First off, I uploaded a somewhat-working, somewhat buggy version of the add-in code to my files. It's suitable for anyone who just wants to browse thru & see how I put it together. I'll be busy debugging it this weekend, hopefully getting a fairly stable version with a phpDoc overview, db install script, etc...
On another note, my group at CGU has been thinking about interface improvements to Elgg. Brian Thoms has been putting together a modified template (see his thomsb account here on Elgg for screenshots). In addition to this though, I've been thinking about the overall structure of the Elgg interface.
I guess that more and more now, I'm viewing Elgg as a SuperGlu application -- a place to aggregate resources and content. This probably comes from my renewed intereest in portfolios (when you need to pound a nail, everything looks like a hammer). While I think that a lot of the capabilities inside of Elgg are going to grow & mature (social networking, blog, wiki, cal, ...), they are never going to be as good or as nimble as dedicated software applications like WordPress, MediaWiki, Del.icio.us, and Flickr. What Elgg can offer is a space for students/people to pull in the disparate pieces of themselves to display for educational and personal fulfillment. It can (and I think should) offer at least basic versions of file hosting, blogging, wiki, cal, etc... for those who don't already have external accounts. But, it doesn't have to focus on being the best of breed in 20 different categories.
As a result, I think that the interface could be separated into two parts. First, the 'publish' side. I think that this side could have all of the functionality used to publish blog, wiki, file, and other content. It would have some basic apps to get people started on making content, but also make it really easy to import stuff. Second, I think that Elgg should really enhance the visibility of its aggregator service. Since one of its primary functions is to enhance community, I think that a 'read' side would be valuable. This reader would automatically aggregate all of the friend's blogs and communities that a person belong to, as well as showing activities on things that the person has indicated they have an interest in. Maybe a third tab should be 'discover' or something that shows what's going on in the system.
Anyway, just mumbling... My lab group needs to concentrate for a while on building our LPU (least publishable unit) count by doing some groundwork over the next month or so. However, we really need to have an aggregator as the first page that people see by the time that we start school, as most of the people using elgg aren't going to put the time in to discover content -- they need to have it shown to them automatically.
Nathan
Keywords: template, ui, wiki
