Locking Down Community Server 2008.1

written by josh ledgard on Saturday, July 19 2008

We're only a couple of weeks away from a beta release of Community server 2008.1. As previously discussed this is the first of a more rapid pace of releases for the Community Server product.  (There is a public roadmap we've  produced that I'm hoping to have published next week some time to www.communityserver.com. ) What this means though is that we're pretty locked on what we are shipping and what we are NOT shipping.  This post will give you a few more details to help get you ready.

Themes

CS 2008.1 will be shipping with Hawaii as the default theme again, but will not include Lean & Green or Calypso in the box.  This was one of the hardest calls to make, but as a team, we realized we could either fix more bugs & ship good wiki OR support 3 themes while cutting a lot of bug fixes & feature work. 

The reality is that a theme is not simply a set of CSS changes.  Fixes & feature work had to be developed & tested in three themes. For the sake of quality, we chose to simplify for this release and focus on making one theme (Hawaii) better.  For those of you that felt Hawaii was a little drab, we have been adding some more stylization to it. 

Question & Answer Details

I previously mentioned that we were working on dramatic improvements for forums aimed at support communities.  Here are some details to get you ready.

  • A new forum can be enabled for QnA or General Discussion. If you pick QnA then new threads will be questions without answers by default.  You can ask questions in General Discussion forums, but they aren't the default thread type.
  • The basic workflow has been updated as follows:  User A asks a question, users B & C suggest answers, and user A marks one of both of the suggest answers as the "verified" answer. 
  • Once an answer is verified it is always shown at the top of the thread under the question to help people that land there from google.
  • Multiple posts can be verified answers.
  • We show the user who suggested a post as the answer & who verified the post as the answer to the question.
  • The theme icons & visuals have been updated to clearly reflect the three post/thread states (Unanswered, Suggested Answer(s), & Verified Answer(s) )

image

Wiki Details

This is the biggest addition to Community Server 2008.1.  In terms of a wiki you'll get support for the following:

  • Basics: WYSYWIG editable pages with revision history's, tags, comments, & ratings.
  • Multiple Wikis per site & One Wiki per Group
  • Roles for Wiki Administrators & Moderators.  Admins can create & edit wikis while moderators can lock & delete pages. 
  • Attachment support
  • Activity Message support
  • Support for customizable points for contributions if you have points enabled.
  • The ability to create a Table of Contents for your wiki to add some structure.  Like I said, our target is collaborative documentation.  See dogfooding below. :-)

image

Something I didn't mention before

The Mail Gateway add-on for Community Server is going to be greatly improved because of all the work we are doing for Community Server Evolution.  Details are coming in future posts about Evolution, but all the changes made for Evolution will be included in the release of the add-on for Community Server 2008.1. 

What's Next?

When we hit the beta there will be no more feature work.  With the possible exception of extremely small change requests to Wiki & QnA forums what you get in the beta will be feature complete.  We then enter what we've been calling "baking time" for bug fixes & minor tweaks based on the feedback we get.  We'll also be looking at the forums to take in bugs from CS 2008 that are still lingering after SP1.  So yes, we'll be listening and responding in kind during this period.  Expect this "baking period" to last a few weeks before you see a final release.

What About Evolution?

Community Server Evolution is an intranet only version of Community Server that includes add-ons like Exchange, AD, & SharePoint Integration.  Because this is being built on top of Community Server the schedule is following the CS schedule, but will need some additional time once Community Server is solid.  It will beta & ship shortly after Community Server 2008.1 release.

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18 Comments

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Comments

  • Leo on on 7.20.2008 at 12:32 AM

    Leo avatar

    Josh, thanks so much for the updates. You're filling a much needed presence that Dave Burke once did.

    Is there any chance that your road-map may include coverage on forward looking plans. For example, is there a chance that in the CS 2008 life cycle there may one day be a Calendar or Chat component. If not, then it allows Community Owners to plan on going with a third party vendor, like CuteSoft for Chat, or try and develop something for the community. I realize that sometimes this type of disclosure puts greater pressure on Telligent, but any information helps.

    Thanks again for the tips, more transparency and especially for increasing the frequency of CS updates.

  • afscrome on on 7.20.2008 at 4:05 AM

    afscrome avatar

    I get the impression you love teasing us about information. You're continually telling us about this Evolution product, withoutout telling us anything about it, and keep on dropping small bits of information about CS2008.1. If it's really as great as you say, why don't you let us in on everything ;)

    With the Verified Answers, do they appear at the top of the thread AS WELL as in their original location in the thread, or INSTEAD of their non verified position?

    I also love that Add Page icon on the Wiki - can we have one for Add Forum post, and upload file, and Add new page in Group Pages.

