Elgg, Free Open Source Social Networking Software has Released Version 1.7 beta
Feb 8, 2010 by Srikanth AD MyTestBox News
Elgg, a popular free and open source web software for social networking, which we have mentioned here, has released its new version 1.7 beta. Access control is one of the most powerful features of Elgg. Everything created in Elgg, be it a blog post, an uploaded file, an element of your profile, etc., can be restricted to as many or few people you want. It’s a prolific open source web software for social networking.
Some of the key changes in Elgg 1.7 include:
- Full UTF-8 support in the database
- Full text search, as a joint effort between Curverider and the MITRE corporation
- More manageable user data directories
- A new entity-fetching API
- Working and re-written REST API
- Many bugfixes have also been made in this release
Elgg 1.7 enhances security by requiring security tokens on all actions. Plugins that have not been updated to use security tokens will produce a “Form is missing __token or __ts fields” error.
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Tags: elgg, open-source, social networking, social networking software, web software
Some Highlights of the yet to be Released Elgg Version 1.7 – [Roadmap]
Sep 16, 2009 by Srikanth AD MyTestBox News
Elgg, one of the popular open source social networking platforms, which we have mentioned here, has released a draft road map highlights the key featues for the yet to be released Elgg 1.7.
Some of its highlights include,
- Privacy, shared access collections
- Full text search
- The Wire re-factored -> conversational micro-blogging etc.,
Privacy, shared access collections:
The shared access collections will provide a way for users to create an access collection to which they invite in other users. Once the invitation has been accepted, all users get the new access collection as an access option on new objects created; blog post, files, pages and so on.
The Wire re-fractored
Many of the Elgg plugins are being re-worked to enhance their functionality. The new wire plugin is being highlighted, which would serve as a simple yet effective plugin for conversational micro-blogging.
Threaded replies are now supported within a completely redesigned UI that clusters these 140 character-driven conversations and floats the most recent ones to the top.
Check out the latest updates from Elgg here.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: collections, elgg, highlights, open-source, privacy, search, social networking platform, the wire
Elgg, Free Open Source Social Networking Software has Released Version 1.6.1
Sep 8, 2009 by Srikanth AD MyTestBox News
Elgg, a popular free and open source web software for social networking, which we have mentioned here, has released its new version 1.6.1. Elgg had one of the most powerful features from the day it was built: the access control. Everything created in Elgg, be it a blog post, an uploaded file, an element of your profile, etc., can be restricted to as many or few people you want.
This solid version of Elgg fixes a few problems users reported having in 1.6 including:
- Errors on registration with Default Widgets enabled
- Broken tag search
- Broken “Tools Administration” page when simplecache is disabled
- Bookmark links missing
- “View friends resources” links not working
Download the latest version of Elgg here.
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BuddyPress – build a social network on top of WordPress MU (Multi-User) blog installation
Apr 30, 2009 by Mircea Goia MyTestBox News
After months and months in development under Automattic umbrella (yes, the WordPress guys) Buddypress is, finally and officially, at version 1.0.
What is Buddypress?
It’s a set of plugins and themes (each adding a distinct new feature) developed originally by Andy Peatling allowing a WordPress MU (Multi-User) blog installation to become a social network also.
All of the plugins could be used to create a complete social network from scratch, or you could use specific plugins to add desirable features to your existing blog network.
Later on, Buddypress was acquired by Automattic, the makers of Wodpress MU and WordPress blog software, and the author joined to their team.
The features Budypress has are:
* Extended Profiles
* Private Messaging
* Friends
* Groups
* The Wire
* Activity Streams
* Blog Tracking
* Forums
Some upcoming features in 2009 are:
* Status Updates (Mid 2009)
* Photo Albums (Late 2009)
To have Budypress running on your server you need to have the following:
* A working installation of WordPress MU, version 2.7.1 or greater
* PHP version 4.3 or greater
* MySQL 4.0 or greater
* The mod_rewrite Apache module enabled
Budypress might not be a contender now for Social Engine, DZOIC Handshakes, WebNetwork, Boonex Dolphin, Alstrasoft E-friends, Elgg, PHPfox, PHPizabi but in the near future it could be as new features will be added and, especially, because it can reach a good chunk of the market thanks to many WordPress MU installations which are already there.
Download Buddypress here and don’t forget the installation instructions!
Sphere: Related ContentTags: auttomatic, blog software, buddypress, dolphin, dzoic, e-friends, elgg, multi-user, mysql, php, phpfox, phpizabi, plugins, social engine, social network, webnetwork, wordpress, wordpress MU
The team behind Elgg, the free open source social networking software, launches themes option
Oct 21, 2008 by Mircea Goia MyTestBox News
The interface for Elgg v1.0, the free open source social networking platform, underwent a radical overhaul due to the overwhelming users request for theming.
The team has created two basic themes to help those interested in theming get to grips with the components of an Elgg theme. Check them out here!
Elgg themes are developed as plugins which makes them distributable, customizable and powerful (they can also be enabled and disabled easily).
Here’s a short tutorial on how to get started in theme creation.
There’s a dedicated place on Elgg website for theme development and it can be found here.
Elgg is a pretty new free open source social networking software and recently they launched its first version 1.0. It competes with a plethora of other free social networking platforms like Dolphin, PHPFox, PHPizabi, AroundME, WordPress MU+Buddypress and others.
It is PHP/MySQL built and it seems it’s gaining momentum in this crowded space.
