Tag Archives: Elgg

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Just to make you aware, the first book written for Elgg is now available to buy.

The Triffid book (as we’re unofficially calling it) covers the 0.x codebase, and serves as a good introduction into installing and running your own installation.

If you are looking to create your social networking site by tomorrow, then this book is for you. You will be equipped with a social networking site even before you are through this book. You don’t have to be a hard-core programmer to do this. All you need is a computer with an internet connection and this book.

Next: Elgg the Movie (just kidding).

Update: the latest book is for Elgg 1.8, you can buy it here (Full disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases):

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One of the most requested features for the new Elgg has been a generic way to import and export data. Users want to free their data, and be able to move their profiles between installs.

Quite right, and over the next few days I will be working on this…

…Actually, Elgg1’s new object model actually should make this fairly easy.

Under Elgg1 all entities have a unique identifier, so plugin authors will be able to add extra information to export and import. So, if you were to export a user or a site you will be able to get everything that you have access to.

I think this should be pretty cool.

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ElggOver the past few weeks I have been heavily involved in writing the upcoming 1.0 release of the Elgg social networking platform. Elgg 1 is the logical extension of Elgg classic but has been totally rewritten from the ground up, and I admit that I am rather excited about some of the cool features I’ve been working on…

For a start, Elgg 1 uses an entirely new and flexible object modal under the hood. I won’t say much on this except that we have focused on simplicity and flexibility, and I think you’ll like what we’ve come up with.

Next is a new thing for Elgg. I have been developing a flexible and highly extensible API framework that will let Elgg plug-in writers expose functionality to third party applications. You’ve had a taster of this with the Elgg Voices API, but Elgg takes this a lot further.

The new API even lets plugin authors extend the framework by providing new output formats above and beyond the JSON, XML and PHP serialisation that Elgg already has native support for. Plugin authors can even add new client authentication methods to API.

I think this will leave a lot of scope open for some very interesting plug-ins!