October 2008

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AutoSubscribeGroup Plugin for Elgg

October 31, 2008 in Elgg, Social Networking, open source | No comments

Jeremey Ronnel from Elbee just released an autosubscribegroup plugin. This plugin automatically subscribes new users to a group or groups designated by tha administrator.

Installation is simple. FTP the unzipped folder to the mod directory of your Elgg installation, then activate it through Tolls Administration. Next click on more information.

A field appears for entering group ID numbers. You may enter as many as you like separating the numbers with a comma. Here’s where to find a group’s ID. Go to the group page in your site and look at the url in the address bar.

The group ID number appears after the word groups in the url. Type in the desired group numbers and click save. Now all new users will be subscribe automatically to the desired group or groups.

This plugin provides much sought after functionality. Many have asked for the ability to autosubscribe new members to groups of common interest to all members. It also helps give users unfamiliar with Elgg a starting point.

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Upgrading SVN Elgg Installs

October 30, 2008 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | 7 comments

If you used Subversion to install Elgg using SSH, upgrading to Elgg 1.1 stable is a snap. Simply log in and:

cd yourelggdirectory

svn sw https://code.elgg.org/elgg/releases/core/elgg1.1/ .

Make sure you include the space and period. Press enter, then agree to accept the security certificate typing t for temporarily or p for permanently. The files will scroll quickly as they are transferred from server to server.

When the transfer is done, open your browser and go to yourelggdirectory.upgrade.php

You should get a message saying the database has been upgraded and land on the login page. Log in and check your version. It should say 1.1 Stable.

Always have a backup of both the files and the database in case something goes wrong. I have done this svn upgrade with the original 1.0 release, and the 1.1 RC1 from the trunk. Note that older themes may exhibit minor quirks.

That’s it. It only takes a minute or two.

More information about Elgg and SVN

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Elgg 1.1 Released

October 30, 2008 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | 2 comments

Just yesterday, the Elgg developers committed Elgg 1.1 RC1. This morning, Elgg 1.1 became an official release–in record time, I’d say. The release is available zipped up at elgg.org. It can also be obtained from their Subversion Repository:

The following posts describe several of the new features in Elgg 1.1

Kudos to the developers for their release offer more features, greater stability and speed. Now we begin the march to Elgg 1.5 in February!

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Elgg 1.1 RC1 in SVN

October 29, 2008 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | 1 comment

Today I noticed a revision to Elgg trunk version.php and found that the Elgg developers have changed the version to 1.1 RC1. A release candidate usually means that new features will not be added and any future updates to 1.1 will be bug fixes. I don’t know if the developers intend to zip up the release candidate so users can get it without using Subversion. I did not see a 1.1 RC1 in the releases directory in their file repository. Team Elgg is appears to be on track for a release next week.

One thing I noticed when I hooked up the latest core and plugins, is that the embed function of the file extension was no longer there. I checked in the repository and indeed embed.php it was gone. I wonder if this means that it will not be part of the 1.1 release. Looking at the roadmap, it is not promised until release 1.5.

Also of note, when I upgraded to today’s trunk, I needed to run upgrade.php indicating more database tweaks.

The release candidate status generally indicates that the code is more thoroughly tested than the usual trunk, but not sufficiently tested to qualify for a release. As usual, be careful. Do not use it with a production site unless you are prepared to restore it with a back up.

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Elgg devs increase speed and reduce clutter

October 28, 2008 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | No comments

As we approach an Elgg 1.1 release tentatively set for next week, the core developers have been focusing on database performance. Many earlier adopters have complained about Elgg’s performance.

Today alone, Marcus Povey tweeted that he removed over forty database queries and reported that Elgg is noticeably faster since those changes. Marcus also reported some other things that he was working on.

One item is a Garbage Collector.

This garbage collector removes clutter from Elgg’s mySQL database by eliminating data no longer needed in the elggmetastrings table. As you can see from the image above, administrators have the option of collecting “garbage” once per week, month, or year.

Another new administrative feature in this area is the log rotator. Anybody who has perused Elgg logs knows how astonishingly fast Elgg’s log amasses entries. This feature is similar to the garbage collector in that it clears out data at intervals set by the administrator.

