Modules for the social network drupal 7. Creation of a social network on the Drupal engine. Drupal core modules

The tasks, in general, face the project almost the same as, probably, before any social network - exchange of opinions on this or that material, personal correspondence, evaluation of the material, organization of events ... well, and other goodies, which I do not want to disclose yet ... The most basic functions with their corresponding modules will be discussed below.

For each of these tasks, of course, a set of modules, their own assemblies are implemented; But what is really there, even for the solution of any one problem there are many different options for execution, each of which deserves attention.

At the same time, perhaps, the material will serve as food for thought for those who are going to create a similar narrow-profile social network.

Let's conditionally divide all the functionality into the following "steaks":

1. articles (personalities, reviews, project description)
2. audio and video (audio and video recordings, competition materials)
3. events (events, contests, festivals, master classes, open classes)
4. usability (WYSIWYG, CNC, navigation, site guides)

I repeat - the division is conditional.

2. Modules

Out of the box, Drupal has a fairly impressive set of modules with which you can create sites that are impressive enough for their purpose. But we want to rule the Universe to create a project that is wider in its purpose and functions, so we need tools in the form of modules, of which there are quite a few on the official website.

0. Base

Cap suggests that to begin with, we kind of need an archive with Drupal itself. Let's go and download the latest version. At the time of this writing, this is 7.27 ... We save it in a separate daddy, which Cap created especially for me.

Next, we need at least two additional modules: Views and CCK. Views is useful not only to us, but also to other modules that depend on it. Well, CCK will allow us to expand the functionality provided by the Field API. Actually, we download them from the Drupal site. And don't forget about Token!

Personally, I preferred to include the module Update manager for more convenient installation of modules and themes.
NB:i have not yet had time to study Drush in order, but I know that it is the most useful thing. It remains to switch to it over time.

1. Articles

For most of the article materials, “boxed” modules are enough - Field API does its job quite well. But if it comes to any biography, then the FAPI functionality alone is not enough.

What is the key point in the biography? That's right, dates. We stamp on the site and look at Date. Yeah, yes, we put it.

We need to make sure that, depending on how we fill in the "card" for a person, the page title is formed accordingly. In this, Automatic Nodetitles will provide us with invaluable service. We put it.

Additionally, we install the Image module, because it will come in handy later wherever possible.

Looking ahead, I will say that we need Node References and References, on which NR depends. I'll explain why later.

2. Audio and video

Here, after all, I settled on the Media module. Do not forget to add dependencies: Chaos Tools and File Entity.

If everything is more or less clear with video playback, then with audio it is somewhat more complicated. Stumbled upon an interesting library SoundManager 2. Convenient, stylish, but CSS. We take away. Fortunately, there is a corresponding module for the library - SoundManager2. We put it.
Just in case, we set ourselves the Libraries API - it will come in handy.

We have a social network, so we want to be given the right to vote! Ok, let's go and install these modules: Voting API, Fivestar and Vote Up / Down.

3. Activities

Let's go further. We need to make sure that users have the opportunity to attend / subscribe to any events. The Entity Registration module is well suited for this - we usually need to know who is going and how many participants there are. We put it.

Perhaps the organizers will want to attach a link to the event page on the same Timepad, for example. Well, let's give them that opportunity. Let's go and install the Link module for ourselves.

4. Usability

In order not to burden users with learning HTML tags (believe me, not all musicians have time for this), let's let them use some WYSIWYG editor. It doesn't matter if it is TinyMCE or CKEditor, all at once. To keep them under control, let's install the Wysiwyg module and the CKEditor editor (my choice).

To navigate the site as a whole, the user and main menu should be enough. Over time, at the theming stage, we will consider all this in more detail and make the necessary adjustments (and install additional modules, if required).

It is clear that, having hit the site for the first time, the user will probably not be so easy to navigate. A pretty neat solution was found - the Joyride jQuery plugin from ZURB. Let's download the library and install the corresponding module for it. At the same time, we put a dependency - Context, if it is not already installed.

Basically, Drupal is directly responsible for the CNC, so we will not touch anything there. We will only modify the links depending on the user's location - for this we put Pathauto and Transliteration so that the links look a little more neat.

Like any other self-respecting community, we also want to have a VKontakte group, where we will post various news and project updates. But, as you yourself understand, it's too lazy to do this with pens, especially for one, so we will use another ready-made solution - VK CrossPoster. The module allows you to post messages on the wall of a user or group with the ability to attach a link to the announced page. The module has a couple of crutches, which we will analyze a little later, be patient.

