Elgg Pligg integration

[beatniak]

Thanks for the links Daidy. Those we're very helpful to make me understand Elgg better.

[smatei]

Personally I would back up fronting elgg with pligg, since the amount of work required to network the users and create the community interfaces in pligg is so much more laborious than changes to be operated on elgg. In terms of specifics, I think that a lot can be achieved if:

we add a rating system to Elgg, such that any Elgg posting gets a vote,
if there is a master list of most recent posts on an Elgg install n which you can vote without browsing the system, and
if we changed the Elgg front page (and make it the default for any entry page for any user) to reflect the most successful article posted in Elgg.

All of course using Pligg technology.

The system would be diffferent than the Digg/Pligg philosophy, but so much more interesting. I work for a major American University and I just got some seed money for extending Elgg in this and other directions. If anyone here is interested in working with us, please let me know.

[dollars5]

I had a client who requested to do it this way; it was brilliant at that point but for some reason he dropped on that idea for Pligg+Elgg integration (now I do see why both projects have a *gg suffixing) [I will be outlining only the basic structure the client and we discussed due to the company policies - damn it - I will not give away his concept - which was really good and expecting him to return back to get this done]

1] The user will register to his site (he preferred to have users at Elgg DB), he would automatically get a blogging account - he can use all of Elgg world - friends, community, messaging, personal web-page, anything else he can think of (Elgg actually offers a variety of stuff via plugins)

2] The front page that the user will be visiting would be a rating system making use of Pligg, the registered users can vote on stories.

3] The system allows for submission of stories from external links, or entry of the one of the blog within the system, since Elgg allows for communities - there can be multiple authors for a story.

4] When a blog entry is composed, while publishing there will be an option to submit it to Pligg system for votings.

In essence all he wanted was extract Pligg voting and integrate into Elgg - but since we were more attracted to Pligg - we said we can bridge them together. Willing to contribute via code if there is a proper plan of execution framed, or in discussions for implementing it.

As beatniak mentions in his post here:

1) pligg's usersystem should be dropped > pligg should be abled to "read" elgg's users
2) pligg data should be read by elgg and vise versa
3) after that it's just some creative linking in the pligg templates...
4) ...and elgg templates

would be great to follow.

Let me know of your thoughts and plans.


So do we see an era of *gg s like we have *nix

[Simon]

My concern would be that really this could all be achieved with a plugin produced for elgg to emulate the pligg voting method. There is no real need for pligg that I can see, beyond the extraction of the voting code.

[beatniak]

A voting plugin for Elgg? I don't agree. A bridge would be much more interesting and more powerful.

After 10 minutes of thinking (gimme some more time edit/post a better list) i came up with this:

content

• blog per user (=elgg)
• blog per group/overall (=elgg)
• tips (=elgg)
• products
• downloads (=elgg)
• news on the web (=pligg)
• wiki (=elgg plugin)
• events (with ability to click "I'm attending" like last.fm and to invite friends/groups)
• geolocation meta (gmaps mash up)

community

• friends (=elgg/pligg rewrite)
• groups (=elgg)
• ???

voting

• user submitted content (elgg)
• user submitted news links (pligg)
• user submitted (meta)data >>> geolocations/events/products/shops/suppliers/whatever

Feeds

• all content (nuff said)

communication

• private/group message
• online discussion (article reactions, forum, etc)

API's

• Let users/webmasters/developer connect with the *gg data so they can grab the data and write their own new stuff for their own project/website/whatever
• Grabbing data from other API's (flickr, lastfm, amazon, etc) would be nice!!!

I think by creating a bridge we can accomplish something like this (guesstimate = 95%)
I guess we are almost having a team here for bridging the two. Me and Dollars5 want to work on this and we are in contact with eachother through email. And smatei...you want to team up with us as well?

Maybe we should open a new forumthread for creating a dev team to get the pligg+elgg bridge done. I guess everyone has different wants/needs for the bridge, but working together we all can benefit and get the package closer to our own needs.

So my question to you guys is:
1) who wants to join the *GG team?
2) what are your wants/needs for the finished package?
3) what can you do to contribute to the project?
4) what are your thoughts on making the project work?
4A) A SVN trunk in the pligg SVN or a seperate (SF) project? I know from the past (the mollio-beat project) that Ash and Yankidank are always very helpfull with things like these.
4B) Communication through forum/gmail/gtalk/snailmail / ...?
5) Some people have some money to put in the project. With that we could hire some programmers. But how can we do this in a fair way? The stuff will be CC/OS. Some put some money in it, others don't. Hmmmm... ideas? 'Cause hiring programmers to get the dificult stuff done would be nice

So the team for now is:
- Dollar5
- Beatniak
Need confirmation:
- Smatei
- Kbeever?
- futurepioneer?
(enough typing for now...)

[futurepioneer]

beatniak -
I ask you this since you seem to have taken the lead role here....
How much money do you think it would take (est) ?
also
Do you think this is one of those things that will get finished in as timely a manner as possible (not one that gets lost on a shelf somewhere)

If so PM me about the funds

BTW - I vote for Separate SVN on this.

Thanks - and everyone have the Best Day Ever
Rich

[beatniak]

Originally Posted by futurepioneer

beatniak -
I ask you this since you seem to have taken the lead role here....
How much money do you think it would take (est) ?

Let's find out who wants to join the team first and what they can contribute. With some luck we don't even need money at all!

Originally Posted by futurepioneer

Do you think this is one of those things that will get finished in as timely a manner as possible (not one that gets lost on a shelf somewhere)

I would REALLY like to get this done ASAP. I think dollar5 doesn't like shelves either.
The more people who are committed to this join the team, the faster this project will be done i guess.

For the name of the project i was thinking for 2 secs... Too bad we can't register the domain *gg.com!!!

So, if no one minds, i just registered pleggs.com and pleggs.info as in a weird kind of mashup between pligg and elgg (oh.... and the easter bunny ; )

I'll get the hosting done this weekend and put up a forum / SVN etc up after Easter so we'll have a place to work on this litle gem.

I hope we can get a great team for this and everyone have a nice weekend!

BTW... I'm not supergu'ing in ANY way. Actually i really hope ash/yank (ooh and savant/kbeever!) want to join this project. If I have any say on this, i'd like all code to be Creative Commons / Open Source.

Now, let's kick some code!

[kbeeveer46]

I'd definitely be willing to help out but I think I'd be spending more time on the core Pligg files. If you need any help I may be able to give you a hand here and there.

If this thing really kicks off and you've got all the features of Pligg and all the features of elgg in one application maybe it can become the new Pligg. I don't want to get into that right now because that's a whole other can of worms. I do recommend working with the Pligg SVN files. There have been so many features added since 9.1 that it would not be good to work with that. We plan for a new release in the coming weeks in case you were wondering.

[beatniak]

i wasn't wondering about the new release if you were wondering

i KNOW pligg is an ongoing project with a very active development community (i'm one of them --- not THAT active ATM, but i know the works here).

My goal is for PLEGGS not a whole NEW package, but a bridge between the two that is sustainable. Pligg and Elgg keep on updating, and i'd like a bridge that doesn't need to rewrite all the files after each (nightly) build of plig or elgg. I guess that's too much to whish for, but hey! People can dream

I guess the Pleggs core will come to some different ways of calling the database (and some new files that can plugg (hehe.... two g's) into the pligg/elgg core). My "want to have" is that some database calls in the pligg core can be search/replaced to Pleggs core, so after each new pligg release, we only have to do a list of S/R's to get to the latest Pleggs build.

Again: that's the whishfull thinking. But if we can get around there halfway, i'll be happy as well.

[savant]

I'm in

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