Elgg 1.8 Social Networking

Elgg

1.8 Social

_Networking

Create, customize,

and

_deploy

_{your very}

own

social

networking

site

with

_Elgg

Cash Costello

open

source*

communityexperiencedistilled

PUBLISHING

BIRMINGHAM-MUMBAI

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Chapter

1: Social Networking and

_Elgg

7

Social features 8

Profiles 8

Relationships

8

Content

_sharing

8

Activity

and notifications 8

Groups

8

Communication 9

What is

_Elgg?

9

The_{Elgg engine} 10

User_management 11

Privacy

controls 11

Theming

11

Commenting

12

Tagging

12

Widgets

12 Internationalization 13 Feeds 13 Web services 14

The power of

plugins

14

Bundled

_plugins

14

Third-party plugins 14

Themes 15

Building

yourown _plugins 15

Case studies 15

Nichesocial network 16

Designingand_buildingthesite 16

Pluginsmentioned 17

Corporate

intranet 17

Designingand_buildingthe site 17

Deployingthe site 18

Pluginsmentioned 18

Educational collaboration 18

Designing and buildingthe site 19

Deployingthe site 19

Pluginsmentioned 19

Elgg

resources 20

Elgg community

20

Elgg wiki 20

Developer

resources 20

A few wordsofadvice 20

Take notes 20

Save resources 21

Be methodical 21

Finding help

21

Summary

21

Chapter

2:

Installing Elgg

23

Preparing

the server 23

Checking requirements

24

Downloading

the latest version 24

Extracting

the files 25

Moving

filesto yourweb server

_directory

25

Configuring

the server 27

Create thedatabase 28

Run

_Elgg's

installer 29

Loading

the database 31

Configure Elgg

32

Creating

the admin account 33

All done! 34

Summary

35

Chapter

3: ATour of Your First Elgg Site 37

Getting

around 38

Registering

users 39

User _profiles and avatars 40

Profile information 41

Avatar 42

Friends 45

Activity

stream 47 Tools 48

Blogs

48 Bookmarks 49 Files 50

Groups

50

Pages

52

Messages

53 The wire 53 User_settings 54 Your

_settings

54 Tools 55 Notifications 55 Administration 56

Activating plugins

58 Site

_categories

58

Custom

_profile

fields 59

Default

_widgets

59

Site pages 60

Reported

content 61

Customizing

yoursite 61

User

_registration

and authentication 62

Widgets

62

Friendship

model 62

Roles 62

Help

and _support 63

Summary

63

Chapter

4:

_Sharing

Content 65

Blogs

66

Creating

a

_blog

_post 67

Embedding photosand files 68

Publishing 69

Finding

and

_viewing

69

Search 70

Lists of_{blog posts} 70

RSS feeds 71

Widget 72

Commenting

72

Use cases 73

Bookmarks 74

Adding

a bookmark 74 Bookmarklet 76

Viewing

77 Usecases 78 File 79

Uploading

afile 79

Viewing

80 Use cases 83 Customizations 83 The wire 83

Posting

84

Viewing

85 Twitter_integration 86 Use cases 89 Customizations 90

Summary

9°

Chapter

5:

Communities, Collaboration,

and Conversation 91

Groups

92

Creating

a _group 92

Group profile

94 Membership 95 Discussion forum 96

Group

tools 98

Finding

groups 99 Usecases 100 Customizations 100

Pages

101

Creating

pages 102

Viewing

103 Usecases 104 Customizations 104

Messages

104 Inbox 104

Composing

105 Customizations 106

Message

board 106 Customizations 108

Summary

108

Chapter

6:

Finding

and Using Plugins 109

Plugin

administration 109

Filtering

and

_sorting

109

Plugin dependencies

110

Plugin settings

113

Finding plugins

113

Browsing

the repository 115

Searching

115

Evaluating

before

_downloading

115

Look at the_pluginoverview 115

Read the comments 115

Check the_history 116

Custom

_plugins

116

Installing plugins

116

Testserver 117

Copying

the code 117

Activating

and

_configuring

117

Invalid_plugin? 118

Troubleshooting

118

Themes 118

Findingand _installingthemes 119

Free themes 119

Commercial themes 120

Custom themes 120

Installingthemes 121

Major community plugins

122

Tidypics

122 Plugin profile 122 Administration 123 Uploading photos 124 Viewing photos 124 Tagging photos 126 Event calendar 126 Plugin profile 127 Administration 127 Sitecalendar 127 Groupcalendar 128 Profile_Manager 128 Plugin profile 128