We want users to be able to communicate with each other, send messages to each other, and so on. No sooner said than done, we stomp on the site and pick up the excellent Privatemsg module.

Outcome

So, what's the bottom line?

Total: 25 modules excluding those built into the system, and 2 libraries. Perhaps I missed some dependencies, I will be glad if they remind me of them once again.

A few years ago, turning your site into a social media tool for sharing with an interested community required many lines of code. Therefore, the emergence of CMS Drupal was greeted with great joy and enthusiasm. The presence of a large number of modules for this CMS allows the site administrator to manage various network communication channels without writing a huge amount of custom code.

If you are planning to relax in Adler during the velvet season, then you should think about renting a room in October in advance. After all, it may turn out that when the vacation time comes, there may not be vacant rooms!

Here are just a few Drupal modules that will turn your website into a social media tool and take it to the next level:

1. Module Organic Groups:

With this module, users can easily create and manage their social networking groups. Each group has its own home page that allows users to post their content, and the block created by this module provides basic information about the group. Administrators also have additional functions in groups, for example, they can choose whether a social group should be selective or not. Thanks to the Organic Groups module, the site will have countless possibilities. You can easily customize the layout, manage memberships and restrictions, and more.

2. Module User Relationships:

The User Relationships module allows the site administrator to create and define types of users, for example, "family", "friends" or "colleagues", as well as regulate the types of their relationship - mutual or one-way. This Drupal module is also extended with submodules that provide the administrator with the ability to customize notifications, invitations, and messaging.

3. Invite module:

The Invite module allows current users to invite friends and acquaintances to join a social group on the site. This module works in conjunction with the User Relationship module.

4. User Points module:

The User Points module allows users to receive and accumulate intra-site points, which they can then spend on various actions, for example, publishing materials, moderating, posting pictures, comments on the site, etc. The site administrator can use these points to promote or change the role the user depending on his contribution to the development of the site.

5. Flag module:

The Flag Module works in conjunction with the Flag Friend submodule. Using the Flag module API, the Flag Friend module provides the ability to establish one or two-way communication type, in which you can send messages and notifications to another user with a response to the receipt of the request.

6. Heartbeat module:

This module can be used to display user activity on the site. The Heartbeat module provides an API for logging user activity, which can then be structured to display in a custom stream.

7. Easy Social Module:

8. Activity Stream module:

This Drupal module allows you to create a live channel to broadcast the user's current activity on other social networks such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Thanks to this module, you can easily integrate an RSS feed from any site into your site, customizing it as you need.

Sites of associations, communities, groups on the CMS Drupal platform.

Overview of Drupal's capabilities in building social networks.
Drupal - Open Source CMS, the capabilities of which allow you to solve a number of tasks at the same time. The structure of this management system not only makes it possible to create all kinds of sites. “Nodes” (a basic component in Drupal) are of great importance. Thanks to the properties of the nodes, the developer gets high flexibility in creating and configuring sites. Drupal makes it easy to manage content, users, and user relationships. All this is very convenient when developing social networks. The success of the implementation depends on the design of the system and its implementation.

Users are the main component of any social community. It is important at the pre-project stage to correctly think over the actions possible for users and provide for how it is possible to manage their actions. No less important is the issue of content filling and the appearance of the system.
Drupal provides a large number of modules, functions and sections that allow you to customize your site like a social network. So, for example, the User Management section allows you to manage user profiles, their communities, differentiate access rights using a nickname, email address or IP. The section for editing rights allows you to control access to certain sections and content of the resource. The User Management section allows you to create standard settings for participants, and the Users section contains a list of all users.

Main Drupal modules:

• Aggregator: The Aggregator module allows you to aggregate information from news feeds, other resources and publish them.
• Blog: The module allows you to create blogs.
• Blog API: the module makes it possible to add content to the site using external programs.
• Book: the module allows you to arrange pages in order according to the hierarchy.
• Color: the module allows users to change the color scheme of the site.
• Comment: The module allows you to create comments on posted content and respond to comments from other members.
• Forum: the module allows you to create forums and organize discussions
• Upload: the module allows community members to upload files.
• Profile: the module allows users to publish information about themselves.
• Tracker: the module makes it possible to track changes occurring on the site (new users, new information and comments).
• OpenID: the module allows users to log into their profile using the ID technology.