    If you're updating the Mail Gateway addon, can you also up the build number to match that of CS2008.1 so you know which build of Mail Gateway was supposed to go with which - all the other enteprise addons available at the moment are Build 4.0.30630, but Mail Gateway is Build 1.0.21108. Has mail gateway not been updated since CS 1?

  • Tore on on 7.20.2008 at 2:09 PM

    Tore avatar

    Add forum post (with the latest theme) is the thing I'm waiting for. But thanks for letting us know about wiki!

  • Josh Ledgard on on 7.21.2008 at 8:10 AM

    Josh Ledgard avatar

    @Leo: Roadmaps will be forward looking. Chats & Calendar support is not going to be including in any 08 release. Those are 09 items.

    @AFSChrome: Evolution is CS designed for the Intranet. You get all the stuff that CS comes with, but you also get all the stuff you'd want inside the firewall. I promise more information is forthcoming.

    When it comes to more icons like the "add page" one... we're working on it. But yes, we're updating the styles in more places than just the wiki. I'm glad you like it.

    Verified answers appear in both locations... pulled out at the top and then inline with the rest of the replies.

  • afscrome on on 7.21.2008 at 9:14 AM

    afscrome avatar

    Thanks for that, although I'm not an element of the Periodic Table - no 'h' (Don't worry, you're not the first)

  • The Community Host on on 7.21.2008 at 11:38 AM

    The Community Host avatar

    All sounds great! Very exciting future for Community Server. Also can't wait to get our hands on Evolution and start 'having a play'.

    Seems like a sensible call regarding themes. However, a few questions:

    With the CS 2008.1 'add-on' would it remove the Lean & Green, and Calypso themes from a CS2008 installation?

    How will it work for a new installation. Will CS2008.1 be a complete installation package or rather more like the Service Packs, i.e. containing only updated files?

    Will we be able to merge our template CS2008 installation with CS2008.1?

    Apologies for all the questions but having just spent considerable time 'fixing' a customers Lean & Green theme it is of particular interest. Also it would be a shame to not be able to offer them an upgraded feature set just becuase they favour the 'Lean & Green' theme.

  • afscrome on on 7.21.2008 at 12:16 PM

    afscrome avatar

    I've been thinking a bit more about what The Community Host said about the removal of the leanandgreen (and calypso) themes.

    How far did you get with upgrading said themes to CS2008.1? If you got much beyond the versions in CS2008 SP1, when the CS2008.1 Beta or final version comes out, might it be possible for someone to get hold of what you got up to and continue it as a community method (maybe upload them to Codeplex)

  • Josh Ledgard on on 7.21.2008 at 12:49 PM

    Josh Ledgard avatar

    CS 2008.1 will be a complete installation and also support upgrades from previous versions of CS. If you are using Lean & Green you can still upgrade to CS 2008.1, but you won't (obviously) get new features like the Wiki.

    Yes, we will most likely release the non-shipping themes (as is) on Codeplex and are also likely to contribute to those themes over time.

  • afscrome on on 7.21.2008 at 2:20 PM

    afscrome avatar

    That's brilliant Josh,

    If / when you do that, you can add me to the list of people who are willing to contribute.

  • برامج on on 7.22.2008 at 4:09 AM

    برامج avatar

    gooood

  • slnavn2000 on on 7.23.2008 at 12:35 AM

    slnavn2000 avatar

    oh, all sound great. But I sad when hear CS 2008.1 not support for "LeanAndGreen" theme, because this theme is beautiful and our customers is like it very much.

  • Jesse Kliza on on 7.23.2008 at 9:38 AM

    Jesse Kliza avatar

    Hi Josh,

    This is great. We are looking forward to the wiki and QnA functionality.

    Will the bug that causes posts to be marked as unread for everyone again when they are edited (even admins updating tags), be fixed in this release?

    Thanks again for all the great work!

  • Thomas Goddard on on 7.26.2008 at 1:17 AM

    Thomas Goddard avatar

    What exactly does Intranet only mean? Is that a license restriction only or is there some other reason that it's intranet only? Would be interested in this for a MOSS internet facing solution.

    Cheers.

  • ElizabethO on on 8.08.2008 at 9:23 PM

    ElizabethO avatar

    Looking forward to it!

  • Arne Helseth on on 8.11.2008 at 10:07 AM

    Arne Helseth avatar

    Surely it has been a couple weeks by now? Any further information on this new release would be greatly appreciated as we're trying to decide whether to integrate our own Wiki into an existing CS2008 site or just wait for 2008.1 :)

  • Daniel on on 8.12.2008 at 4:20 AM

    Daniel avatar

    I'm in a similar situation Arne. Keen to know the details!

Comments are closed