Adding profilefields 129

Configuringtheprofilefields 130

Plugin settings 130

Chapter

7:

_Creating

Your First

Plugin

133

What you need to know 134

Elgg developer

resources 135

Setting

up your

development

environment 136

Editing

code 136

Configuring

yoursite 137

Hello,

World! 138

Plugin

skeleton 138

Createyourplugin directory 138

Plugin manifest 139

Startscript 139

Activatingthe hello worldplugin 140

Register

for the

_init,

_system event 140

Adding

a new route 141

Creating

a web page 142

Update routing

143

Add to the site menu 144

Extending

the page handler 145

Add a sidebar menu 146

Language

support 148

Personalizing the content 149

Organizing

yourcontentinto views 150

A_greetingview 151

A stats view 153

Review 155

Debugging

155

Debugging

tothe

_log

156

Debugging

to the screen 157

Debugging

PHP

_through

an IDE 158

Firebug

and other browser

_development

tools 159

Elgg developer

tools 161

Inspect 161

Themingsandbox 162

Summary

162

Chapter8: Customization

_{through Plugins}

163

Lesson 1:

_{Changing wording}

164

Problem 164

Solution 164

Example

164

Step1: Create the _pluginstructure 165

Step2:Find the_{language strings} 166

Exercise 167

Lesson 2:

_Modifying

a section ofa _page 167

Problem 167

Solution 168

Example

168

Step1: Find the view to override 168

Step2: Create the_pluginstructure 170

Step3: Edit the_logoview 170

Step4:_Stylethe header 172

Exercise 173

Lesson 3:

_Adding

newcontent to a _page 173

Problem 173

Solution 173

Example 174

Step1: Find the view to extend 175

Step2: Create the _plugin structure 175

Step3: Buildourview 175

Step4: Make thetipsrandom 176

Exercise 177

Lesson 4:

_{Doing something}

when X

_happens

178

Problem 178

Solution 178

Example

178

Step 1: Find the event 178

Step2: Create the_pluginstructure 179

Step3: Write thefunction thatsends the e-mail 180

Exercise 180

Lesson 5:

_Creating

acustom

_widget

181

Problem 181

Solution 181

Example

181

Step1: Create the_pluginstructure 182

Step2:Createthe_widgetedit view 182

Step3: Create the_widgetcontent view 184

Exercise 186

Lesson 6:

_Giving

_your usersoptions 186

Problem 186

Solution 187

Example

187

Step1: Create the_pluginstructure 187

Step2: Add usersettings 188

Step3: Create the toolbar view 190

Exercise 192

Lesson 7:

_{Adding JavaScript}

193

Problem 193

Solution 193

Example

193

Step 1: Create the_pluginstructure 194

Step2: Load the_JavaScriptfile 194

Step3: Add CSS and_JavaScriptinitialization 195

Exercise 196

Lesson 8:

_Changing

how

_Elgg

doesX 197

Problem 197

Solution 197

Example

197

Step1: Create the _pluginstructure 198

Step2: Create the index page 199

Step3: Define the views 201

Step4: AddtheCSS 203

Step5: Add aplugin setting 204

Exercise 206

Lesson 9:

_Collecting

and

_storing

data 207

Problem 207

Solution 207

Example

207

Overview 208

Step 1: Create the_pluginstructure 208

Step2: Create the main_helppage 209

Step3: Create the_categories 211

Step4:Addanadministration_page 212

-Step 5: Create the formbody 213

Step6: Create thesaveaction 215

Step7: Create the_{help categorypage} 217

Step8: Create the_{help object}view 219

Step9: Add the_helpsidebar 221

Step10: Add CSS for the_{topic listingpage} 222

Step11: Finish the main_helppage 223

Exercise 225

Summary

226

Chapter

9:

_{Theming Elgg}

227

What you need to know 228

Theming

basics 228

Elgg's

default theme 228

HTML 229

CSS 231

JavaScript 232

Views _system 233 What isaview? 233 Extendingaview 234 Overridingaview 234 Template language 234 Caching 235 The_viewtype 235 Tools 235 CSS framework 236

