We have just released a minor version fixing problems with Facebook login. Facebook recently renewed their login protocol, a change which unfortunately was not backwards compatible. To upgrade, download version 0.5.1 and overwrite files on your server. Then, login to Drupal as administrator and clear the cache.
Community Tools has hooked up with the global Transition Network. Transition Network supports community-led responses to climate change and shrinking supplies of cheap energy, building resilience and happiness. With hundreds of initiatives all around the world having independent websites there’s a growing need to structure all the information.
The project has an ambition to support the provision a ‘website in a box’ service for Transition Initiatives around the world in multiple languages, all connected, easy to use, with key features like mapping local areas, swapping objects, news, forums etc.
Technical work has been given a headstart by Community Tools platform, with earlier planning and design work done by Transitioners in The USA and The UK in the Transition Towns Drupal group.
We’ll keep you updated about further developments.
Community Forge and Community Tools are pleased to announce their intention to work together on a software platform to support the activities of real-world communities. We intend to build reusable software components and supply them to local governments and community groups who understand the profound need to build local infrastructure and organise at the local level.
The two nonprofits have independently developed hosted community software which is in use by to around 40 communities each. Both organisations are poised to move to the next level of engagement, and feel that by joining forces they are able to present a more viable proposition.
Community Forge brings to the table its understanding of community money systems and a web of relationships and expertise. Community Tools has experience in organizing local communities, working with local governments and the capacity to take on medium-sized IT contracts.
Both organisations are committed to open-source development, and to making everything produced as re-usable as possible. “These are interesting times. The people and communities who will thrive in the next decade will be those who take matters into their own hands now.” said Matthew Slater, of Community Forge. The two organisations seek to build partnerships with Transition Towns, TimeBanks, the LETS movement, and with local governments.
Contact
http://communitytools.info • Madle Lippus (kaku@communitytools.info)
http://communityforge.net •Tim Anderson (tim@communityforge.net)
It’s been couple of months now since our last release. During the summer months we’ve been busy wireframing and planning out the next major relase of Community Tools.
Version 2 will bring radically redesigned user interface. First, we give up displaying the half-width map on each page and show a small map widget related to each post instead. In addition, there will be one full-page map displaying all the site information in one place. Also, we are working on customizing the site desing – we want each CT site being unique and personal.
Technology wise, we move from Drupal 6 to version 7, which gives us a chance to review the whole internal architecture. While the first versions used a lot of custom code, our next generation will mostly rely on features offered by Drupal and it’s add-ons.
As of today, we are playing with the first working inhouse prototype, hoping to release the public alpha of Communtiy Tools 2 in late September.
Please stay tuned!
Our long-awaited sharing tool Stuffarium is now ready! Version 0.5 includes a number of improvements.
This sharing tool is excellent for sharing your stuff with your neighbors, be it books, rare dvd-s, music, machinery, vehicles or your skills. No need to buy a drill if you use it only once. Add new tool to your site menu, choose tool type Stuff and be ready to upload stuff you’re willing to share. It’s as easy as adding an article.
If you have found what you want to borrow, you can easily send e-mail notice to the owner. In case the owner accepts your request, the object will get a status “not available”.
As your return date is approaching you will be sent an automatic notice about it. It’ll be sent repeatedly until the owner updates object status that it’s available again. Messages about stuff will be sent to the owner as well.
Stuffarium is not yet supported by map for privacy reasons.
Member’s detail view shows availability status, so you can see whos online at the same time as you.
Fix: members list is split by pages. It didn’t work in case you had klicked on first letter or “View all”. Now it’s fixed.
So far, only 10 posts per page were shown in articles, ideas, problems, places, events. Now there are 25 posts shown on one page. On members and stuff pages, 75 items are displayed on one page, instead of previous 50.
Longer articles have intro and link “Read more” which displays full text on the same page.
You can now edit article tools settings by latest comments, so that articles that have been commented recently, are on top positsion. That gives you the opportunity to create forum like menu items that show hot topics first.
We have replaced previous photo upload tool, which got broken with last software update. With this new photo upload feature you can browse other files already in your server.
- File preview thumbnails are increased a bit.
- Facebook Like button was shifted, cause Fb made some changes to Like feature. We’ve adjusted the alignment and it looks ok now.
- We’ve reduced spacing in articles’ subject line.
- Some detail views of one post had a useless grey line, we erased it.
- Tags backgound is now brighter, to distinguish better from buttons.
Some new features added to general platform.
This is a brand new tool for locating companies, service providers, scenic places, tourist sights on map. What differs from article tool, are special fields for contact details (name, phone, e-mail, website). Categories are visible in the list of places and you can easily narrow the list down to specific categories that you need.
In case you are already using “Articles” tool to map places, please contact us for further information on how to transfer data from “Articles” to “Places”.
All events that are currently actual are shown in the default list of events (previously events that had started, were removed from the list).
We’ve added calendar on top of the events list, now you can instantly see dates when something’s happening. Click on the date and you’ll see all events that are going on that day.
Fix: events are archived now and you can check back in time and see what happened a month (or 6 months ago).
Fix: all new lines in first post of a topic where remover. Now line changes are fixed.
You can now switch on/off information layers dispayed on map.
Hovering over a point on map with the cursor shows the name of pointed location.
Map moving buttons are illustrated with icons and are displayed correctly with Internet Explorer.
When clicking on “+Add point” button a helping notice appears (Click on the map to add new point).
