: This option lets you choose how posts are created. They can be randomly chosen from your selected folders or posted as they are positioned inside the folder. Choosing slideshow option will create a slideshow of maximum 100 images from selected folder and post it as a video in selected sites. You can choose slide duration and slide transition effect. When post as album option is chosen, the photos will be posted as album in facebook and twitter. Please note that, albums cannot be posted in facebook groups or events. Photo limit for album is 100 for facebook and 4 for twitter. Among other options, you basically have the option to choose the sequence of which types of files are posted first (Image, text, video)
Repeat posting: If this option is turned on, a schedule will be repeated once done
Delete posted files: When enabled, each file that is posted is deleted from server
Schedule enabled: This options lets you enable or disable a schedule group. In case you want to start/stop a schedule group, use this option
"Post Only from" -- "To": You can choose when the app posts in your social accounts around the days. This is useful when you target audience a specific timezone. Prevent flooding your profile with posts when your fans are sleeping.
"Delete Posts After" and "Delete Action": These two options allow you to choose if you want your post to be deleted/hidden after certain time period. Hide option can only be used for facebook pages. Please note that if you update this options while a campaign is running, only new posts that were created will be affected. The posts that were already created before change will not be affected.
"Start Posting From": When to start posting

Advanced Schedule Options

Social Ninja offers two advanced schedule options - comment bumping and conditional post deletion. You can apply these options on individual schedule or a group of schedule. When applied to schedule group, all the schedules on the group is affected. On the other hand, when applied to individual schedule only that schedule is affected. We discussed how you can change or add advanced options on schedule group and individual schedule.

Comment bumping: In facebook groups and events, the post which was last commented is shown at the top. So you can set a comment bumping action to bump your posts at a random interval. You can put a list of comments that will be used for bumping. Use spintax for randomness. Posting the same comment all the time may flag your post/comments as spam and hidden.
Advanced post deletion: You can choose to delete your posts if they do not get enough likes/comments/views/favories/retweets in a specific time. For youtube and facebook pages, you can also schedule a deletion if your posts get enough dislikes/negative impressions in a time frame.
Reset and Restart All Schedule: If you want to reset schedules and restart posting from anew go with this button.
Remove All Deletion Trigger: This option will clear all coditional post deletion trigger. Use with caution when you apply this to a schedule group. 
Stop Bumping: To stop comment bumping choose DISABLE BUMPING option from Bumping Delay dropdown menu.Follow the image shown below and save the settings.

Picture: Disable bumping

Using advanced scheule options

Using advanced options on schedule group

This option is not available when you create a new schedule group. But when you edit a schedule group, you will find options to use comment bumping. See the following images for better understanding-

        

When you click Advanced options button, the following modal will popup-



Configure as necessary.

Using advanced options on individual schedule

If you click on the Explore button next to a schedule group, you will be presented with a list of all the pages/profiles scheduled in this group and a button Options next to each schedule. See images below. Clicking this Options button will give you access to advanced scheduling options like comment bumping and post deletion based on post insights for each individual schedule. Using this option, you can set comment bumping and conditional post deletion trigger for each individual schedule where in the last section we learnt how to adjust these settings for a whole schedule group. The rules are all the same, only difference is that previous section deals with schedule group affecting all schedules in the group and this section deals with individual schedules.         

Bulk facebook groups and events import

To find this option navigate to Dashboard > Settings > Import Facebook groups/events. You can import facebook groups and events in bulk in two ways - either put individual numeric IDs of groups & events or put HTML source code of your My Groups facebook page. In most cases you will not have to import events manually because all of your events are already fetched when you add your facebook account. So events can only be added using numeric ID. But in case of groups, bulk import using HTML source code is supported.
HTML source code of the following pages can be used for group-
https://mbasic.facebook.com/groups/?seemore&refid=27
https://mbasic.facebook.com/groups/

Only public and closed groups can be added this way.  

Feed cleanup

Feed cleanup can be used to bulk delete/hide posts on your social profile. Hide option can only be used for facebook pages. This option can be useful to you when you want to delete lots of posts at a time. Just choose your social profile and the app will present to you a list of all posts made on your profile. Then select which posts you want to delete. In facebook and twitter, you can only delete posts one by one. So this will save your time and effort when a number of posts are need to be deleted. Note: Due to recent changes in facebook api, feed cleanup for facebook can only be used to delete posts made by this app.
 