Download it for free from here.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: elgg, free, mysql, open-source, php, platform, social networking, software, themes
SMACKDOWN :: Who were the Open Source Content Management System (CMS) market leaders in 2008?
Jul 31, 2008 by Mircea Goia Content Management, MyTestBox News
When it comes to life online, we all use content management systems in one way or another: blogging, building websites, maintaining websites, marketing them, etc.
If we are not web experts, we usually just use software tools to develop websites. We may not even know what it is that powers the websites—what is actually doing the back-end work. Now it’s time to discover Content Management Systems (or CMS systems), and which ones are used most frequently.
I came across an interesting study about who are the leaders in open source content management systems market in the year of 2008.
The study was just released to the public and it was conducted by Ric Sheves from Water & Stone web development company (cool name, by the way). The company specializes in open source content management systems, particularly Drupal, Joomla!, Mambo, osCommerce and WordPress. Ric lives in Bali, Indonesia (talking about working from cool places).
At 50 pages, there is a significant amount of data in this study that should be of use to developers or to anyone who is looking to commit to a web publishing system. You don’t want to bet on a dead horse, do you?
But first let’s see WHAT is a content management system.
According to Wikipedia a content management system is:
- …a computer software used to create, edit, manage, and publish content in a consistently organized fashion. CMSs are frequently used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing industry-specific documentation such as news articles, operators’ manuals, technical manuals, sales guides, and marketing brochures. The content managed may include computer files, image media, audio files, video files,electronic documents, and Web content.A web content management system is a CMS designed to simplify the publication of Web content to Web sites, in particular allowing content creators to submit content without requiring technical knowledge of HTML or the uploading of files.
Because the theme of this site is web software (software which runs on a web server and in a browser – not desktop software) we will concentrate on web content management systems. And because we do like free things (who doesn’t?) we will present this study which took in consideration only the open source web content management systems (and only the publication-oriented CMSs, not e-commerce like osCommerce and not enterprise portals like LifeRay). Commercial or hosted products are excluded too.
Below are more details about this study.
—————————————————————————————————————
This whole exercise began by brainstorming through various methods of assessing popularity and adoption rates. While there are a number of indicators, there is no standardized metric to gauge market share in this particular segment — there is simply no way to get an accurate fix on how many systems are actually in use on the web right now.
For this survey the research results were broken down into two broad categories:
• Rate of Adoption
• Brand Strength
In each of the areas, they used a multi-faceted approach, assessing a wide variety of measures to identify broad trends and patterns from which we can draw conclusions with some
degree of confidence. Among the many metrics they sampled are a number of non-traditional indicators, such as Twitter Prominence and Social Bookmarking statistics.
Rate of Adoption
The team began their examination of the open source CMS market by attempting to measure the relative rates of adoption of the systems in the sample set. For reasons discussed below, direct evidence alone is not sufficient to allow them to draw firm conclusions.
As a result, they were forced to look at a variety of metrics in hopes of building a more complete picture of the current state of the market:
- Downloads
- Installations
- Third Party Support
- - Developers
- - Publishers
All these three metrics are explained in details in the study.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: b2evolution, cms, content management, drupal, elgg, joomla, mambo, market share, mediawiki, modx, phpnuke, pligg, plone, study, survey, tikiwiki, typo3, wordpress
A rising star: Elgg, the content management system and social network creator
Jul 30, 2008 by Mircea Goia MyTestBox News
Elgg, the content management system and social network creator, reached the version 1.0 Beta, finally (after spending some time in the versions 0.x…).
Soon the team will announce the stable release (at least for now because I am sure that, even after the release, bugs will be found by the rest of the users – like always it happens in software development).
It seems Elgg became a rising star among open source content management software systems according to this report: http://www.waterandstone.com/downloads/2008OpenSourceCMSMarketSurvey.pdf
- The Elgg project has shown increasing mindshare and brand strength since inception. Recently
publishing activity and awards can only boost name recognition. The evidence shows in the social bookmarking metrics, where Elgg finished near the top of the list. Yet despite those positive signs, engagement in the blogosphere is sadly lacking — a troubling statistics given that
this system is focused on Web 2.0 social interactivity. Elgg also faces challenges in terms of developer support, though this is perhaps not yet a source of concern given the relative youth of the project.
According to that report WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal are the most used open source content management systems today (phpNuke and Mambo are the things of the past, it seems – you are a king one day and a peasant the next day if you don’t keep up with the demands. And that happened to phpNuke and Mambo – Mambo seems again has internal troubles among the team members. A new project called miaCMS spawned from Mambo.).
So, congratulations Elgg! And work harder to become a king! I wish you success!
Now, some updates from Elgg…
Elgg had one of the most powerful features from the day it was built: the access control. Whatever you create in Elgg (a blog post, an uploaded file, an element of your profile, etc.) can be restricted to as many or few people you want (very granular control).
Which is maybe one of the reasons Elgg, at the begining, started to be used as a social network creator in schools where the privacy is a big thing.
Now, in the latest version 1.0, they’ve refined that even more: creating collections of friends is easier even before. If you are not satisfied with Elgg’s individual-based access model you can swap it with something else: a roles-based access, for example.
More details about the access control and version 1.0 update on their official blog.
You probably are eager to test the new version, right? Well, hold your horses! The version 1.0 will be released to the public sometime this summer.
In the meantime you can still get older versions of Elgg CMS: 0.2 to 0.9.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: cms, content management, elgg, open-source, php, social network
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