Creatingabstractions ofcommon visualpatterns 236

Customizing objects through extension classes 237

Adding

external

_JavaScript

and CSS 238

Menu _system 238

Registeringa menu item 239

Renderinga menu 240

Comparing theming

in WordPressto

_Elgg

240

Building

a theme 241

Plugin

structure 242

Layout 244

Default_layout 244

Pageheader 244

Page bodylayout 244

Pagefooter 245

Movingthe search box 246

Styling

the sidebar module 247

Movingthe site menu to thetopbar 248

Creating

a mobile theme 251

Plugin

structure 252

Layout

253

CSS 253

Summary

256

Chapter 10:

_Moving

to Production 257

Selecting

a server 258

Performance considerations 258

Competingforresources 258

Usage patterns 259

General _guidelinesforserverselection 260

Hosting options

260

Shared_hosting 261

Virtual Private Server 261

Dedicatedserver 262

Cloud _hosting 262

Hostingcompanyselection 262

Configuring

a server 263

PHP 264

MySQL

266

Cron 267

E-mail 268

Managing

the site 268

Backup

269 Code 269 Database 269 Files 270 Server_{configuration} 270 Restoring 270

Log

rotation 270

Spam

271 Registration 271 Detectingspammers 272 Web

_analytics

273 Dailytasks 273

Monitoringuserregistration 273

Reviewing reportedcontent 273

Respondingto feedback 273

Community management 274

Testing, upgrading,

and

_moving

a site 274

Testing

274

Mirroringthe_productionsite 274

Testplan 275

Upgrading

276

Moving

asite 277

Performance 278

Benchmarking

278

Monitoring and data collection 278

Stress_testing 279

Easy performance

gains

280

Advanced

_{performance tuning}

and

_scaling

281

Caching 281

Multipleservers 282

Resources 282

Reporting bugs

283

Steps

to

_reproduce

the problem 283

Elgg

or

_plugin?

284

Reporting

the

_bug

284

Summary

284

Appendix

A:

_Developer's

QuickStart Guide 285

Overview of

_Elgg

as a framework 285

of

Object-oriented

or

_procedural?

286

Does itusethe Model-View-Controller

pattern?

286

Convention or

configuration?

286

Is it extensible? 286

What_{template engine} is used? 287

A Model-View-Controller

_perspective

of

_Elgg

287

Overview 287 Controllers 287 Model 288 Views 289

Routing

290 Code location 290 Actions 290 Code location 290

Page

handlers 291 Codelocation 291 Framework

_booting

291 Code location 292 Data model 292 Entities 292

Typeand_subtype 293

GUID 293 Owner 293 Container 293 Access 293 Database 294 Relationships 294 Extenders 294 Database 295 Retrievalfunctions 296 Code location 296 Views 297 View_templates 297

Page

shells and

_layout

298

View

_type

298

Overriding

and

_extending

views 299

Special

views 299

Code location 299

Events and hooks 300

Elgg

events 300

Plugin

hooks 300

Plugins

301 Initialization 302

Plugin

order 302 Conventions 302 Themes 303 Code location 303

Activity

stream 304 Code location 304 Notifications 304 Code location 304

Internationalization and localization 305

Code location 305

Lightning round 305

Authentication 306

Caching

306

Configuration

306

Debugging

and

_logging

306

JavaScript

307 Menus 307 Private

_settings

307 Search 307

Security

308 Session

_handling

308 Unit tests 308 Web services 308

Widgets

308

Summary

309

Appendix

B: Views

Catalog

_311^

Using

views 311

Page

structure 312 Shells 312

Layouts

313 Elements 313 Topbar 314 Header 314 Sidebar 314 Footer 315 Owner block 316 Status messages 316 Comments 317 Searchbox 317 Components 318

Gallery 318 Imageblock 319 List 319 Module 320

Navigation

321 Breadcrumbs 321

Pagination

321 Menus 321 Topbarmenu 322 Sitemenu 322 Pagemenu 322 Footermenu 323

Userhovermenu 323

Entitymenu 323 Tabs 324 Forms 324

Input

324 Access 325 Buttons 325 Checkboxes 325 Date 326 Drop-downselector 327 File_upload 327 Hidden _input 327 Largetextarea 328 Password 328 Radio buttons 328 Textbox 329 User_pickers 329

Output

330 Date 330 E-mailaddress 330 Link 330 Tagcloud 331 Tags 331 Text 331 The form 331

Users,groups, and

objects

332

Activity

stream 332 Likes 333 Like this 333 List users 333

Widgets

334 Administration 335

Summary

336 Index 337 [xiii_]