Facebook Account Merge

From facebook api v2.4, users are assigned app scoped ids. Which means the same user will not get the same id across different apps. So in case your first app is suspended, you might be adding another app in your dashboard. Then login with the new app and add the same facebook accounts with new app. But alas! You will see multiple entity of the same facebook id - one for the last old app and other for the new app. In that case, the facebook account merger is for you. Please select the account you wish to keep in first option box and then choose the account you want to merge with.
Remember: When you merge, all the data from 2nd account is deleted except the id of the 2nd account which is retained instead of the id of the 1st account. But all the data of the 1st account is retained. If you added new app, please keep your old id (labelled as EXPIRED) and merge the new one. This action cannot be undone! So choose carefully!
 

Media Editor

You can edit images and videos if they are allowed by admin configurations. Maximum allowed filesize is 250MB. With image editor, it is possible to resize/crop image, add watermark text/image or special visual effects. With video editor, you can create screenshot at a specific moment of the video, create a tile of screenshots from entire video, cut or join chunks from video. Media editor can be accessed from Content Creator > Media Editor menu.
 

Meme Generator

Meme generator is available at Content Creator > Meme Generator menu. Uploading an image, you can add as many text as you want. You can also reposition the added texts dragging them over the image. After meme creation, don't forget to import them in your folders
 

HTML to image converter

This tool can convert HTML snippet to image. Use this tool with caution. Do not paste large html codes. It may cause your browser to crash. Access this tool from Content Creator > HTML to Image Creator menu
 

Text to watermark image converter

This app only allows you to choose watermark images that you uploaded into Content Creator > Creator Tools menu. In case you want to add text as watermark, you can utilize this tool to convert your desired text to watermark image and then import the created image to your watermark list. Now, you can choose that watermark image to be used with your posting schedules.
 

Slideshow creator

This tool can be accessed from Content Creator > Creator Tools. Choose your folder, sildeshow duration and transition type. The task will be added in a queue. Once the queue is processed you can download it from Content Creator > Queued Videos
 

Uploading watermark logos or view finders

You can upload your watermark logos and view finders from Content Creator > Creator Tools. The use of view finders may be vague to some of the users. View finders can be used in the image editor. When you apply special effects to your image, you will find an option to add a view finder to your image. We added some default view finders for your use. If you wish to use your own view finders, upload it first in Content Creator > Creator Tools.
 

Managing Queued Videos

Video editor and slideshow creator do not process your request immediately. They are added into a queue and processed serially. You can view and manage all your queues from Content Creator > Queued Videos. Download link will appear as soon as the queue is processed. If you want to delete any task, you must delete it before the queue is locked. Once locked you can only delete the queue when it is done. You can add maximum 5 unfinished queues at a time. To add more you must delete some unfinished queue first to make room for new task.
 

Image and Video Downloader

Image and video downloaded can be used to download images and videos using a link. Among video hosts, this app supports Youtube, Facebook Videos, Vimeo and Dailymotion. Never try to download copyrighted videos. If you upload those copyrighted videos in your social accounts, they will be suspended sooner or later. And image downloader tool can only be used to download images from direct link. No html page link is supported. If a direct link is provided, the app will show image info and a thumbnail and allow you to choose a folder to import the image. Access this tool from Content Creator > Image and Video Downloader.
 

The following scripts were used in this app-

BootsWatch, Thomas Park, https://github.com/thomaspark/bootswatch
DropZone, Matias Meno, http://www.dropzonejs.com/
cool php captcha, Jose Rodriguez, http://code.google.com/p/cool-php-captcha
EaselJS, gskinner.com, inc http://createjs.com/
rasterizeHTML.js, Christoph Burgmer http://www.github.com/cburgmer/rasterizeHTML.js
Spectrum Colorpicker, Brian Grinstead https://github.com/bgrins/spectrum
Cropper, Fengyuan Chen and contributors https://github.com/fengyuanchen/cropper
jQuery-ui-Slider-Pips, Simon Goellner
vintageJS, Robert Fleischmann
Select2, https://github.com/select2/select2

Once again, thank you so much for purchasing this script. As I said at the beginning, I'd be glad to help you if you have any questions relating to this script. No guarantees, but I'll do my best to assist.

InspiredDev