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FOSS social networking update for Feb 14

February 13, 2009 in buddypress, Elgg, open source, Social Networking, Technology | 1 comment

This February is a busy month in the world of open source Social Networking software. As mentioned before, BuddyPress is scheduled for release and Curverider is slated to release Elgg Version 1.5.

BuddyPress released BuddyPress RC1 yestereday. Andy Peating decided to go with a release candidate rather than the full planned release because of a new development with WordPressMu.WPMU developers are planning to add site-wide plugin management that will allow admins to enable and disable site-wide plugins within a few weeks. This will also allow automatic plugin updates. BuddyPress aside, this is big improvement for WPMU.

Meanwhile, Curverider is committing revisions of the trunk SVN code at a dizzying pace. The trunk has undergone 235 revisions since the first of the year. A peak of the version.php file now puts the version at 1.4. Having checked the latest Elgg incarnation, I am pleased to see that groups can now be deleted. There is also a new media embed tool.

elggembed

The developers also seem to be working on fixing group access controls. While working with the latest SVN, I saw that group permissions have very recently changed.

elgggrp2

Earlier incarnations allowed group creators to toggle access to membership and content, although it didn’t work properly.

elgggrp3

Now access to group content is controlled item by item when it is created.

elgggrp4

I am not sure whether or not Curverider is done with their changes to group access and membership, but it appears that the controls now in place do indeed work.

At this point, I will hold off on comparisons between the two platforms until Elgg releases 1.5 as it is changing quickly. BuddyPress, on the other hand, will probably experience few changes between the RC1 and final release.

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Elgg & BuddyPress: Groups

February 12, 2009 in buddypress, Elgg, open source, Social Networking, Technology | 6 comments

Elgg and BuddyPress are two free and open source social networking platforms. Both allow users to set up and configure groups. While the process of setting up groups and the results appear different, they have many similarities.

Elgg puts all the group configuration options on one page.

bpelgggrp1

Of note, you may make the group membership Public or Private and set access to Public, Logged in, Private, friends collections, or any other groups. You may enable Pages (the collaborative writing tool), a forum, and a file repository.

BuddyPress, on the other hand, brings you though a number of short steps. In the first step, you are prompted to name and write a description of the group. The second part allows you to configure the group settings.

bpelgggrp2

Next, you upload a group avatar. The final step is the Invite Friends pane.

bpelgggrp3

One important distinction between these two platforms are the access and membership control options. With BP one has 3 radio button options appearing on the Group Setting pane. Elgg, on the other hand, is somewhat more granular. Membership may be toggled Public or Private, while you more options for access.

bpelgggrp4

More options appear if you have made Collections of Friends.

An Elgg group page with no content appears as below. It features a forum, pages for collaborative writing, and a file repository which can also function as a rudimentary gallery. Other features are available depending upon which modules are installed in the Elgg site. The page below is from a site with most of the plugins from the Elgg core developers. If the messageboard mod is enabled, it appears in the groups. Other plugins such as Kevin Jardine’s Event Calendar are also configured to show up in groups. Note that you also have an option to invite friends to the group.

bpelgggrp5

A basic BuddyPress group is shown below. By default, it features a forum and the wire. I understand there is a gallery in the works, but it has not yet been released as beta along with the other BuddyPress Components. Like Elgg, BuddyPress does have add ons, some of which, I am sure, will impact and augments BP groups.

bpelgggrp6

If you scratch the surface, BP and Elgg groups are very similar. BP’s Active Forum Topics functions much like Elgg’s Latest Discussion. Elgg’s Messageboard and BP’s Wire appear to function similarly. Both have member lists displaying icons, as wells as, group forums.

The differences include Elgg’s finer granularity of access control. Elgg groups also have more options at the moment with Pages and a file repository. BuddyPress developers plan to release a gallery component in the future. I know that group features in Elgg can be extended through plugins, and I assume the same is true for BuddyPress. Elgg, having been released for several months, appears to have the upper hand in modification options. I would expect to see more BP mods once it has been formally released.

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Elgg devs crack open door on wiki

February 8, 2009 in Elgg, open source, Social Networking, Wikis | No comments

I browsed to the Elgg documentation wiki today and discovered that they have begun to let individuals other than the four core developers contribute. Names other than Ben, Dave, Marcus, and Pete are appearing on the recent changes page.

On the front page of the wiki, developers wrote:

If you are using Elgg and would like to help us with documentation, please get in touch info@elgg.org – as the docs build out to a decent level, we will open up editing to all.

This is a great development. Elgg will benefit from allowing the community to flesh out documentation like many other open source software projects. It is time for comprehensive Elgg documentation for users and administrators,  as well as developers. I look forward to being able to lend a hand.

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BuddyPress pauses for WPMU 2.7

January 25, 2009 in buddypress, Elgg, open source, Technology, wordpress | 1 comment

BuddyPress developers have postponed release dates for the second beta and the subsequent final release waiting for the launch of WordPressMu 2.7. The second beta was originally scheduled for January 26, while the final was slated for February 9.

WPMU developer Donncha O Caoimh released WPMU 2.7 beta January 22 revision 1627 on the SVN repository. While he reports that there are still plenty of open tickets, I have found 2.7 beta very stable and relatively issue free. I am using this version for my test BuddyPress installation and our school’s WPMU blog site.

WPMU represents a major overhaul of the administrator and user dashboard and backend. Overall, I find the interface increasingly intuitive and easier to use. WPMU certainly has come a long way since I began using it just over a year ago.

I hope for a February release of BuddyPress along with Elgg 1.5. It looks like a big month for free and open source social networking platforms.

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Elgg 1.5 appears on track for next month

January 23, 2009 in Elgg, open source, Social Networking, Technology | 10 comments

Elgg 1.5 is slated for release next month. From the looks of things, it appears that they may well be on time. Curverider devs have made almost 100 revisions (at the time of this writing) to the SVN repository since the beginning of this month.

Indeed, Marcus Povey, who seems to do much of the day to day coding, recently tweeted:

Assessing work priorities for the following few weeks before the 1.5 release of Elgg

He also intimated:

Stuff on the roadmap + bugfixes. Some new functionality – much already in SVN. Complete list to come

Speaking of Roadmap, there seems to have been some revisions to the 1.5 planned features:

  1. Views and plugin location caching
  2. Scalability enhancements – phase one completed. (this is ongoing)
  3. OpenDD import and export – Completed
  4. Improvements to the submenu system including better grouping and naming
  5. Improved frontpage layout
  6. Views and languages files to be loaded on demand rather than discovered on initialisation
  7. Metastring garbage collection – Completed
  8. Group deletion
  9. Site wide activity stream – Completed
  10. Log rotation – Completed
  11. Admin interface for profile field creation – Completed
  12. Rebuild js toolbar menu to be cross-browser compatible – Completed

It also appears that existing themes will need to be updated to be compatible with the new Elgg version.

Now that Elgg 1.5′s release is quickly approaching, I look forward to seeing the next roadmap revision. Elgg developers plan a 6 month major release cycle which means we might expect version in August 2009, one year after the release of Elgg 1.0. As I examine BuddyPress more closely, I’m starting to develop a wish list of new features. What would you like to see after Elgg 1.5?

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