You can import articles and places to your site via RSS feeds. This can be set in “+Add tool” window after you have chosen tool type “Articles” or “Map” and the field of “RSS import settings” is displayed. Click “Save” and all the data will be imported instantly. Afterwords data will be imported periodically. All RSS, Atom and GeoRSS feeds are suitable for import.
User profile includes language option and users are able to select preferred language of the interface (English, Estonian). E-mail notifications will use the same language as set in user profile.
E-mail notifications include intro of first 200 words from posted text content. In case an Article is longer it’ll end with … and a referring link to the site.
Tool settings in “+Add tool” window are now grouped and are opened with a click.
Tags, categories, labels – however you name it, they’ve got the new looks.
Content can be shared via e-mail now.
Site admins can add Google Analytics account number here: sitename/admin/settings/googleanalytics.
A lot of other smaller fixes have been executed.
Enjoy!
Our default userface is in English. In addition, all releases contain Estonian translation. For other languages we have set up a localization project hosted by Crowdin.net.
You can translate the interface here: http://crowdin.net/project/community-tools. This is an online service which allows you to enter translation for all the strings in our software. You need to register and become a member, though.
After you finish, you can download translation files and import those into your site. If you agree, it would be excellent if we could include your translations in our future releases.
Numerous improvements are now available with CT version 0.3.
Login and register
- Link to ‘Register’ is added to login window
- Registration form is now protected with captcha
- Fix: login with ID-card is now fixed for Internet Explorer users
Map
- “Move map” and “Add point” buttons are now more visible
- Cursor on map shows the regime you’ re using (‘move map’ or ‘add point’)
- When Google Maps is used as a base layer, you can zoom in a lot closer than previously
- Fix: in a detail view of an item, it is now possible to add another item on map
Dashboard
- Dashboard view is redesigned to match with all the other styles used on site
- Fix: files are now displayed correctly in dashoard view
Events
- Event dates are now more visible
- Events have registration deadlines. After deadline new attendings are not registered but list of participants is still visible.
Ideas
- When adding a new idea, you can instantly share this post to your Facebook wall (by simply ticking a box). You must be logged in to Facebook to do that.
Problems
- Problem status and label color are changed immediately after you have ticked the box and clicked save.
- Administrators can use previously generated replies. Templates of replies can be defined here: sitename/admin/build/cmtls/problems.
- Fix: when a post in Problem tool was opened in detail view and saved, its status was automatically changed to solved. Now, status will only be changed if the box is ticked.
Gallery
- Album description is now visible
Forum
- Theme subject is followed by theme description
Group members
- Group members list is divided to pages and can be filtered by the first letter of members’ first name
Dashboard on group page
- This is a new page that gives overview of total actions and updates in this group.
Group list
- Fix: group list didn’t show points on map that were inserted by sub-groups
Members
- Members list view has advanced a great deal
- Members profile views are completely redesigned
E-mail notifications
- Instead of ‘Community Tools’ e-mail footer displays ‘Site name’ and link to configure your notification settings
- Fix: previous software update messed up the format of daily notifications (e-mail content and group names were mixed up).
User interface
- Every tool page has a header with tool name and buttons (‘add new’, ‘search’)
- The size of ‘filter’ button is now smaller, looking like a regular search icon
- Content pages can have a footer area. First you need to create a new block (sitename/admin/build/block), then add it to ‘Footer’ region.
- Text area in content page is framed
- Previously when fullpage map view was used, empty white box appeared on the left next to map, it’s now removed.
- Edit buttons are redesigned
- New translations and styles are added to ‘+add point’ window which appears on map.
Other
- Previously site header displayed ‘Site name > current group name’. Now ‘Site name’ is followed by ‘current group name’ only if you’re on another sub-groups’ page. ‘Site name’ (which is also used in automatically generated e-mail notifications) can be modified here: sitename /admin/settings/site-information.
- CT settings are now better organized in Drupal administration page: sitename/admin/build/cmtls
- People using earlier versions than Internet Explorer 8 are now notified about software and browser incompatibility
- Fix: Facebook like button and photo displays are now working correctly even when content is divided into several pages.
- Fix: in CT version 0.2 it was not possible to delete comments.
Viljandi is a town and municipality in southern Estonia with population approximately 20 000 people. We have built a special site for Viljandi (minu.viljandi.ee) to involve people in decision making concerning city environment and to improve the communication between citizens and the city officials.
Problem reporting tool
People can easily report and map problems or issues that bother them. City officials receive a notice about new item and they address it to person who is responsible in that certain field. Officials can comment and change the status of the problem (reported/completed/on hold/denied).
Initiative tool
Another tool allows people to initiate new ideas. Other can comment ideas, vote for or against it. All content can be shared via social media.
These tools are available for all communities, included in the installation package (see Download page).
.. to spread the community message. How to bring positive change to your neighborhood? Is there someone else with similar thoughts, wishes and views? How to find them and involve into action? How to build community spirit in your neighborhood? What are the best means for doing this?
These are the main subject we’ll be talking about this month. Our tour takes us to Rakvere, Viljandi and Pärnu. We’ll be sharing the experience of New World Society – a cool neighborhood in Tallinn and introduce some successful cases around the world. And of course how Community Tools can help you in these matters.
Seminar schedule:
February 5th – Rakvere
February 14th – Viljandi
March 2nd – Pärnu
Eesti keeles