Instead of deleting the data, it archives it, leaving you access to the data, but reducing the overhead on the database.

It’s great to hear that the Elgg team has responded to concerns about its performance. I cannot verify the differences these make to Elgg’s performance. I’d love to hear from others who can test these claims.

Again, these changes are available only in the trunk SVN. The trunk is relatively untested and should not be used on a production site unless you are able to restore your site with backups.

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Who will teach them social networking safety?

October 27, 2008 in Policies, Social Networking, Technology | 6 comments

Will Richardson expressed exasperation with a school leader in a recent post as he tried to blame parents for student misbehavior on FaceBook or MySpace. He proposed the schools need to play a big role:

There is a solution to this, one that we all know, but one that for some reason few seem willing to implement other than in the guise of a “parent awareness night” or some type of scary Internet predator presentation by a state policeman. For the life of me, I can’t understand what is so hard about opening up the first and second and third grade curriculum and find ways to integrate these skills and literacies in a systemic way. If you want kids to be educated about these tools and environments, then maybe we should, um, educate them.

He suggests that we not just talk to them about the dangers of the Internet and social networking, rather we integrate these tools in an age appropriate way from an early age.

As I posted earlier, using social networking is valuable for teaching Internet safety. These new literacies are the reality of our kids’ world and future. They are not going to disappear. Like the books we read, they can be used for good or evil. We need to harness these technologies for learning and promote their use as positive forces.

While parents should play a role, many simply do not understand these technologies. Congress has just passed a bill mandating instruction of social networking safety and cyberbullying. Since we must do it, we should do it in a way that is real and relevant, and in a way that teaches new literacies while harnessing their potential.

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TidyPics Photo Gallery for Elgg

October 26, 2008 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | No comments

Jade Dominguez of TastySeed has created TidyPics, a new photo gallery for Elgg 1.0. After a slew of releases, Version 1.04 seems to have slain most of the bugs. Once installed via ftp to the mod folder and enabled in the admin interface, a new option appears in the menus:

Select Photos and you get the following page.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

The first time, you are prompted to create an album with options for title, caption, tags, and access. Note the owner’s block to the left with options to view your, your friends’, and all site photo albums. Once the album is created, you are taken to a page for uploading files.

Again you have options for title, caption, and tags. Access is governed by the album. Once you upload the image, you are brought to the Album view.

Note that you have options to make comments on the album. To view an image, click on it and it appears full sized. Once you open the image view, you have the opotion to edit or delete the picture. If you select edit, you are given the option of making the image the album cover.

Tidypics has a clean simple, and easy to use interface. Jade has also created a support area in the Elgg Community where he offers assistance and seeks input. He plans to continue to develop TidyPics with new enhancements in the future.

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Pete Harris releases flurry of themes

October 25, 2008 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, Uncategorized, open source | 2 comments

Elgg designer Pete Harris, has released several new themes. Now there are several options other than the core theme. Note that all the new themes require Elgg version 1.09+ which is only available in Elgg’s Subversion repository.

Pete’s first offering was his SimpleBlackBlueTech Theme.

This theme introduced techniques for applying the theme to plugins as well as the core Elgg files.

His next theme Simple BlueWhite offers variation overrides the footer, header, and spotlight files. It also incorporates rounded edges in some elements.

Simple Blue White does not provide overrides for plugins.

BlackTech theme includes new navigation options with a menu bar in the header. The theme also covers core plugins. The css files allows you to choose 3 different headers through commenting.

Beyond providing themes, Pete has led the way by providing examples of how to take themes a few steps further. It is now apparent how to apply themes to Elgg plugins, and he has demonstrated how to create new navigation options. In addition, he has demonstrated the use of simple commenting in the main css files as means of providing options within a theme.

To make these theme more your own, explore the code and experiment. Check out my posts on how to hack Elgg themes and image elements in Elgg themes for more guidance.

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Update on Elgg text area media embed

October 25, 2008 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | 1 comment

Many have expressed frustration in their attempts to try out the partially functional media embed tool that I wrote about a few days ago. Indeed, when I tried make a new installation, the function was initially absent. I was puzzled because I assumed the functionality existed in the Elgg core.

