So when I decided to finally do something with the domain name(s) that I had been hoarding for the last few years, I knew that I had better use the best community software on the planet. Community Server from the guys at Telligent Systems was just what I was looking for.
So I went through about a week of trying out the various install packages to get it all working and finally settled on the SDK since the developer in me wanted to make some modifications to the package. I was pleased to see such a community had already spring up around this subject at the Community Server forums. So off I went to getting it modified.
First: I found some site themes that I could use to get the site looking different. Though I liked the latest theme, I just couldn’t go with what the rest of the population was going with, not even as a first pass. So I settled with the Royale-Blue theme from Nick at NB Development. This was an easy install, just un-zip and go.
Next: I set off to actually get the theme in place. After some searching on the forums, I found that the main way of doing this was to rename the default theme to something else then rename the theme you wanted (Royale-Blue) to ‘default’. This was ok but I was not thrilled with the idea. Then I stumbled across this post:
http://communityserver.org/forums/thread/523845.aspx
Where darcyl came up with the mod I thought I was looking for. It involved making changes to the control library to allow the ‘ThemeName’ property to be set so that I could then set the theme in the container files. This was cool but has been proving a bit unmaintainable. I am now working on my own mod to read that setting in from the AppSettings key. Stay Tuned.
Next: I then found the FCK Editor wrapper and loved the enhanced editing abilities, so I set up the SDK to use that as the default text editor. This is working out well. You can find out how to use that here:
http://nimtug.org/files/12/editors/entry70.aspx
Lastly, I installed Scott W’s modules so that I could add the “Share It” module to the bottom of my post. I like the idea that the module ties into app events to know when to emit it. I am currently looking at changing the source so that I don't share as much :).
Thats it for now. Next I am going to be looking into trying to get some google ads running as well as changing up the home pages to be more user friendly. If anyone is interested in being a .NET Geek let me know what you would like to blog about and I may get you hooked up.
UPDATE: I had to back out the whole setting the Theme name on the master pages. In the end it proved to unstable as well as too hard to update. I ended up renaming the default folder then creating a new default with the site theme I wanted.