elgg 1.5

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Elgg 1.5 includes default widgets

March 22, 2009 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | 8 comments

One feature I didn’t see when testing beta Elgg 1.5 is the admin’s ability to set default widgets in both user profiles and dashboards. These tools, included in the Elgg 1.5 “full” package. Elgg adopters have asked for this feature since the initial release and there have been plugins that provided such functionality, but had to be configured by code.

The new functionality gives admins the ability to place default widgets in one of three columns in a format nearly identical to that the users see when they configure their widgets.

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This feature allows administrators to provide new visitors with configured profiles and dashboards  rather than the blank pages that many thought were confusing and unfriendly to new users.

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Elgg 1.5 Released

March 13, 2009 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | 2 comments

Elgg 1.5 has been released by Curverider. Over the past few days, Elgg’s revisions to their Subversion repository had slowed as they put the finishing touches on the new release. 

Elgg 1.5 is available as a package or from the subversion repository. This development means that I will return to my comparisons of Elgg and BuddyPress. It also signals developers, including myself, to update Elgg themes and plugins.

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Curverider Releases Elgg 1.5 RC2

March 9, 2009 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | 2 comments

Curverider released a second release candidate for Elgg 1.5 today. It can be downloaded as a tarball from their site, or you can get it from the subversion library. Release Candidate 2 brings about 40 new revisions to Elgg code since the release of the first Release Candidate last week.

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Elgg 1.5 RC released

March 5, 2009 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | 6 comments

A release candidate for Elgg 1.5 was unvealed by the Curverider team today. Release candidates have been tested and are generally very stable. Nonetheless, Curverider does not recommend its use for production sites.

The core Elgg team has been working feverishly to squash remaining bugs and enhance Elgg’s performance. They have committed over 100 commits to their Subversion repository since Saturday.

I have personally tested earler incarnations of Elgg 1.5 and am glad to report that it works well. I am sure that anybody has worked with earlier versions of Elgg will be pleased with the latest. Stay tuned for another post highlighting more enhancements to the software.

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Elgg 1.5: Revision 3000

February 28, 2009 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | 6 comments

February is winding down in a few hours and many are awaiting Elgg 1.5. Whether or not they make the projected February isn’t important if you consider what the Curverider team has achieved in there progress to a much inproved social networking platform.

Elgg 1.2 was released in Decenber with Revision 2515. As of today, in the space of 2 months, they have committed 485 revisions to the code in their Subversion repository–an absolutely astounding feat!

Having tested Elgg 1.5 myself, I can tell you that its release is very close. The developers are determined to make this release as smooth and as free of bugs as possible. From what I can see remaining issues are largely minor.

I look forward to the release very soon. I am also a firm believer that it is better to delay a release than to push it out the door before it is the best it can be! Those who simply cannot wait can always check out the latest version in the Elgg repository. The usual caveat applies: don’t run trunk on a production site.

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More Elgg 1.5 Tweaks

February 22, 2009 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, open source | 10 comments

Elgg 1.5 will bring a number of enhancements large and small that will improve usability for both users and admins. Here are a few more things to look forward to with its impending release.

As Elgg  changed versions, many of the plugins have become incompatible. Developers have had to update them in order to make them work with new incarnations. In some cases, there are various versions of the plugins floating around making things confusing for admins.

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Now you can see if the plugin is compatible from the Tools Administration interface. The plugins displayed above have no versions specified. Plugin developers can now add another tag to their manifest.xml file.

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This value corresponds with the value specified as follows in the version.php file in the Elgg core.

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If the value match up, all is okay.

Another enhancement is the addition of categories. Uploading the Categories plugin to the mod folder and activating gives a Categories option in the Aministrative interface.

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Simply add categories separated by commas and save so that they appear as options when creating content such as blogs.

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While we are viewing the blog interface, you may notice changes beyond the presence of categories in the left column area. You will have the ability to enable or disable comments to blogs posts, as well as, save drafts. In general, throughout the user interface you will notice several enhancements to the left column navigation.

Another new module that users will find useful is members. Members lists all the members of the site and includes their latest post to their wire.

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Note the options in the left hand navigation. Also note the tabs over the main area. You will see this feature appearing in many views within Elgg 1.5.

These represent a grab bag of new enhancements users and admins can look forward to seeing in Elgg 1.5. Stop back for more information in the near future.

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FOSS social networking update for Feb 14

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

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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.

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

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

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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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