The above standard modules, together with the installation of the necessary configuration, allow you to create a site with the functions necessary for work, but to increase the capabilities of the product being created, it will be useful to use additional Drupal modules:

• Token. The module itself does not differ in functionality, it is used to expand the capabilities of other modules.
• Gravatar. The module allows members to use an avatar.
• Image resize filter. The module makes it possible to automatically make the picture smaller if set in the settings.
• User Relationships. The module makes it possible to create links between participants. It's hard to imagine a modern social network without this feature.
• Activity. The module makes it possible to record user actions on the site, display changes in blocks or in feeds or RSS feeds.
• Guestbook. The module makes it possible to create guest books of community members (analogous to Vkontakte - a wall), guest books of an Internet site.
• Organic groups. The module makes it possible to create thematic communities.
• Views. The module gives site designers the ability to flexibly and freely control the display of tables and content.
• Notifications. The module makes it possible to create any subscription. Used in conjunction with the Messaging module gives excellent results. Allows you to subscribe to a specific type of material, groups, community members, etc.
• Messaging. The module allows you to deliver messages in a way convenient for the user (e-mail, personal message, SMS, etc.)
• Inactive User. The module makes it possible to manage inactive users in automatic mode. Possible actions: sending a notification to the user that he has not appeared on the site for a long time; blocking a profile; deleting a user.
• CAPTCHA. The module allows you to test users in order to identify and combat spambots.

Only some of the modules that can improve the functionality of the resource are listed here.

The main functionality of Drupal (publications, taxonomy, access distribution system), modularity, together with the scalability of the system, the possibility of flexible customization allow you to create social networks with a high level of complexity.
It is worth recalling that Drupal is an open source system that allows you to edit source codes and use projects created on the Drupal platform for commercial purposes.
CMS Drupal was originally developed to create communities, therefore it has all the possibilities for creating such social networks.

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In this article, we would like to tell you how you can organize social network powered by Drupal... In general, the purpose of this article is to provide you with some information on what to look for when creating a virtual community. The idea of \u200b\u200bsuch an article was born while reading two interesting books: "" and "". So, in this article, we're going to provide you with some pointers on how to get it right. If you want to know more about the ways and best options for implementing the process of developing a great virtual service, then we advise you to read the books above.

If you are a web surfer, then you already know the answer to this question. The essence of our constant web surfing is the ability to share our feelings, opinions and products with other users. Today, the Internet offers us many opportunities to keep in touch with other people who have similar interests and thinking with us. The whole power of social networking lies in quickly and easily providing direct contact with other users. Many people probably already think that the network is already full of social systems, why would anyone else need another new one?
We personally believe there are many reasons for this. You don't have to think corny that this will be just a place where you can post messy content - it should be a system with a specific purpose, which is constantly evolving and improving. In this case, a social network can be the perfect solution for maintaining a message between a small group of people you know. Believe me, in our time, most of the virtual social networks are focused on monetization, this is a kind of source of profit.

You can improve the state of your affairs by creating a social network in which there will be many users competent in the issues that interest you, in such a system you can learn a lot of new and useful information, and share information with other users with the same success. Thus, you can win the respect and trust of users and potential customers.
You can already stop at this, but the list is endless. But don't forget that the main aspect of your website's success is sharing very useful information with your users, focusing on a specific topic. In creating a social networking site, we will give preference to the Drupal engine, which is an absolutely free content management system.

Why Drupal can be used to implement a social network

Drupal is a platform, the functionality of which allows you to solve several problems at once. It is a mistake to think that Drupal is just as simple a content management system, because the structure of this platform allows you to develop different types of websites. The so-called "nodes" play a very important role. A "node" is a piece of content that is being built, whether it is part of a forum, a blog, or a new article in a magazine. Each "node" (piece of content) belongs to a different type of content, which specify different default settings for this type of "nodes". This method greatly improves customization. With Drupal, you can easily manage content, users, and the relationship between site users. All of these things are very useful and convenient for creating a social network, it all depends on how the system is set up and how it is managed.

Basic properties and parameters

The main element of any social network is users. It is very important to correctly plan the actions available to users and it is important to understand how these actions can be managed. Information content and the appearance of the system are considered other important aspects. We see how Drupal can be used to set up the core element of the virtual social fabric. First, we need to install the Drupal system. We advise you to first test the system on a local computer to explore possible settings and actions. You need to set up Apache web server and then PHP and MySQL support. You can download and install (an easy-to-install Apache server distribution that includes PHP, MySQL and Perl support) on your computer. The latest version of XAMPP (1.7.2) includes PHP version 5.3, but Drupal 6.x requires version 5.2.x, so you should have XAMPP version 1.7.1 installed (remember to read the Drupal installation instructions -).

