Social Networking Feature Cancel

1. joshua odell

   

   4 posts
   Registered:
   26 Sep 2008
   03 Oct 2008

   Link to this post

   Hello,
   
   I'm looking into adopting Sitefinity for a project that I'm working on.  The builk of the application will be a combination of CMS and Social networking.
   I really like the way that Sitefinity handles the CMS portion.  I like the interface, and the paradigm of "Building pages" instead of disconnected content like most CMSs do.
   However, the project is going to require a social network of sorts.  Users belong to groups, and interact on the group level.
   I've looked at the blog posts Ivan did on a social networking component,
   
   Here
   
    but there are only 2 parts to this.  Is he planning on posting more or has this project been canceled so to speak?
   based on the 2 posts so far it appears as though a social network component would be pretty straight forward to build, and I plan on expiromenting with it on my own, but if Telerik can give guidence in the matter, or perhaps someone in the community has experience with adding a social network compoonentt I would be geratly thankful.
   
   
   thanks in advance
   
   Joshua
   
2. Georgi

   

   3583 posts
   Registered:
   28 Oct 2016
   06 Oct 2008

   Link to this post

   Hi Joshua Odell,
   
   We do not have plans for continuing with this example. We wanted to cover the basics and to give you the idea.
   We encourage you for the development and will glad to answer and help you if you have any particular questions or problems.
   
   Regards,
   Georgi
   the Telerik team

   
   Check out Telerik Trainer, the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.
3. Mike

   

   208 posts
   Registered:
   10 Dec 2007
   06 Oct 2008

   Link to this post

   At the end of that post, it mentioned "In the next post, we will be examining how to take advantage of Sitefinity’s API to create pages for users after they register, and we will be creating the dashboard control for user which will allow user to modify it’s profile"
   
   Are there any other examples of these, in particular the use of the Sitefinity API to provision pages?
   
   Thanks,
   Mike
   
4. Joe

   

   138 posts
   Registered:
   24 Sep 2012
   06 Oct 2008

   Link to this post

   Hi Mike,
   
   We do have our pages API documented as this article will show you. Basically, you must add a page manager, implement the ICmsPage interface and then save the page. You could write some custom logic, if you would like, that creates pages for users after they register based on some parameters.
   
   I hope that provides a solution to your technical issue. Feel free to contact us if you need further assistance.
   
   Kind regards,
   Joe
   the Telerik team

   
   Check out Telerik Trainer, the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.
5. License Developer

   

   31 posts
   Registered:
   18 Jun 2008
   06 Oct 2008

   Link to this post

   I'm in the same boat over here. We have a big project where social networking is going to play a very large role. We'd like us to use Sitefinity but documentation on how to do this is so slim I've been looking at the other possibilities like integrating with a SN product like community server.
   
   The sample Community project is a good step in this direction but it is missing much of what is considered standard for SN sites. Groups, messaging, friends, searchable profile data, users being able to build their own "mini sites"  etc.
   
   Where I'm at is I'm looking at how much it would cost our client to have us build out a new module that does this vs buying/integrating something that already does.
   
   If there is any progress on this I'll be very glad to learn about it. Are there any third party vendors out there that license add on Modules?
   
   
   
6. joshua odell

   

   4 posts
   Registered:
   26 Sep 2008
   06 Oct 2008

   Link to this post

   There are a few things that I really like about Sitefinity and I think some of those things are going to make this an easier task.
   
   I really like how the entire basis of sitefinity is around making pages, actual pages, not just content that gets magically associated to some page later on.  I know behind the scenes it is, but I can actually create a page that looks like
   
   mysite.com/people/username.aspx
   
   instead of
   
   mysite.com/people.aspx?id=4
   
   I really like that, and the same would go for groups.  I see being able to create user pages, and group pages as being a very easy task.  trouble is going to be wiring that up.  I don't see any way that sitefinity can support this out of the box.  For that I believe some custom tables in the DB would be necessary.  Maybe something along the lines of a User <- -> group association table.
   
