Book Image

Community Server Quickly

By : Anand Narayanaswamy
Book Image

Community Server Quickly

By: Anand Narayanaswamy

Overview of this book

Community Server is Telligent System's award-winning solution for quickly and easily enabling online communities. It includes a suite of integrated applications, such as blogs, discussion forums, photo sharing, file sharing, email lists, newsgroups, and more, which together can help you create your community presence. Community Server is the trusted solution for many organizations ranging from Microsoft and Dell to Conde Nast and Match.com, and powers massive communities like the Microsoft ASP.NET forums (www.asp.net/forums) and the XBOX forums (forums.xbox.com). You can learn more about Community Server, and see it in action, at http://www.communityserver.org. Written in a clear and concise manner, this book will guide you through the installation, administration, customization, and deployment of a Community Server solution. With the help of this book you will be able to start using your Community Server site within minutes of its installation. The book kicks off with a brief overview of Community Server, its various editions and licensing options, and installation procedures and then delves deep into the creation and management of blogs, forums, photo galleries, file galleries, and more. The book also explores the different ways you can customize your Community Server site along with coverage of various add-ons and modules. You will also learn how to manage your Community Server license and other related settings. Towards the end, the book provides an overview of the various steps required to deploy Community Server to a hosting server.

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Community Server Quickly
Anand Narayanaswamy
Nov, 2006 | 0 hours 0 minutes
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Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Community Server Quickly
Community Server Quickly
Credits
Credits
Foreword
Foreword
About the Author
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Introducing Community Server
Introducing Community Server
What is Community Server?
The Evolution
A Comparison with DotNetNuke (DNN)
Editions and Licensing
What's New in Community Server 3.0 (or Calypso)?
Summary
2
Getting Started with Community Server
Getting Started with Community Server
Prerequisites
Downloading Community Server
Installing Community Server
Configuring Community Server
Launching Community Server
Installing Community Server Using the Web Installer
Navigating the Control Panel Dashboard
Summary
3
Working with Blogs
Working with Blogs
Understanding Blogs
Blog Groups
Creating a Blog
Managing a Blog
Working with Global Settings
Rating Blog Posts
Managing Blogs Globally
Configuring Blogs for Members
Summary
4
Working with Forums
Working with Forums
A Brief History of Forums
Getting Started: A Sample Forum
Introduction to Creating Forums
Viewing Sample Forums
Posting a Thread as an Administrator
Posting the Message to the Forum
Threads versus Posts
Moderating Posts
Managing Forum Settings Globally
Working with Ranks
Analyzing the Forums Home Page of an Administrator
Analyzing the Forums Home Page of a User
Personalizing the Home Page
Summary
5
Working with Galleries
Working with Galleries
About Galleries
Building a Photo Gallery
Building a File Gallery
Viewing the Download Report
Summary
6
Working with Reader and Roller
Working with Reader and Roller
Overview
Working with Reader
Aggregating Feeds
Working with Roller
Managing Settings
Summary
7
Managing your Community's Users
Managing your Community's Users
The Community's Members
Getting Started
Searching
Browsing All Members
Creating a New Account
Managing Roles
Managing Registration Settings
Managing Account Profile Settings
Member List Settings
Managing Cookie and Anonymous Settings
Managing Avatar Settings
Summary
8
Customizing Community Server
Customizing Community Server
Customizing the Home Page
Modifying the Theme of your Site
Modifying the Theme of your Blog
Modifying Themes
Working with Add-ons
Using FreeTextBoxWrapper Control
Working with Modules
Creating Custom Links
Summary
9
Working with Settings
Working with Settings
Overview
Managing General Site Settings
Managing Site Content
Applications
Managing Contact Information
Managing RSS Settings
Managing Post Settings
Managing Date and Time Settings
Managing Email Settings
Tracking the IP Address
Summary
10
Working with Reports
Working with Reports
Overview
Working with the Exceptions Report
Filtering the Exceptions Report
Working with the Jobs Report
Reporting with Community Server
Working with SQL Jobs
Summary
11
Working with System Tools
Working with System Tools
Getting Started
Working with Ads
Working with Disallowed Names
Working with Censorship
Working with Smilies
Working with Articles
Working with Spam Blocker
Working with the Member Points System
Working with Licenses
Working with URL Redirects
Handling Mass Emails
Banning an IP Address
Working with Event Log Viewer
Summary
Deploying Community Server
Deploying Community Server
Registering a Domain Name
Obtaining a Web Space
Uploading Files

A Comparison with DotNetNuke (DNN)

DotNetNuke, popularly called DNN is a robust ASP.NET based application used to build a complete website.

The official website of DotNetNuke can be accessed at http://www.dotnetnuke.com.

You will find sites powered with DotNetNuke all over the Web. One of the unique features of DotNetNuke is that users can build and customize their site very easily using administration tools provided by the application. Moreover, advanced developers can tweak the source codes and implement their own functionalities. One such classic example of advanced customization is DotNetPanel ( http://www.dotnetpanel.com). It is a powerful hosting control panel for managing Windows 2003 Servers.

DotNetNuke ships with a simple discussion board but it does not contain all the features of Community server. It is not possible to create a blog or photo and file galleries using DotNetNuke. On the other hand, Community Server is mainly used for the creation of blogs, forums, photo and file galleries, reader, and for showcasing external blogs using roller. You can make use of both DotNetNuke and Community Server to create high quality website by taking advantage of the rich features provided by both applications. You can easily deploy them on a single website under two different directories since the technology used by both DotNetNuke and Community Server is ASP.NET. You only require a server that supports ASP.NET and SQL Server 2000 or greater. While DotNetNuke is available free of cost without any restrictions, Community Server is available as both free and paid for versions. The free version of Community Server is called Express and it has certain restrictions for usage. You will learn more about the different editions in the next section of this chapter.

A complete discussion regarding DotNetNuke is beyond the scope of this book. You are advised to refer to the books Building Websites with VB.NET and DotNetNuke 3.0 by Daniel N. Egan (ISBN 1‑904811‑27‑2) and Building Websites with VB.NET and DotNetNuke 4 by Daniel N. Egan, Michael A. Washington, and Steve Valenzula (ISBN 1‑904811‑99‑X) published by Packt Publishing.

A complete discussion regarding DotNetNuke is beyond the scope of this book. You are advised to refer to the books Building Websites with VB.NET and DotNetNuke 3.0 by Daniel N. Egan (ISBN 1‑904811‑27‑2) and Building Websites with VB.NET and DotNetNuke 4 by Daniel N. Egan, Michael A. Washington, and Steve Valenzula (ISBN 1‑904811‑99‑X) published by Packt Publishing.

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