One important element in Elgg 1.0′s core is Sharing Bookmarks. Shares are Elgg’s social bookmarks. We’ll examine these features along with some screen shots, and discuss features not yet implemented.
Shares, or social bookmarks, is a way to share web resources with with individuals or groups within elgg. When you click on “Sharing” “Bookmarks”on the “Your Tools” menu in the left sidebar you get the following.
Elgg Sharing Menu
A user is presented with the option of creating a share bookmark, viewing share bookmark sent to him, viewing friends’ shares bookmark, or all that has been shared with the whole site. When the developers have more group capabilities in place, there may be more options on the menu. Clicking on “Share Bookmark this” reveals this page.
Elgg Share This Page (Click to enlarge)
This pages allows you to enter a title, url, and a description of the resource. It also gives you check boxes allowing you to share it with any (or as many) of your friends. Further, you can make it public, private, or available to logged in users. I would expect to see more options once the developers introduce “groups” into Elgg.
The other options under sharing include views of Items shared with you (Shares Bookmarks Inbox), shared by friends (Friends’ Shares Bookmarks), and all the shares you have access to on the site (All site shares bookmarks). They appear much the same otherwise.
List View of Elgg Shares (Click to enlarge)
The screen capture above show the list view. It can also be toggled to a gallery view. Note the navigation tabs above the shares bookmarks. Of particular interest is the option to “Get Bookmarket.”
Elgg Bookmarklet (Click to enlarge)
By dragging the bookmarket (Highlighted in red), to one’s browser link bar provides a quick link to the “Share Bookmark this” page illustrated earlier. When you are visiting a resource that you wish to share, simply click on the bookmarket and it will grab the site’s url and bring you to the “Share Bookmark this” page.
Clicking on any individual Share Bookmark brings up the description, any comments that other users have made, and the opportunity to make a comment on the resource. There is also a convenient button to visit the resource.
In the works, as I understand, is a plugin that allows some form of rating. One thing I’d like to see is a small preview of the web resource on the share bookmark page like seen in some other social bookmarking apps.
Overall, as it stands, this is a fine resource that part of the core Elgg 1.0. Another feature that makes us all the more eager for its release!
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Tags: Elgg, open source, Social Netowrking
This work by Stephen J. O’Connor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
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