Ben Tiedt

Community Server 2008 Hack-a-thon

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:26:47 GMT

One of the fun benefits of working for Telligent is the ability to participate in regular "hack-a-thon" contests. These contests usually involve working with a new feature or product and result in great prizes! Last week, while the Community...(read more)

What is a Good Online Video Service for Screencasts?

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:59:44 GMT

I'd like to start posting more video-based demonstrations and walk-throughs of theming and customizing Community Server, but I don't really want to store the videos on my shared web host (and pay for storage and bandwidth). What is a good online...(read more)

Community Server 2008 - Groups Overview

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Mon, 05 May 2008 22:35:55 GMT

Community Server 2008 includes a new feature, Groups. Groups are miniature community sites within the larger community site, similar to Google- or Yahoo-groups. Each Group has its own content, membership, and permissions. What's in a Group? A group...(read more)

Dynamic Navigation Add On for Community Server

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:04:00 GMT

Common requests for new users of Community Server are "how do I edit the navigation bar?", "how do I add a second level of navigation items?", and "how do I add drop-down menus to the navigation items?" In all of these cases...(read more)

Community Server 2008 - Centralized File System (CFS) Overview

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:01:00 GMT

In Community Server 2007 and earlier versions, the many file-related features (post attachments, site files, blog files, avatars, role icons, etc) all implemented their own file management logic and supported (a) storing files in the database (b) storing...(read more)

Community Server 2008 - Implementing Custom File Viewers

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:13:00 GMT

File viewers are the unsung heroes that make Community Server 2008 media-friendly. They implement the support for viewing and resizing images, viewing uploaded and remote video files, viewing video from online video services, and playing uploaded and...(read more)

Improved Chameleon Documentation for Community Server 2008

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:26:14 GMT

The updates to the official documentation sites are still a little way out, so, in the meantime, I've gotten permission to post the new, improved Chameleon control documentation on this site. Here it is: CS2008 Chameleon Documentation The new Chameleon...(read more)

Community Server 2008 - How to Implement Custom Widgets

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:38:00 GMT

After adding support for widgets in custom themes , it may be useful to create a few custom widgets. Widgets in Community Server 2008 (internally identified as content fragments) are server-side .net classes implementing the CommunityServer.Components...(read more)

Community Server 2008 - How to Support Widgets in a Custom Theme

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 23:56:00 GMT

After updating a custom theme for CS2008 , support for widgets can be added. Community Server 2008 provides built-in support for extending Dynamic Theme Configuration to support selecting custom widgets to be displayed within a theme. CS2008 includes...(read more)

Community Server 2008 - How to Upgrade Themes from CS2007 to CS2008

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:28:00 GMT

My last article outlined the changes made to Chameleon and Theming between CS2007 and CS2008 and could be used as a guide for an in-depth, manual upgrade of a CS2007 theme to CS2008. In this article, however, I'll provide my suggested approach to...(read more)

Community Server 2008 - Changes to Chameleon

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:22:00 GMT

In this post, I'll outline the changes to the Chameleon theming engine (and themes in general) between Community Server 2007 and Community Server 2008. If you're interested in the changes to themes between an earlier version of Community Server...(read more)

Community Server 2008 - Notes, Changes, and New Features

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:05:30 GMT

As announced earlier today , Community Server 2008 is now available ! CS2008 includes many exciting new features: embedded video and audio, real friend support, widgets, mini-communities a.k.a. groups, improved messaging, and more. To help everyone make...(read more)

Potterville High School Class of 1998 10 Year Reunion

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:00:00 GMT

I was supposed to help plan the 5 year reunion for the Potterville High School Class of '98 that, as far as I know, completely didn't happen. Now that it's time for the 10 year reunion, there is a group of us trying to get something planned...(read more)

Watch Theming Community Server from CSDC'07 (Part 1)

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:02:00 GMT

Part one of Wyatt and my talk about theming Community Server from CSDC '07 is now available on the Telligent web site. This video provides an overview of Community Server theming, URL rewriting, and the Chameleon theming language. Go watch it now...(read more)

Dynamic Configuration in Graffiti CMS

Ben Tiedt's Blog — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 21:04:00 GMT

As was mentioned at the CSDC'07 back in October, Dynamic Configuration support is being used in more places. Today, it was announced that Graffiti CMS (a new product by Telligent ) now supports global variables. This feature is implemented using the...(read more)