Organizing information here at elgg

Hello,

I'm new to elgg, but I'm a long time developer with a lot of experience with open source projects.  I'd like to suggest a few additions to this site before the information here gets out of hand (already there.)   This site needs a proper forum.  This site needs a wiki.   This site needs versioning controls.  This site desperately needs an organized index of the plugins (with screen caps,  version controls, categories, user feedback, user ratings, documentation etc...)   I had problems with my install from the get go.  Normally I would go to the software's forums and relay my issues.  I have no formal way of giving the core developers feedback.  There are problems with the install.   This project is burdened with poor user experience, and very poor information architecture.  I offer my services if a core developer would like to contact me.

  • Wow, you certainly didn't look around at all. You see the big menu at the top with items like Docs and Developers? Docs takes you to the wiki.

    I agree about the lack of forum. Right now we are using google groups. The plugin section has been improving but as you point out still needs some improving to be as useful as what's available at other OS projects.

    The install is crazy easy. Check the troubleshooting section in the wiki.

  • I'd like to suggest to Cash that he take basedrop's offer. I have repeatedly tried to use the Docs and found them lacking. Seriously lacking. I know it's hard when you put a lot of work into a project and have a product you're proud of to be criticized on some aspect of it, but you should be open to suggestions.

    The install honestly wasn't too hard. What was hard was trying to install a second copy on the same machine. Evidently you can't install to any folder other than [path]/elgg/.  Wasted several hours figuring that one out. Basically, there's the vanilla install, which is cake. There's serious development, for which there's good documentation, but there's hardly anything for in between. For those of us who want to try stuff out, or for those of us who have encountered a bump in the road, the documentation provides very little guidance.

    Response here has been very good, although the format for these forums is a bit ... spare. The search capability, in particular, could improve. I'm content to wait. I know you guys have been making improvements steadily, all over the place.

    But hey, if a guy offers to help, why insult him?

     

  • Hi, Skip - I'm not a core developer on Elgg.

    I agreed with two points made by basedrop. I don't think I insulted him at all. It seems fairly obvious to me that he didn't look around before offering his opinions.

    Like I said, the forums are very limited - no denying that. The plugin area definitely needs improvement but has already been improved a lot over what it was a month ago. The development team is working on the 1.5 release so any improvements to the plugin area will have to wait for that to be finished.

    The Docs have also been improved a lot over the past two months. New content is being added every week, but you are correct that they still lack a lot of information. I'd really like to hear more on how the documentation can be improved for the person who is new to Elgg and doesn't have a lot of development experience. It is often difficult for developers to put ourselves in that position.

    About the install, you should be able to install elgg in any path that you want. The key is setting the rewrite base correctly. If I want several installs on a single server, I put them in subdomains.

    Thanks for the feedback.