After installation, view the administration panel (you must be logged in as an administrator). The Drupal Administration Panel is a control panel for configuring and editing a website.
Take the time to spend a couple of hours exploring all the possible functions in order to understand how you can customize the system for a social network. Once you begin to understand all the configurations, you can start to create a rough outline of how your website will look and what will be available in it.

For example, the User Management section allows the administrator to manage user accounts, their groups, and access rights to site services. Access rules can restrict access to the site by specifying a nickname, e-mail address or its ip. The section for editing rights is responsible for accessing specific sections and content of the site. The Roles edit section allows the administrator to set global access to user groups. The User Management section allows you to set standard settings for users, and the Users section is a complete list of registered members.

It would be nice if you learned all these sections and functions on your local computer, guided by.

Transforming Drupal into a social networking platform

We have a “dream” which is to create a good network for people who can keep in touch through our site. Therefore, we need to enable the ability to publish content and create friendships between users. Next, take a look at a list of activities that can provide great interaction between our community members.

What would we like to do:

* - Manage messages and text information
* - Creation of various groups, and communication between users
* - Ability to create discussions in separate groups or on the forum
* - Creating interesting and engaging content together
* - Poll management
* - Manage and categorize automatic RSS feed content
* - Ability to comment
* - Tracking user activity
* - Manage advanced user profiles
* - Creating relationships
* - Ability to send personal messages
* - Sending quick short messages

System Drupal allows individual control of all the modules described above. So, we need to activate the following modules through the administration panel\u003e site creation\u003e modules.

Modules

By activating the following modules and setting the correct configurations for our platform, we will have the basic controls for our virtual society.

Aggregator: collection of content
Blog: allows you to create blogs
Blog API: Allows users to publish content that includes XML-RPC-enabled applications
Book: allows users to organize the pages of the site into a hierarchy
Color: allows users to change the theme of the site
Comment: allows users to comment on posted content
Forum: allows you to have discussions on forums
Upload: allows users to upload and attach files to published content
Profile: support for editable user profiles
Tracker: tracking new users and messages
OpenID: support for user authorization via OpenID

Improving the website through additional modules

There is a huge team behind the development of the Drupal system, which also releases many additional modules, with which we can easily improve the functionality of our site. Although it is already possible to launch a website in this form, it is still difficult to call it a real good social network. That is why we are required to install some more modules.

We need to download the corresponding archives with modules and unpack them into the / sites / all / modules folder, which is located on our web server. Then you need to activate these modules. In the same way as we have done before with other modules.

Below is a list of modules that can go a long way towards implementing a good social networking site.

A module is a bit of text that can be embedded in large documents using simple pointers such as% site-name or. This module provides a central API for modules to use to extend their capabilities. The modules that use the Token module and provide it through the API are: Organic Groups, Pathauto, eCommerce and Ubercart, as well as some modules that we will use for our social network project. Complete.

This module integrates the ability to use userpics (avatars) into Drupal. If a user's avatar is tied to his e-mail address, then it will be shown when commenting, sending messages, and on the profile page itself.

The ability to create a relationship between users. This is one of the main components of a social network, or any other network where users can get acquainted and interact with each other. The module provides many different functions. You should definitely use it. Administrators can create different categories (friend, colleague, and so on). The relationship can be specified from one side or from both. In the case of a one-way relationship, only the attitude of the person who indicated the relationship level is shown. Relationships can be free to change by users, but you can enable verification by the site administration.

This module allows you to track people's actions and provide information in blocks with data, or via RSS. Messages can be arranged through the admin panel.

The module provides the ability to create a general guestbook for the site, or individual guestbooks created by users. Guestbook founders can delete entries from the guestbook. Also, avatars are displayed in the guest, if they are selected by the user.

The module allows users to create and manage their own "groups". Each group has a subscription option, as well as the option of a group home page where subscribers can communicate with each other.

This module provides Drupal site designers with a flexible way to control the display of tables and content.

This module is a complete subscription / alert platform. It allows you to install any number of plugins specifying new event types or subscription types, or changing the user interface. The archive includes the main alert engine, which is responsible for collecting and sending alerts, and several plugins that add several types of events and subscriptions.

