Improve the Status box on the top of Activity page/Profile page

The users at present find greater and better engagement to a site through this box - the minimum they expect they can do through it are
- posting an image/images/adding album
- posting a link with site thumbnails preview
- posting an event
- sharing their location
- @mention/with ... and #tags
Real world social nets like FB or G+ or social scripts like Jomsocial, EasySocial, phpfox etc all have this basic minimum.
Argument can be done what is basic to me, is not basic to another but the world is moving fast and this is how everyone else is proceeding. From user's perspective as well as UI friendliness this is actually useful, helpful and addictive-ly easy. Please be kind to see a demo of what I mean here - http://easysocial.stackideas.com/

Elgg status box seems to be out of date though plugins like HypeWall enhance it but that plugin misses many things including link previews that intelligently shows thumbs of yahoo com (for example) but shows and posts video thumbs when its a youtube link. "Event" plugin is there but it does not add so easily (as in the demo link above) the form to the status box. Integration. Ease of Use. Meet the widespread and wide-based user expectation.

Can we have this in the next release please? Is there any github issue for it? Can it be created ? Thanks.

  • I do agree that as much as possible if you can have things work in a similar way it makes it much easier for users. Most people dislike change and the unfamiliar so anything that can be done to ease the frustration of a new users is paramount.

    One significant difference between Elgg, FB and Google, is they have deep pockets and can through a lot of money into programmers and developers to build their products.

    Since you can't compete against that, you compete against them where you can by at least keeping navigation, ease of use and maybe to an extent the niceties they lack at the forefront.

     
  • The other thing to remember is that Elgg itself is rarely considered an out-of-the-box solution.  It's a framework to build upon, and as such the ability to modify/enhance things needs to be a priority.  With a single input for all content types it makes it harder to extend/modify/remove functionality.  Each site has it's own requirements, with a different subset of content types including plenty of custom content types.

    While the single-form input can be useful for some sites, it's not always the case.  Developers can create single-input forms via plugins to satisfy the needs of an individual site.

    See an example of this on this showcase site - first screenshot: https://community.elgg.org/showcase/view/1893600/the-nurses-lounge

  • Use hypeWall plugin, that will satisfy most of you requirements. Adding events can be done with event manager. I don't believe there is a location sharing plugin, but that would required GPS locations or IP based location. The second would not be so hard to write a plugin for. The first is for mobile only and is kind of difficult.

  • The other thing to remember is that Elgg itself is rarely considered an out-of-the-box solution.

     

    I beg to differ. Lots of people are using it for own hobby or non-profit or similar use. And it is not just for Devs. If the Devs developing Elgg thinks that way, they have every right but the reality is different. Except for a thing or two Elgg is an excellent out-of-the-box solution too.

    With a good framework anything can be done but what is the harm in moving ahead with times. Why not make an UI / UX / User experience that needs less click and improves user participation and user addiction.

    Not all sites need "Wire" or "xyz" or "abc" - yet core Elgg comes with all those. That has made Elgg popular. Those who do not want "single-form-input" can always disable it.

    Being a framework and providing user-ease is not in conflict with each other.

    Each site has it's own requirements, with a different subset of content types including plenty of custom content types.

    True. So we need to have intelligent and wise defaults. We cannot always determine by vote in our own site. We look at what other real life social nets are doing. what other similar and well-coded software are doing. Then we find the answer. But for that we need to come out of our own thought-protected closed castle first. Even sometimes we need to think of future. See Apple phones. There was no explicit demand. But once introduced, they were used crazily. Many users would just stick to Elgg if these not-too-difficult stuffs were added.

     With a single input for all content types it makes it harder to extend/modify/remove functionality.  

    It is a single-input in appearance not function. Just like the old facebook theme for Elgg did. Infact if this is added to core, things would get easy instead of being "harder". There needs to be a protocol - a protocol that when added in core, would enable a plugin to declare its input in the single-input form. It can be enabled via settings. If such protocol with some example-defaults are not in core there will be crazy outcome in the single-input form - for example, which plugin will add its input icon in which position - top, bottom, upper, left ? We have to keep responsiveness in mind too. Basically when plugins start adding input-icons in such a form it can get chaotic and ugly in appearance. So there needs to be a good start and defining of a protocol in the core. It is unthinkable in the year 2015 we cannot post an image directly from the activity/profile form. But then what image ? Tidypics or Hypegallery? So there needs to be a protocol that if any plugin wants they can add their icon. If Elgg is a framework it should define such a protocol for the form and release only those plugins that utilize or has the potential to utilize this protocol - in other words, plugins should be advised to follow this principle so that users can easily add content (where content addition is the goal of the plugin). If this is sounding too weird or not understandable - forget it. I am sure someone will do so in the future.

    Adding events can be done with event manager. I don't believe there is a location sharing plugin

    Event Manager can do that - but it needs clicks and clicks to reach that page and post an event. The single-form approach makes it obvious that you can post Event and can do it in one go. Location input was possible by previous versions of Hypewall or by some other Hype-plugin - it seems to be missing or buggy now.  Core of most software similar to Elgg (whether framework or out-of-the-box) are embracing Location.

     

    Use hypeWall plugin, that will satisfy most of you requirements.

    See please the issue list for hypeWall in github. Its problamatic to use. Link thumbnails are buggy and cause indefinite page load time. And too many other issues also. Moreover, it depends on the free time and energy of the Dev. Being not in core makes its present and future unstable.

     

  • All developers including core are developing in free time. I am using Hypewall for several sites, works like a charm. 

    What similar software to Elgg are you referring too ? As far as I know, there is no similar software, there is more open source social networking software but none of it truly comparable, widely supported and with such large plugin base. Maybe wordpress is the one, that beats it, but it has never been built for this purpose so you need huge modifications and plugins for that. And still no single page do everything approach.

  • I think there is nothing similar to Elgg, unfortunately. PHPsocial is a really big big mistake and Joomla is not for social development, is just like BuddyPress. But you are true in one thing, Elgg is never finished, Elgg needs a lot of customization before you can consider as a out of the box solution, and it's a shame, really.

  • And... the Elgg plugins don't have any control os compatibility check before upload to plugins library. You can try to add a Theme on WordPress.org and this theme will be analized for the WP core developers before it's accepted on WP repository. Elgg don't have any control and the plugins are fully bugged

  • WP developers are developing on free time too

  • See please the issue list for hypeWall in github.

    @dranii You can grow old waiting for a response xDD

  • I think the answer to all this is distributions ala Drupal. It's difficult for a distributed, very part-time team with varied interests to come to agreement on features and UX, so we tend to lean towards improving the DX for plugin devs who have their own vision. It would be better to create a separate project based around building a top notch FB-like social network on top of Elgg. If you want mostly a personal blog, a distribution could be geared toward that.

    If you want Facebook-in-a-box today, buy a commercial product built by a team with a unified vision for UX. These products look amazing for the money, seriously. How much they can be customized and how much those customizations will be supported is an open question, but FOSS isn't a magic bullet.

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Feedback and Planning

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