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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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WPMU 2.7 slated for release today

January 28, 2009 in Blogging, open source, Social Networking, Technology, wordpress | 7 comments

Donncha O Caoimh tweeted:

WPMU 2.7 is just about ready. Unless someone has found a showstopper bug or has a great patch, it’ll be out later tonight

This is great news for all WPMU users as well as those waiting for a release of BuddyPress. Once the current beta is tested with a WPMU 2.7 release, the march toward the release of the second beta, then BuddyPress final. It would seem that the final release of BuddyPress is likely to occur by the Middle of February based upon the old release date and the number of days between the announced delay and the actual release of WPMU 2.7.

Donncha also believes that automatic updates should work in WPMU 2.7 for subsequent versions. This is a great security enhancement and convenieince for WPMU administrators.

The current SVN revision for WPMU is 1644. The includes/version.php still lists the code as 2.7-beta. I look forward to updating my installations this evening.

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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 and BuddyPress compared part 1

January 19, 2009 in Elgg, open source, Social Networking, Technology, wordpress | 18 comments

There are two major open source social networking platforms that are garnering much attention of late: BuddyPress and Elgg. Elgg 1.0 was released in August 2008. BuddyPress is currently in beta. Regular visitors to this blog have probably read many of my posts on Elgg. Recently, I posted some first impressions of BuddyPress as a user having created an account on BuddyPress’s test site.

I just finished a BuddyPress installation on my server, so I am now able to make more comparisons between the two platforms. The intent of this is not so much to decide which platform is superior, but to discuss the features, interfaces, and administration of each; thus, helping individuals decide which may be best suited for their purposes. Having looked both over, I believe that each may be best suited for different purposes.

Installation

Both Elgg and BuddyPress require the administrator to set up a mySQL database. The packages must be uploaded to a web server, and browser based installers are used to attach the database to the software and create the appropriate config files to make the programs work. They also require Mod Rewrite to be enabled on the server.  Beyond that, there are several differences.

BuddyPress installation is fairly complex. First WordPressMu must be installed which is simply a matter of creating a database, uploading the software, and running the installer. (One caveat: WPMU is much easier to install in the root public_html directory.) The only thing out of the ordinary is the option to use subdomains (blog.mysite.com) 0r subdirectories (mysite.com/blog). The former is generally recommended and requires activating wildcard dns on your server. Next you need to ftp and install the BuddyPress plugins and themes to the appropriate directories.

Finally, one needs to install and integrate bbPress if one wants the forums to function. bbPress must be uploaded and it should share a database with WPMU. It took a lot of back and forth with the admin interfaces and tweaking the bbPress and WPMU config files to make the cookies work.

Elgg installation is very straight forward. The Elgg developers responded to early complaints about difficulties with installation and made it even less particular about server configuration. Create a database, upload the software, run the installer. It doesn’t matter whether it is installed in the root or a subdirectory.

Now this might sound like a slam dunk for Elgg, but the results of installation are not equal. Let’s start by looking at the front page. The resultant buddyPress looks like this:

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BuddyPress presents the admin with a prompt to add widgets to the threee columns on the front page. Click on the add widget link and you arrive at a familiar WordPress Widget interface.

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The front page is easily customized by adding widgets to the three columns and arraying them as desired. Elgg, on the other hand, has a front page that is initially simple and much more difficult to customize.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Customization of the front page is done using plugins (or hacking the core) which must be hand coded to render the desired results.

Default Features

Another area worth comparing is the default features with a standard installation of each package.

Component Elgg 1.x BuddyPress
Blogs X X
Groups X X
Private Messages X X
Bookmarks X *
Friends X X
Profile X X
Files X
Pages X *
Wire/Messageboard X X
Forums X X

* Features present in Blogs

The chart is really a rather superficial treatment, but serves to demonstrate that the two packages have similar feature sets. In spite of the similar set of tools, these tools are substantially different in many cases. Comparing these individual features will the subject of future blog posts.

Both Elgg and BuddyPress both require hand coding to create a good social networking plaform. BuddyPress currently requires a certain amount of coding in the installation process; whereas, Elgg requires coding to create something other than the spartan default main page. They have similar features, but the implementation is substantially different. Further comparision of components will yield more insight into the differences between the two platforms. In addition, the user and administrative interfaces represent other points of departure. Look for more posts comparing these two platforms in the near future. Feel free to visit my installation and create an account.

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