New "Group" Component/Plugin under developement

Hi,

I am currently working on my very first Joomla Component (and my first php program as well :blush:) as I couldn't find a Component/Plugin that does what I needed. It's meant to go along with Community Builder but may work without it too.

It's intended for creating groups/squads... temporary name: JGroups (bow to my creativity! )

I am posting this in case there is some interest in something like this and maybe there is a knowledgeable Joomla programer who can have a look at my code once in a while to make sure I am not including serious security flaws.

If there allready exits a plugin/component like this please tell me so I don't just waste my time :dry:

What it does at the moment:

-Registered users can create a new group (fields are fixed at the moment, if there is demand this may be changed)
-New groups need to be approved by an admin (admin level setable, auto approve setable)
-Users can join an existing group (either auto approve or group creator approves members)
-Search/Sortable group list
-Group Details with memberlist
-Group creator and admins can change group information at any time
-Group creator / admin can approve/disapprove members and set their "status"
-Modified Comprofiler Moderator to show a message when there are unpublished groups
-Support for language files

What I am about to implement:
-Communtiy Builder Plugin that shows the users Group information
-Invite users to group by pms
-Make it installable in case there is some interest
-members status decides wether he can administer the group
-Create a backend admininstration for the settings
-Scrap the whole thing because my initial design is a dead end???

If it pans out well there is a lot more I have in mind to make this thing useable for more then just display a list of groups along with some information. Like a group blog (gonna steal this from mamblog ), group events (hope this is implementable into an existing calendar), group pms (group admins can mass mail members, maybe the cb pms plugin can be used) .......

You can find a demo of my current version at adventjugend.ndwdesign.net
It's all in german right now but you can find it under "Jugendgruppen" in the main menu on the left and, in case you register, under "Jugendgruppen eintragen" in the user menu on the left.

The site is under developement too so you may encounter uncounted bugs and errors :whistle:

I am looking for your input as I know there are a lot of very knowledgeable people around here.

Thansk in advance

Nils

sounds like GroupJive ....

Hi,
There is already a plugin and component called "GroupJive" but it's very unlikely that you dont know of it yet since theres even a board about it on this forum. That Extension has almost all of the above listed features already.

However it would be nice if you could actually give it more support than they do (they dont even have a current release that is working). And alot more features of cours...

Logo, Clan settable Position Names and access (e.g. Elite, Corporal, Seargent for this clan, Dog, Bunny, Rabbit for the other, lol)

Also a more advanced Blog System with advanced features.

Alot more features.

Dang! Looks like have been living und a rock the lasts months...
But to my defense I have to say that GroupJive does not seem to be listed in the Joomla Extensions directory and that's the way I usually search for components.

But I also have to say that I am kind of proud that the features that are in my lil' component to compare to bad to GroupJive considering that I have only been working on it for a week, started from scratch and knew very little about the Joomla Framework, mysql and php.

And to be true it looks like GroupJive in it's current form wouldn't fullfil the needs of my project perfectly. So I don't regret the work that went into it to much.

I don't really want to compete against GroupJive, that doesn't seem very productive to me and being a one man show I wouldn't stand a fighting chance anyway

Guess I will fiddle around it till GroupJive comes to a point when I can deploy it instead and meanwhile enjoy the learning curve.

There are some things I like better about my one allready and I really have to keep an eye on making it as simple as possible to use (i.e. foolproof :side:). Not sure if it would be an option for me to join the GroupJive Dev team.

So if anybody is interested in the further developement let me know as I will go on with it for the time being. At least at my own special pace.

Btw. does anybody know if there is a clanwar component for joomla besides the vwar bridge?

Hello, nice to listing to you that another person wants to create joomla components/extensions.
But., i think you must save you're breath. Groupjive component is under development, and i can see that the groupjive programmers are very good. See it working on groupjive.org, maybe you can join the dev. team! I think we need all the hands we can get! It's a nice component, with already: group logo, intergration with joomlaboard and much more!
good luck

I surely don't want to give the GroupJive team any competition as they probably know what they're doing in opposite to me.

I'll keep it as a learning project and wait with making any contributions till I am actually able to give so real help and not just garble up their code :whistle:

"It's mine! It's mine. My precious!" - Golumn