For the past few months I have been working very hard to create my very own social networking site. My site uses elgg as the core and I would just like to share with you some of the major changes I have made.

Above: The Dashboard

As you can see from above I started the dashboard from scratch. I included a publisher so users could share what they are doing on the wire, upload photos, videos, write blogs etc. I also made the profile rounded (and there was no need for javascript!).

Messages appear in a light box

This is one of my favourite features. When you click on the messages icon, it loads the messages on the same page in this very stylish lightbox.

River

I found the elgg river rather ugly so i decided to take this in to my own hands. The icons are rounded and the users status (wire post) continues after their name instead of saying "Mark wrote "something" on the wire.

Videos

CMS

Above is an example of my CMS plugin. This whole page is created dynamically through the backend of elgg.

Games

I created this games page to entertain my users. The games load, like the messages, in a light box.

Compositions Page

This is the the main part of my site. I created this as a plugin to allow users to upload, share, sell and buy compositions. This is a very complex plugin and show the power of elgg. I used jquery tabs to create this page.

Chat

I would like to than Jeroen Dalsem for creating this plugin. I modified the style of this plugin to make it blend in more with my site. When you hover over the links it shows a jquery tipsy title, similar to facebook. I spent a lot of time on the design of the plugin, modifying the css to work with chrome and safari, creating the graphics - so it is really great to know that my users love it!

NB - A version of this modification has been released in black by @fusion - it appeared that he thought he could just take it from my site and change the colour!

Profiles

I have played a lot with different designs of the profiles pages and each time I hope they improve the ways users use my site. They become more user friendly and allow the users friends to find out more about them.

If you would like to know anymore information on how I did all these modifications then please feel free to contact me.