   Do you Sitefinity experst see anyway around creating another table, maybe something with dynamically creating and adding to lists?
   
   That would be a good starting point.  Users being created, and then groups being created, and then associations between users and groups.  That'll get the ball rolling.  after that comes the fun part of wiring things up to Forums, and comments.
   
   Joshua
   
7. Mike

   

   208 posts
   Registered:
   10 Dec 2007
   06 Oct 2008

   Link to this post

   I'm sort of in the same camp as License Developer...I'm considering building this stuff out myself for an upcoming project, but it might be cheaper and easier in the short run to license Community server for this.  While I'd like to do this strictly with sitefinity, which would give me a nice re-usable module, I don't think my development schedule will allow the time for it.
   
   However, my mind isn't made up yet, as this project  isn't a complete SN site, it just has some of the features of one.
   
   Mike
8. Mike

   

   208 posts
   Registered:
   10 Dec 2007
   06 Oct 2008

   Link to this post

   Joshua,
   
   Why couldn't you use the profile database for this association?  It seems like it's really easy to add custom profile information for a user. 
   
   Mike
9. joshua odell

   

   4 posts
   Registered:
   26 Sep 2008
   06 Oct 2008

   Link to this post

   Mike.
   
   I think the profile table could easily be used to store user information, but I'm not sure how I would store the group membership in this table.  I could put a field in there with comma separated list of groups that the member belongs to.  Problem with that is how to do the query for the groups page.  In other words, how would I find out all the members of a particular group.
   
   Maybe the answer is in asp.net roles.  I could come up with a group role naming scheme, such as "Group_DoggLovers"  and then check for each user that is in that role.  but I'm not sure that approach would be scalable, to thousands of users.
   
   Am I missing something obvious? 
   
   Josh
   
10. Mike

    

    208 posts
    Registered:
    10 Dec 2007
    07 Oct 2008

    Link to this post

    Using roles is a good idea for group membership.  There is a roles table, and the users in a role are stored in a separate association table.  It looks like a pretty much standard AspNetSqlMembership schema. 
    
    This gives you the ability to look up either way; the groups a user is associated with or the users in a group.
    
    I've seen guidance from Microsoft on the scalability of membership, but offhand I don't remember the numbers.  They're huge, though.  I'll see if I can locate the whitepaper.
    
    I don't think you'd need to (or even want to) go directly at the database.  Just use the object model. 
    
    You'd want a role for each group anyway, just to manage permissions.
    
    Regards,
    Mike Sharp
11. Georgi

    

    3583 posts
    Registered:
    28 Oct 2016
    13 Oct 2008

    Link to this post

    Hi Mike,
    
    We are impressed by the willingness you show to help here. We decided to update your Telerik account for that.
    Joshua, please follow up if you have any other questions.
    
    Greetings,
    Georgi
    the Telerik team

    
    Check out Telerik Trainer, the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.
12. joshua odell

    

    4 posts
    Registered:
    26 Sep 2008
    14 Oct 2008

    Link to this post

    Yes Mike, thank you for your assistance.
    
    Unfortunately it looks as though this project is going to have to be relegated to a "spare time project."  I'm still going to work on this, because I believe it's an important addition, and a great learning experience.  However, I think the decision has been made to use something like Community Server for the social networking aspects of the site.  Again, I'm going to continue to work on this project, but it will be on my own time, so this thread may slow down a bit.
    
    
    Joshua
    
13. Georgi

    

    3583 posts
    Registered:
    28 Oct 2016
    14 Oct 2008

    Link to this post

    Hello Joshua,
    
    Here is a nice discussion that could be also helpful: Scalability of Sitefinity
    
    Best wishes,
    Georgi
    the Telerik team

    
    Check out Telerik Trainer, the state of the art learning tool for Telerik products.