First Impressions of Community Server
I downloaded and installed community server last night, and I wanted to
give my first reaction after playing around with it for a bit.
give my first reaction after playing around with it for a bit.
The main difference, to me, between cs and .Text
was the install. I want to make this very clear: the installation of CS
is EXTREMELY EASY. You can practically install this and get up and
running by accident its so easy. Major, major improvements over .Text.
You unzip the files, create a virtual directory and browse to the web
based installer. It asks you the location of the sql server, the
username/password and then presto, done. I had one minor roadblock,
which was my own doing, I got a web.config error because I have asp.net
2.0 installed, if you have this installed, you need to manually tell
IIS to use v1.1. You do this by going to the property pages of you IIS
application, and select the ASP.NET tab. There you can select which
version of the runtime to use, piece of cake.
was the install. I want to make this very clear: the installation of CS
is EXTREMELY EASY. You can practically install this and get up and
running by accident its so easy. Major, major improvements over .Text.
You unzip the files, create a virtual directory and browse to the web
based installer. It asks you the location of the sql server, the
username/password and then presto, done. I had one minor roadblock,
which was my own doing, I got a web.config error because I have asp.net
2.0 installed, if you have this installed, you need to manually tell
IIS to use v1.1. You do this by going to the property pages of you IIS
application, and select the ASP.NET tab. There you can select which
version of the runtime to use, piece of cake.
Aside from the fantastic installation, one of
the first things I noticed was in the user/blog administration. They
have removed the notion of one user/one blog. In CS you can create
users, and you can create blogs, they are independant of each other.
After you create a blog, you can then assign as many owners to that
blog as you want. I think this is a great feature for group blogs and our link blog, it
makes it very simple to manage, everyone can have their own
personal blog as well, without having to log into different accounts to
manage their different blogs. This style of managing users and blogs separately had me
confused at first, but after I figured out how it worked I decided that
I liked the setup.
the first things I noticed was in the user/blog administration. They
have removed the notion of one user/one blog. In CS you can create
users, and you can create blogs, they are independant of each other.
After you create a blog, you can then assign as many owners to that
blog as you want. I think this is a great feature for group blogs and our link blog, it
makes it very simple to manage, everyone can have their own
personal blog as well, without having to log into different accounts to
manage their different blogs. This style of managing users and blogs separately had me
confused at first, but after I figured out how it worked I decided that
I liked the setup.
One of the things that always annoyed me about
.text was the login page to your blog. You couldn’t enter your username
and password and press the “Enter” key to submit the form, you always
had to move the mouse to click “Login”, I know its nitpicky, but it
always bugged me! In CS you can press enter to login, so my universe is
now in order again
.text was the login page to your blog. You couldn’t enter your username
and password and press the “Enter” key to submit the form, you always
had to move the mouse to click “Login”, I know its nitpicky, but it
always bugged me! In CS you can press enter to login, so my universe is
now in order again
So Community Server looks to be awesome, I’ve
only had it for a few hours, but I already can’t wait until we upgrade
codebetter to use CS, I’m especially looking forward to the integration
of forums, I think it will facilitate our discussions better than
having huge conversation logs in our gmail accounts.
only had it for a few hours, but I already can’t wait until we upgrade
codebetter to use CS, I’m especially looking forward to the integration
of forums, I think it will facilitate our discussions better than
having huge conversation logs in our gmail accounts.
Look for Geoff to have a much more in-depth review, I only messed with it for a few hours, I’m sure hes going to put it through the motions more than I have.
Anonymous said,
Wrote on February 20, 2005 @ 4:53 pm
Yah, that install process is pretty damn sweet. I was most impressed.
Are you a firefox user? How do you find the new post page? I noticed it’s freetextbox 3, but it seems a little different to the standard downloadable one.
Anonymous said,
Wrote on February 20, 2005 @ 7:40 pm
Yeah, I use firefox, it does look a little different some of the buttons are in different places, and I noticed that the font dropdown works
Anonymous said,
Wrote on February 20, 2005 @ 9:26 pm
They’ve made some big changes it seems. Don’t know if it telligent or the ftb crew, but the dll version for freetextbox is slightly smaller than for both 3.0.0 and 3.0.1, but has a higher build number than the one that comes with the 3.0.1 download
Anonymous said,
Wrote on February 20, 2005 @ 9:30 pm
Sorry, but where I said:
but the dll version for freetextbox is slightly smaller
I meant:
but the dll file size for freetextbox is slightly smaller
Anonymous said,
Wrote on February 21, 2005 @ 2:09 am
There seems to be a wrapper used around FTB…guess ther might be trying to fix some of the ‘issues’ and reduce dependencies. I’m waiting for the Source Code release before I upgrade…
Anonymous said,
Wrote on February 21, 2005 @ 7:06 am
I agree with Scott, definitely want to have the source before upgrading, it’ll be nice because we could even modify it before upgrading, theres really no rush.
Anonymous said,
Wrote on February 21, 2005 @ 8:25 am
"You can practically install this and get up and running by accident its so easy."
I agree, the installer is excellent. I think it sets a new standard for web app installers. Can’t wait to see the source!
Anonymous said,
Wrote on February 21, 2005 @ 8:53 am
"I agree, the installer is excellent. I think it sets a new standard for web app installers."
I love the new web installer, but I have to disagree with this statement that it sets a new standard for web app installers. I only say this because I think it’s more like an example of an ASP.NET web application that’s finally catching up to a standard that’s long been in place for a number of other open sourced web applications, mostly ones written in PHP and/or Perl/CGI. I’ve used a number of web applications like pMachine, WordPress, MoveableType, etc. that had this type of web-based installer for a long time. Something I always thought was missing from .Text and other ASP.NET applications (nGallery is another example). The windows-based installers that these apps have come with in the past have been nice and helpful, but they don’t do much for those of us with hosting accounts where we don’t have physical or even TS access to the server. So the web-based installer was long overdue, and I was extremely pleased to see CS ship with it. Props to the Telligent crew. I can’t wait to get setup with CS myself. Gonna have to wait for the .Text migration tool though.
Anonymous said,
Wrote on February 21, 2005 @ 2:36 pm
Well, that just goes to show you, how I should get out more.
I’ve gotten to be quite adept at hacking these things, so that they work in a shared hosting environment. It’s almost always a pain. so when CS did it’s thing, I just sat there drooling.