Posted by juan_g on August 8, 2010 at 1:02pm
I've seen on Twitter that a new Drupal distribution, Drupal Commons, has just been released by Dries' company Acquia. It seems to integrate Organic Groups (like groups.drupal.org) and other modules. I've just played a little with the demo but, at first sight, it seems really interesting. Has anyone installed it for testing? In this case, what are the pros and cons?
Comments
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I haven't installed it, just tried their demo site. It's nice and will solve a lot of problems but not everyone's. There's no forum, no FBSS, probably lacking in other areas as well. It's a good start but I think we need more like it to solve other use cases.
I had a longer post on this in a comment on Moshe's blog but it went into a moderation black hole. :(
Michelle
Advanced Forum and Drupal Commons integration
Michelle, indeed I'm especially interested -for some social sites- in the possible forum capabilities. I was already thinking that it would be great if Drupal's Advanced Forum, which you maintain, could be integrated with Drupal Commons in the same site.
Rather than a standard forum, Drupal Commons has something similar called "Discussions", in the Community section. It's ok for basic needs, but I would prefer a system with much more possibilities, like Advanced Forum 2.x using Node Comments, integrated with the DC groups.
I've been reading today about Drupal Commons, and they say in an article -Roadmap, or Roadblock?- that other Drupal modules can be installed to work with it. Since DC seems to be using Organic Groups, a way would be OG Forum. However, I think there were some difficulties to integrate Advanced Forum with OG Forum, but there was progress, and you are currently helping to fix the last related issue. Thank you very much for this.
About FBSS, I think you are referring to Facebook-style Statuses. I'm not sure, but since there is a Drupal module, maybe it can be integrated in Drupal Commons, in the My Stuff section.
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Sure, you can add whatever you want. But you can also build the whole thing yourself if you want to go that route. What people (not me, just people in general) are asking for is basically a site in a box. Commons is that for people who want that particular functionality but there is so much SN functionality that it's lacking that it's not going to be a solution for everyone.
Advanced Forum works just fine on a site with Organic Groups. It seems to be a common misconception that it doesn't. What OG Forum does is provide the ability to stick a forum for the group into the forums rather than making the group act more like a forum which AF does. It's a different philosophy and trying to use both on the same site is just messy.
Michelle
I'm available for comment, if you have specific questions
Hi -
I was the product owner inside Acquia for getting this built. I'm happy to provide our thinking about why we did what we did in Drupal Commons. If anybody has specific questions, please feel free to ask. (It's better to ask specific questions vs. deal with generalities.)
Cheers
-jb
I think it may be interesting to follow a discution on acquia
By my comment I try to make a bridge
http://commons.acquia.com/discussion/feedback-features-question-customis...
Social CRM: Lithium, Jive, Ning
Hi,
I liked the features of http://lounge.verticalresponse.com/
They used Ning. After more research, it seems like Drupal Commons can do the same thing.
My clients will be interested in a social CRM platform that will connect to Salesforce and handle transactions (authorize.net). We've done a lot of integration between Drupal, Salesforce and Google Apps.
I would like hear from JB - Acquia if this was the intended application of Drupal Commons.
I was considering Open Atrium, Lithium, Jive, Ning....now the leading contender is Drupal Commons.
Regards,
Pete
http://www.topcurve.com/
http://www.topcurve.com/
Twitter: @topcurve