This module allows you to send messages independently. Using this system, you no longer have to send e-mails. YOU will simply write and send a message, and the recipient himself will choose how he wants to receive messages (e-mail, IM, SMS, etc.)

The module allows you to create and send news feeds to subscribers. Both anonymous users and those authorized in the system can subscribe to news.

The module helps the site administration to manage inactive users. The system has two ways: sending a notification to users that they have not visited your site for a long time, or periodically cleaning the lists of inactive users.

The service provides preliminary text to make sure that the person being registered is actually a human being and not a spam robot.

Checking Cron. Provides information about the status of the Cron through a text page.

A powerful module for Drupal that provides the ability to create pages like Digg or Pligg.

Ability to create and publish microblogs inside the Drupal system.

Conclusion

We've given you a quick briefing on how to start your own virtual community. We hope that after reading this article, you will have a correct understanding of the Drupal system. Of course, this is not a step-by-step guide to creating a social network, but the article covers information and reviews of useful places on the web. Now it's up to you, just try and you will probably succeed!

Two years ago, Big Chef said he wanted to build a social network for clients. For a year, desire remained a desire, and only then did it become a target indication: there must be a network.

What for?

1. Collect additional data about customers (phone numbers, addresses, attendance) and make it unobtrusive.
2. Increase customer loyalty to the company as a whole.
3. Additional sales channel.

Maybe there were some other goals, but these things did not reach the specific performer (me).

Search and review software

Based on the experience of implementing software in a company, when any installed software will require modifications either from the developer or from the company during operation, preference was given when choosing

1. open source platforms or available source
2. with support for multiple languages \u200b\u200b(i.e. using utf-8 encoding)
3. scalable (hosted on multiple servers)
4. flexibly configurable (for all component parts)

As shown by a search on the Internet, there are a lot of ready-made platforms and services on the network that provide services for organizing a social network based on their software. Mostly ready-made platforms were written in PHP, we managed to find only 1 or 2 in Java and a few in .NET and ASP. Most of the PHP platforms were free or cost symbolic money.

A lot of useful information can be found from the reviews on the site http://www.cmswatch.com.

Jive ideally suited our needs, but, unfortunately, due to the high cost ($ 55,000), we had to abandon it.

Ready-made platforms in PHP as the most suitable for our requests:

AROUNDME

Free, with many options such as: blogs, forums, guestbook, wiki, multilingual and many others.

Offsite: http://www.barnraiser.org/
Sample site: http://www.ungdomstorget.se

Offsite: http://elgg.org
Sample site: http://www.redpai.org/

Allows you to create blogs with tags, upload files, create aggregators of rss-mailings, communities, collective blogs on communities and manage your profile (avatar, name, visibility of what was written, etc.)

PHPizabi
PHPizabi is an open source system. Support for modules. Blogs, chats, video gallery, groups, personal pages.

Offsite: http://www.phpizabi.net
Example site: http://demo.phpizabi.net/

Powerful administrative part - with the ability to create your own language and translate all messages - from the titles of the headers to the content of messages.

Dolphin
Developed by Boonex. It is open source, but when using it, we must leave a link to the site of the creators or pay for a license ($ 39 annual license and $ 99 lifetime). Blogs, photos, ratings, groups, invitations, friends, guestbook, audio / video galleries, forums, chats, etc.

Offsite: http://www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/
Example site: http://www.boonex.us/

Explay

Russian cms open source.

Offsite: http://www.alex-home.spb.ru/

It is possible to create blogs, communities, tag clouds, a minimum level of profile management. Users give each other ratings by raising or lowering it. Depending on the rating, the level of opportunities depends (replies to topics, creating topics, comments, etc.

Drupal
Official website: http://drupal.org/

Yes: multilingual support, modules, OpenID login, theme change, advanced administrator interface, the ability to add additional fields to the user profile, organize polls, groups, forums, change the design.
By adding additional modules, you can expand the interface with additional features. The basic package includes: blogs, forum, articles, customizing the appearance of the site, managing external links, polls, search. Everything is configurable in sufficient detail.

Our choice is Drupal

We chose Drupal as our social networking platform. And, I think, they made the right choice: Drupal wins in flexibility compared to other systems: you can expand the functionality of the system by installing new modules or modifying existing ones, plus a huge community and very dynamic development (at the time of choosing the platform, version 6 was released, at the time of this writing version 7 is coming).