Documentation regarding views: http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Views

Check out view types near the top.

You can basically represent (view) an object as HTML (default), or as JSON, XML, PHP, RSS, FOAF, etc..

Elgg follows the MVC model, which means displaying/viewing an object is kept separate from the underlying logic. 

Thanks a lot, Jeff.

What I want to know is what will I see if you choose Json, etc.

Since (unlike Joomla) elgg doesn't have a seperate admin access, i don't dare :)

With something like JSON, you'd see a JSON string. A JSON view is useful to consume for web services.. more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON

You wouldn't want to display a page in JSON! Same with XML.. If you want to play around, check out this documentation for Elgg's export interface: http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Export_Interface

Here is an example json output for the all discussion page on this community:

http://community.elgg.org/pg/groups/discussion/?view=json

Where it is working correctly, you can add view=json or view=rss etc to the url to see the output.

@ Community Admin

that was very thoughtful of you :)