I checked the source file to the page in which the embed function worked, I discovered the embed code resides in mod/file. When I grabbed the latest version of the file extension from the svn repository and installed it, the embed media options appeared.

I apologize for any frustrations. If you want to play with this new tool, grab the newest file plugin.

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Pete Harris’s Elgg plugin theming

October 25, 2008 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | 2 comments

Pete Harris recently released a number of themes, some of them with css overrides controlling the appearance of  plugins that modification of the views/default/css.php did not touch. This is because many plugins have their own css.php files. Let’s look at the directory structure of one of his themes:

Looking at the third panel containing the hiles of the theme’s views/default/ directory, there are several folders for plugins that you do not see in the core views/default. Each of these contains a css.php file governing the appearance of the plugin when the theme is activated. In this case we are looking at the css.php file for the blog plugin.

Let’s look at the original blog plugin’s directory structure:

As you can see, there are parallels between the directory pathways to the governing css.php files. For the original blog mod:

views/default/blog/css.php

This is the same as the pathway within the theme folder:

views/default/blog/css.php

In order to create an override impacting plugins, you simply need to make a directory in your theme:

mytheme/views/default/pluginname/

Create a copy of the plugin’s original css.php, and edit it to change the appearance. Once you are done, save it and and put it in the apporpriate folder as css.php:

mytheme/views/default/pluginname/css.php

This will now override:

pluginname/views/default/pluginname/css.php

Examining Pete’s modification gave me a deeper understanding of how the appearance of Elgg is controlled. It certainly opens up many more avenues of customization than I previously realized.

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New Elgg text area media tool

October 23, 2008 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | 18 comments

We have heard hints of a great new Elgg feature that will make life easier. I found a tidbit in the Elgg SVN. I wonder if this is what they meant:

While it does not appear fully wired up yet, this is an exciting and important functionality. It makes media easily embeddable in a way that works with the core file repository rather than creating a new one as my Tincymce/TinyBrowser extension did. This new text area feature gives access to all media from the  repository that an individual has access to, instead of giving everyone access to all files. It sorts them into categories according to the type of media.

Items are inserted by dragging and dropping them into the text field at the insertion point. Very simple and elegant.

Again, this does not appear entirely wired up yet. Hopefully, this will be one of the features of the Elgg 1.1 release.

Update: Please read additional information here.

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New Elgg release dates

October 21, 2008 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, Uncategorized, open source | 1 comment

Tentative release dates have revealed for Elgg versions 1.1 and 1.5. Version 1.1 has a target date of November 3, 2008. Version 1.5 is due next February. Bear in mind these time frames are not set in stone.

Pete Harris, the Elgg dev team’s designer, has released a number of great themes requiring Elgg version 1.09. Currently, this version is only available in Elgg’s SVN repository. Users that reported they didn’t have the expertise to obtain the files via Subversion, were advised by Pete that the target release date is November 3. Those willing to learn how to use SVN can go to my blog post Elgg and Subversion.

The current Trunk of Elgg is labeled 1.09. Today brought another round of updates, while not major, requiring another database upgrade. The Elgg team is obviously focusing on this as each of the last three times I updated my Elgg files I have had to update the database.

Ben Werdmuller announced the roadmap for the Elgg 1.5 release with a list of new features. Some of these features appear to address concerns about performance and scalability including views and location caching along with the abiltiy to create multiple sites with sub-sites.

Others appear to be appearance and customization related. More themes and a basic mobile view are planned. Also mentioned were a selection of canvas layouts and improved front page layout.

User enhancements include simple media embedding into text fields. While this is currently possible through some extended tinymce plugins, they work outside the core Elgg files system.

I am sure the team will continually work to enhance database performance and usability. They have mentioned a query object allowing deeper database work and a drillable site-wide stream making it easier to hone in on what you are looking for. The metastring garbage collection will delete lingering database remnants.

Some new administrative tools are planned. They plan to further develop a submenu system with better grouping. A construction tool for form based plugins is also in the works.

Finally, we will be able to delete groups. A long awaited upgrade path from Elgg Classic will be developed, and there will be enhancements to OpenDD.

While we all look forward to these milestones, we must bear in mind that not all goes as planned. It is better to be a little later and more bug free!

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