Hi I would appreciate any advice on the best solution for achieving the following:
I would like to build one Site under one domain name with many separate, identical social networks or intranets built with the same set of pages, content types, functionality etc. but which have different users per each network/intranet who are excluded from the other networks (except on certain pages like a listings section in which a filter setting will allow a user from one community to access listings from another community as well, if so desired.)
How do i achieve this setup? Is organic groups the way to go?
Possible problem with this route: I want organic groups to be providing the functionality for people within the networks to “organically” form groups. Thus if organic groups was powering the separation of the many networks by making them distinct groups would it also be able provide functionality for people within each of those networks to organically form groups? Would that require subgroups- it doesn’t seem supported? Or some customization?
Or:
Perhaps if each network had its own subdomain or subdirectory titled after its community name that would be a way to separate each network or does that not necessarily cause each network to be distinct from the other? I would in fact want each network to have at least its own subdirectory or possibly subdomain name, just not sure if that achieves separation of the networks.
I’d greatly appreciate any insight on the most appropriate solution. Thanks! :)
Comments
Hi, for general community
Hi,
for general community features with OG, Drupal Commons is a good starting point: http://drupal.org/project/commons
For limiting access on subdomains/domains, check out Domain Access module: http://drupal.org/project/domain
Good luck!
Per André Rønsen | Front | Twitter: @perandre
Possible solutions
Possible solutions for this: Drupal Commons, Open Atrium, Organic Groups + Spaces...
great leads..
Hey,
Thanks for the remarks.
Regarding domain access, I'm still not certain how it would segregate each network.
The module description says "The module allows you to share users, content, and configurations across a group of sites," whereas i want users and community pages of each community to remain separate from the other networks not shared?
I'm also wondering which solutions are more expandable for a robust social network: Commons or Open Atrium?
Spaces looks interesting, may be difficult, have to look into it.
Regarding organic groups i would use it for the users to form groups within the network but still not sure if it could be used at the high level to segregate the networks.
About Commons, Open Atrium, OG, Spaces
drupalshtuple wrote:
> I'm also wondering which solutions are more expandable for a robust social network: Commons or Open Atrium?
Both are excellent, and can be used for intranets, extranets and web sites. Drupal Commons has a lot of functionality out of the box, and Open Atrium seems more customizable at this moment, by adding custom features to the default set. Commons is very new, and they say they are going to make it more customizable in next releases.
I think newcomers to Drupal will find Commons easier, intermediate users can customize Open Atrium, and advanced users could build any powerful custom system with Organic Groups + Spaces.
> Spaces looks interesting, may be difficult, have to look into it.
Yes, it's an advanced module. If you want to see an example of Spaces in action, it's included in the Open Atrium architecture.
> Regarding organic groups i would use it for the users to form groups within the network but still not sure if it could be used at the high level to segregate the networks.
To segregate networks within the same site, for example with different configuration, theme, features for each group, Spaces is a good way that works with Organic Groups.
Subgroups
drupalshtuple wrote:
> I want organic groups to be providing the functionality for people within the networks to “organically” form groups. Thus if organic groups was powering the separation of the many networks by making them distinct groups would it also be able provide functionality for people within each of those networks to organically form groups? Would that require subgroups- it doesn’t seem supported? Or some customization?
Acquia is planning to add subgroups for Drupal Commons soon.
On the other hand, at Open Atrium, they want to keep the basic package simple, without subgroups, but its developers (Development Seed) have added them in custom cases by using a hierarchical taxonomy to organize groups.
A subgroup hierarchy can be created with different techniques, for example taxonomy is a good one. And the Organic Groups module -which powers groups in both Drupal Commons and Open Atrium- will include subgroups in the version for Drupal 7. However, if propagation of members and content in the hierarchy is also needed, then the Subgroups for Organic Groups module should be used.
Thanks, want to reiterate....
"To segregate networks within the same site, for example with different configuration, theme, features for each group, Spaces is a good way that works with Organic Groups."
Organic Groups + Spaces looks promising as does the other suggestions like subgroups. Much appreciated.
I just want to clarify what i maybe didn't do so well before that i'm looking to make networks with identical functionality and content types all focused on providing the user with social networking tools. Sort of like a big facebook with lots of mini facebook type clone networks inside it each with different users but the same type of activity going on.
Not sure if that affects anything but i wanted to clarify.
Thanks
ALso...Spaces+OG =?
juan_G wrote: "To segregate networks within the same site, for example with different configuration, theme, features for each group, Spaces is a good way that works with Organic Groups."
Are the modules Spaces + Organic groups a recipe just for me to create the separate networks and then i would require subgroups as well to allow the users to easily form their own groups within those networks or are the two modules spaces & og a comprehensive solution for both levels?
To space or not to space...
That is the question. ;) Spaces is interesting in many cases, but not always necessary. Open Atrium uses Organic Groups and Spaces, however Commons and groups.drupal.org use just OG, without Spaces currently, although in my opinion it would be very good if they added it. I think groups.drupal.org uses a different solution (OG Panels module) to have some customizations per group.
In your case, if you want the same configuration for all groups, maybe you don't need Spaces. Anyway, apart from different configuration per group, Spaces provides a separate instance of any feature per group, with unique content (see for example the above link on the Open Atrium architecture). And, in my case, I'm now planning to use Spaces and subgroups for some sites, but I don't know many details on these topics yet. For more info, it's better to ask in the issue queues of Spaces, Subgroups for Organic Groups, etc.
Interesting question...
...I've been wrestling with exactly the same problem for a while now.
I've been toying with Commons and Domain Access and had some success but configuring Domain Access to actively boot people out of sub domains that they don't have access to, whilst balancing this with allowing authorised users to traverse those sub-domains that they do have access to has been fun. You might want to read these threads:
http://drupal.org/node/923258
http://drupal.org/node/923384#comment-3601132
But, I've come up against a block with Commons that I can't seem to get past. I discovered the security is pretty much all or nothing. This needs to be set in the commons config screen and is either 'users must login before they see anything' or 'everything's open' without a lot of pain in terms of locking down panels, views, context and everything else. What I need is a few public pages on the main site and then lock down for the rest of the main domain and all the sub domains!
So, I've started looking at Organic groups, looking to build in the Commons features once I've got a proof of concept going.
Proof of concept would be as follows:
1) 1 main domain site hosting intro content and publicy available content from the sub-domains.
2) unlimited, independent sub-domains with unique content and users
3) The ability to allow/prevent user access to these sub-domains.
4) Within each sub-domain to create a core sets of groups and social networking type shinanigans (that is duplicated identically across each sub-domain
5) To allow the sub-domains to grow naturally through the creation of custom groups etc unique to that sub-domain.
If you want to work on this together I'd be up for it. PM me.
Cheers,
Crom