One of the major things that you probably would like to change in your Elgg Social Network website is the index page, as the default index page is showing only the latest activities of the Social Network , but maybe you would like to show more and make your Social Network has more life.
In this post I am going to show you how to make a custom index page for your Elgg community website by using the “Custom Modular Index” as I have tried different code I found them at the Elgg community, nothing was working for me at the beginning, and I spend lots of time testing them with no use, until I found the right one, the right code that really works for me.
View demo on My Life Thinking community. Or at Mimundo.
This is a “Two column left sidebar” custom index page , I will give you some notes and information about how to use it the very simple way:
From where I can download the plugin?
You can download the plugin by visiting the Elgg community, and grab the version I am using in this example , thanks to Jonathan Rico. Or simple by clicking the link below to download it from my personal server, it’s the same version. I only have updated the content.php page in a way to help you edit easier. And actually I am saving this copy here for my work. If you would like to have.. then it here it is:
Download Custom Modular Index 2.0 for Elgg 1.1 and 1.2
Features:
- content : someting welcome text.
- discusion: show groups forum (in develoup)
- latest : last files or grups publics in elgg
- newforun : last messages in groups forum
- newgroup: icon of new groups
- newuser: icon of the new users (have picture or not)
- tags: tagscloud in your index
How to set up?
Simply by exctract the file on your computer and upload it to the mod folder.
Where I can find the files to edit the views?
At this URL mod\customindex\views\default\customindex
Note that you can change the look and feel the way you like, and add or change colors, by adding styles to the css.php.
You can also open the content.php file and edit it, put what ever you would like to show on top of the content area, like a short description of your community, rules, photo, or just a simple invitation and a link to sign-up page. You will find an example will help you to start by editing the code.
Here is how my old index look like, Click on the photo to get a full view:
Here is after activating the plugin and adding text and a link to my register page, I have edited only the content.php page in this example, Click on the photo to get a full view.
Interesting on Making Money from Elgg?
Read this also if you would like to show AdSense or 125×125 banner ads on your Elgg social network, this is an update for the Custom-Index plugin that you will like to have on your social network Application: How to Add Google AdSense and Advertising Banners to your Elgg Powered Social Network!
Don’t forget to check out my latest posts about Elgg, you may find it useful.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
great work…thank you so much…..it’s very helpful…
@ Orbit – You are welcome, enjoy your time on my blog!
^__^ thenks for that
zen Darkness’s last blog post..¿Cómo ser un profesor youtube?
You are welcome “zen” , you have a nice Spanish page!
Nice blog Bro. very informative!
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Welcome to my blog Kulas, I appreciate your visit!
hello,i want to to ask how i will unzip themes from elgg.org.i download them and are in an uknown type of files with numbers as a name.please help me
@ Panos – probably this is because you don’t have any unzip program installed on your computer, you can use WinRare or unzip, personally I use WinRare, you can get it from here http://www.win-rar.com/downloadnow.html
Thank you for your comment.
Hi from Spain
Superb!
@ Pepe – Well.. hello there
Thanks for this. I’m still learning. Where do I find the content.php file to replace your banner with one for our site ? And is it easy to do ?
Appreciate the help. Thank you.
@John, Yes.. it’s not that difficult, you will find the files on the theme folder here:
views\default\page_elements
open the files header.php & footer.php and check them, you will find the code delete it and replace yours.
Good luck!
Firstly thank you very much!
And then I have a few questions,
if I input some discussions it is shown my index page but, the Latest discussion topic and background are the same colour and the topic can not be read How can I change the topics name ?
I also want to add mouseover effect how can I add this effect for latest activity, and Latest discussion.
And how can I for example lastest videos, or lastest photos box ?
Thank you. Can.
Can’s last blog post..Elgg v1.5 Teması İndir !
Very good info but a little techie for me. let me try though!
Hesham,
Excellent plugin, will be very usefull to amateurs like myself. I was hoping you could shed some light on an idea that I am not sure how to implement. I want to include the registration on my index, and am guessing I have to embed it within the index page? Could you possibly share some sample code on how this would be accomplished?
Thanks again for the plugin!
Any chance you will have a way to do this in 1.5? This is very awesome btw and thanks for posting such a great article!
.-= Ricky´s last blog ..The Ricky Show Friends Network: TheRickyShow =-.
You have great stuff here some of the plugin’s are great,thanks.
.-= Jerzy´s last blog ..Network Marketing From Home updated Sun Aug 30 2009 10:55 am CDT =-.
Hi, are you able to guide me though what i have to do to customise my index page to have one image and the login boxes only. This is all new to me, THanks
That plugin is very nice. Good job on creating a custom index page and teaching people how to do it.
-Kai
This looks awesome…
Problem is, it doesnt work on our install (1.7 with yoguyz theme)
Is it compatible with 1.7? If not, would it take much to tweak it so it was?
Im willing to pay
Cool plugin,. This is a help for a newbie here like me. Great post!
.-= mobsguy´s last blog ..My Online Business Strategy System =-.
Thanks for the tutorial this is very helpful…