[garfieldmypet]

Hi, All,

I am pretty new at pligg, so If I asked the wrong question, please forgive me.

After downloading and setting up a test site in my home intranet, I was ready to dive into the details of pligg module and reading some part of the core engine.

Yet, my search on google and this forum has not return much results, except for a few links that talks about modules and modification. My questions are:

1. Is there a book out there that talks about pligg's core or module development? There's one for smarty and one for elgg, is there one for Pligg?

2. Is there a formal documentation to teach a new person like me which is interested in pligg, regarding where and how to start reading the codes?

I might be wrong, but as a newbie interested in pligg internals, where do I start? Please provide some recommendation.

-Garfield

[Yankidank]

1. We were in talks with co-authoring a book on Pligg for a well known tech book publishing company. That was put on hold though until Pligg 1.0 is released. Since there is so much changing from day to day at this point it didn't make sense to write something that would need a lot of edits after we changed how parts of Pligg work. I will reexamine the idea and probably begin work on a physical book soon after the release of Pligg 1.0. From when I was talking with the co-author, it looks like the publisher is wanting a more basic book rather than something that dives deeper into module development.
2. I have designed a module for newbies trying to get started with Pligg's admin panel called "Admin Help English". This module will be included with Pligg 1.0 to provide documentation for Pligg, and it will cover the basic concepts of how Pligg woks, common phrases used in Pligg and how to configure your site. As for the more advanced Pligg templating and module design, that will have to be covered in either the book idea or through future documentation. I am willing to provide some of these documents as soon as I find the time for it.
For the most part, Pligg templates are like dealing with split up html files. You just have to figure out the basic format for which template files are for which Pligg pages. Modules on the other hand are a bit more difficult for me to explain since I don't have experience making more complicated ones. What I have always told others is to base their work on existing modules to get a basic understanding of how modules are designed. With 1.0 modules have been altered to fit some new requirements opening up a lot of new possibilities, so make sure that you are working with the latest SVN code if you are interested in pursuing module development for Pligg.

[garfieldmypet]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, having a prompt respond really help restore confidence for the users and also for those that are interested in starting development on a open source platform.

There had been a lot of people out there posting negative comments on Pligg, but so far I still find it the best of all. But about the codes, I must admit that it is either very difficult or impossible to comprehend without proper documentation.

I believe that writing the book is a critical step for the platform to grow, if some other platform has a faster learning curve, ppl will just hop over.

I really have faith in Pligg, and hope to see the documentation and book published soon. Your justification about holding on the publication until version 1.0 do make sense.

Is there a release schedule on Pligg 1.0 and is there backward compatibility towards module and templating design? Just hope that things are backward compatible, else all the effort spent learning version 9.9.5 will be worthless.

-Garfield