Hi guys,
I've just upgraded successfully my heavily modded version of DNN to 4.8.2. Since 4.8.2 is said to be the last version of the 4.x series and the next Cambrian will implement the feature of Social Networking, I will describe what I have and have not been able to do with DNN 4.x
Pijaja.Com is a social networking site for Vietnamese that I just release to public. Pijaja allows users to create and manage their own subportals. What they have to do is just entering their username and password, a subportal will be automatically created in this structure: http://pijaja.com/[USERNAME] (this is the ground for many other networking features). I believe it is much different from other DNN sites that provide the same service.
My solution focuses on 2 aspects:
- Usablility: the portal is simplified to the maximum so that even absolute beginners can use. The term "beginners" here is not DNN beginners but computer beginners in general.
- Networking: allow users from different portals to communicate and share contents with each other.
Now I'll skim over them:
- Usablility:
- As I've mentioned, my modification is largely a simplification process. Everything that can cause confusion or is overly complex is removed from the modules. You can view some screenshots here: (it's in Vietnamese but I think you can still recognize the pages) Site Settings, Admin Menu, Security Roles
- There are many more modifications that can not be listed here. But in short, each portal created by end user is a personal website. Its admin can not create new users, can not change the members' profiles, can not create new security roles.... They can only assign members to different roles in the portal.
- And lastly, every action that may cause application restart is disabled (at least what I'm aware of
)
This serves 2 purposes: providing end-users a powerful yet easy-to-use tool to build their webpages and keeping the whole application as stable as possible.
- Networking: this is the most painful process... Listed below are prominent features:
- A single account can be used to access every other portal. But the user must login once to each portal, so that his account is created.
- Users can assign their members to different security roles. In the Web 2.0 world, this is known as "Adding Friends".
- Users' profiles are stored in the mother portal. Users can only manage their profiles in that portal. This prevents confusion about multiple profiles across the site.
- Extensive use of Ventrian's Private Message module. It can be seen when User A logs into User B's website, in the user's profile, in the Forums...
In short, in Pijaja, users from different subportals can grant each other certain roles in their websites and easily communicate with others using the Private Message module.
To test the system, do the following:
- Visit my personal site at http://pijaja.com/duchoangle1990
- Click the word "Đăng Nhập" in the top right of the screen.
- Login using the account [Username: test-pijaja ; Pwd: 123456]
- From there, you can send me private messages or roll back to your website. (look for action buttons in the top left)
I apologize because the site is completely in Vietnamese. I've tried to support both English and Vietnamese but there're certain difficulties that can not be overcome.
Lastly, I need to beat these obstacles to make my site a true Social Networking site:
- Users can freely navigate between portals and do not have to login again.
- A module that allows Friend List management. Here's the scenario: User A requests to be User B's friend. When User B clicks "Accept", user A is granted the "Friends" role in B's site and vice versa.
- A module that generates an Aggregrate RSS Feed for each portal, so that users can keep track of what others are doing. This can be done at the moment, but not automated.
I hope Cambrian will be able to solve these problems.
Anyone interested or want to help me with this, please reply to this thread or contact me at lehoangduc1990 [at] gmail.com
I am willing to share my work, but since the files are heavily modified, they won't be very easy to use.
Thank you for your attention,
Duc