CS 2008 is definitely a step in the right direction for the Community Server platform, however to me it still feels like an unfinished product. There are lots of features that we get asked for that we have to build on top of CS, things that personally I think should be included especially at the current CS price points. So, this is my wishlist, hope it helps.
Here goes:
10. Calendars: Every client of ours wants a calendar, one that each member can post events to and then filtering options for public/friends/private events and a aggregate view for the home page and such.
9. Member blogs: CS has blogs, but only for the site admin to blog about stuff. The members should have the ability to create their own blogs.
8. Subscribe to member: It would be nice to have the ability to subscribe to a member, so that anything they post can trigger an email to the subscribers. This can also impact popularity, i.e. people with more subscribers are more popular.
7. Group comment page: Similar to Facebook's Wall. Speaking of groups, I really like this feature in CS2008, but why is it so limited? 25 groups for the pro edition is way low. If people want to do geographic groups 25 is nowhere near enough. Also if we want people to create their own groups, 25 is too small.
6. Different member types: People want to offer advanced member types for more disk space or businesses or some other classification of member.
5. Captcha! Please, this should be standard with any social networking package. There are too many bots out there. Needs to be on the registration page.
4. Contact form. Now that CS is more than just forums and blogs, we need a general site contact form. I have only been able to find specific contact forms in blogs and groups and such.
3. Photo albums: Now that we have a media gallery, we really need a way for members to organize their photos into albums. This is separate from tags. Ideally, this should include a way to organize photos too.
2. Normal PMs: I still don't understand why we don't have normal PM functionality. This is so incredibly common on other sites, and always includes unread PM notifications. We had a halfway decent version of PMs in CS 2007, but in CS 2008 we now have these very confusing conversations. Please just make a normal PM feature. Ideally, it would include an Inbox and Sent message views.
1. Upload progress bars: I have more upload issues than anything else, and I think part of it is due to people uploading large files and not understanding what is happening, so they hit back or press Upload again or whatever that kills the upload. We need to notify them with progress bars or something.
Please don't read this as a CS complaint post. I am really trying to be constructive and I am just hearing so many things from our clients and I want CS to be better. I hope some or all of this helps with the future direction.
Thanks for listening,
Brandon
Hi Guys,
Thanks for getting this list going. It's great to read through. I'll be doing some blog posts soon about what's going to be in upcoming releases, but I wanted to address a couple now.
Basic Avatars: In the next release we've already checked in code that lets site admins upload a default set of avatars and choose a new "default" avatar for users that don't pick one. We've also improved the avatar selection process & UI in general.
Member Subscriptions: This should be availible in the current release with the activity messages we enabled. While we don't do e-mail subscriptions on member behavior (that would be pretty noisy) we do RSS.
Thanks,
Josh
For #9, I believe CS 2008 has the ability for members to create their own blogs. Sorry for the mistake.
I must say that I think that CS is a great tool but it can use some polish in some areas. If I can add some thngs to the list:
1a. Better error call outs what a user makes an error on a form field. People don't see the small * or know what to do with it.
2a. When a new user account is created and CS sends ths password to login for the first time CS should prompt the new user to change the password right after they login.
3a. Have a group of basic Avatars that a new user can select from.
4a. I know it's on the list but people have been asking for the Event Calendar for years!
5a. Better control of Title Tags and Meta Keyword tags on pages.
Good to hear about the avatars, thanks for that.
The subscriptions RSS feed is nice, but it doesn't allow us to determine how many people are subscribed to someone, thereby creating a popularity statistic. It also contains all of the comments that the user is posting, which are not desirable. The concept is straight from youtube, if I subscribe to a member, I would like to get an email every time they upload media, but not when they comment on someone else's profile. Forcing me to use a RSS reader is a bit too restrictive, as many people don't have RSS readers configured and ready to use.
Josh Ledgard:In the next release
Is that in a patch/update or are you talking about CS2009?
Josh Ledgard: I'll be doing some blog posts soon about what's going to be in upcoming releases
I'll be doing some blog posts soon about what's going to be in upcoming releases
Please, please, please let it be good news about media galleries (and auto-creation thereof for new users).
Another request: Love the widgitisation of the forums, blogs side bars.
It would be terrific if the dashbooard/home page were widgetised too.
"In the next release" - Communtiy Server 2008.1 (not the service pack) that will be out in the fall. and will be an upgrade expereince from CS 2008.
AndrewOrange: Another request: Love the widgitisation of the forums, blogs side bars. It would be terrific if the dashbooard/home page were widgetised too.
Do you mean by the end user or by the admin? if you had to pick one which would it be.
Josh Ledgard: Do you mean by the end user or by the admin? if you had to pick one which would it be.
Widgets
Oh, goodness, I don't think our users could cope with that! No, just for the admins for now. Purpose is twofold:
But at a push we can do these things by using developers.
Autocreate media galleries
But the big problem for us is the media galleries or - to be specific - lack of personal media galleries (traditionally used for photos) and - as far as I can see - the inability to autocreate personal galleries when users join. I have no idea how we could possibly upgrade this site, for instance.
Bulk uploads
Oh, and the ability for people to bulk upload photographs. Again - the biggest complaint of users of this site is that they have to upload pics one at a time.
All suggestions gratefully received!
@ Josh: by the admin, for now.
I am all for a upload progress bar, especially for uploading videos to the site!
I'd love to see the dashboard were customisable by the user. I.e. they could remove "boxes" of information they're not interested in and add boxes like: latest forum posts, latest blog posts, etc.
A bit like iGoogle.
But if it was editable by admins, that'd be good! Having the option to make it editable by admins or by all users would be ideal!
Absolutely agree. The dashboard is very clever but it is missing some tricks IMHO.
When I visit and land on the dashboard I don't need to see a list of my pictures and my blog posts. I know that already.
What I need to know is "what I've missed", "what's new", "what's going on" - most active threads, latest/most popular media files uploaded, latest blog posts.
It's great that I can immediately see what my friends have done but I need a broader horizon than that.