Elgg 1.8 out of the box.

I might be way off base as I'm late as usual. Anyway, I'm seriously starting to think what my site will be after the move to 1.8 and what will be the dividing factor between it and the bazillion other sites in cyberspace. Yesterday, a new plugin was put up for foursquare. Going to the demo site the first thing that crossed my mind was there was nothing to differentiate this site from a joomla site (or perhaps Drupal) so I ran to the sourcecode and saw that it was the Elgg 1.8-svn version. I kind of like the feel of Elgg 1.7 with those rounded boxes and open spaces so I was wondering is this what comes out of the box.

Now I admit total ignorance so please don't miscontrue the foregoing as a critique of what is possible. The onus is on me to up my skills and that's what I'm doing a piece at a time and why I'm taking steps to get with the 1.8 program. With some creativity and good coding I feel I will basically be able to get what I want and need. But two words have popped into my head since seeing that demo site - newbies and future.  Newbies tend to take what is given them, if that's the default. And is the future to be the past and what everybody else is doing?

Content is king I seem to believe so who cares about a look or feel?  Sort of!!!! Perhaps!!!! I have no way to articulate what really swirls in my head. All I know is I don't know what it is, but the future is out there and it ain't what we have seen or see now in facebook, google, joomla, drupal and all.

How about it guys, those of you who are looking at 1.8  and beyond and already theming and building plugins. How does the future look to you? Will we be able to break some boundaries?

  • Cash and Evan,

    I have been meaning to throw this at you both. This is river with Tunists new group sorter in it. I like this in main river (but not in group river, I would leave that for only that group).

    If you decide to integrate the Tunist group sort, or even if you only stay with the "type" sorter, the layout is really a little messy and non intuitive. What about three drop downs or something else that looked nice and was intuitive. It makes no sense right now already and if you add Tunist's group drop down it gets messier. Just thinking out loud, a nice intelligent UI here would be nice, maybe have a design contest.image

  • Still looking ahead to the 1.8 upgrade and I have a couple more freshman questions.  Although, for users like me it won't be a new install, I can say judging by the nightly svn, it installed fast and clean on my xampp.  Those users familiar with 1.7 should feel comfortable with the backend.  Nice.

    Now:

    1.  Could I get some clarification here?

    Enable the site to run as a private network. This will not allow non logged-in users to view any site pages other than those specifically marked as public.

    The first sentence seems clear. The second sentence might be clear to most, but I don't get it.  I can construe it to mean it's all or nothing. Anyone clarify that for me?

     

    2. Site-wide Categories 1.8 [Settings]

    Site-wide Categories lets administrators define categories that users across the site can add content to.

    How will the upgrade work with those categories we already have in 1.7? Will we lose them? Will there be any type of nested category capability?

    Thanks for any notes here.

     

  • 1. Seems like we need to use a more active word like "prevent" rather than the passive "not allow".  Go ahead and submit a ticket for it.

    2. Nothing about category functionality has changed AFAIK (No nesting).  You'll definitely keep your old categories.

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Feedback and Planning

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