Facebook clone
This page contain useful information on cloning facebook.com functionality with Elgg open source social network engine. Download Elgg here.
If you go to any clone scripts repository and look in facebook clone category you will find more scripts than in any other category. Facebook is the second most popular website after Google which is search engine and not "regular" site. It is not strange that so many people want there own version of Facebook. As always market demand resulted in production of many Facebook clone scripts, most of witch are behind pay wall. If you don't want to pay or you just like "free and open source", Elgg is one of the options. Elgg is framework for building community websites and Facebook is community website. With Elgg you'll get a lot of Facebook functionalities out of the box and you can add what is missing by using third party plugins. I will list Elgg plugins which can be used for building facebook clone with Elgg.
There are many Elgg plugins that can be used for building facebook clone but we can divide them in two groups. First group add facebook-like design, second group add functionality to elgg social site. Note that themes are plugins in elgg, so this two groups are not strictly divided. Some facebook features are present in elgg core plugins, for example, "like" feature, widgetized user profiles, powerful privacy system, groups...
Kestrel theme
Kestrel theme replicate facebook user interface. Kestrel is built using elgg facebook theme as model. Elgg facebook theme outdated and it doesn't work with newer Elgg verisons. This is why Kestrel is better choice than Facebook theme even fb theme is more similar with Facebook and share the same blue color sheme. Kestel theme implements posting from dashboard which is now called New Feed. It supports posting of blog, file, thewire status and bookmark without leaving your dashboard, like on facebook. Kester theme supports all bundled plugins and it can be easily extended to support third party Elgg plugins. Theme is built to be easy for customization and extending.
Features:
- Photos organized in albums or group albums,
- Commenting on photos and albums,
- Tagging (members or word tags),
- Slideshow,
- Watermarking,
- Upload multiple photos at once (HTML5/HTML4 uploader or web form),
- Sorting photos in albums,
- RSS feeds,
- Notifications on new uploads,
- Activity (river) integration,
- Views counter,
- Exif data support,
- Userpoints support (requires Elggx Userpoints plugin),
- Various listing options (All/Mine/Friends photos, All/Mine/Friends albums, listing photos sorted by number/date of views, number/date of comments, number/date/average of ratings),
- Admin Customization: supports GD, Imagick and ImageMagick, quotas, size restrictions, and more.
Let a member confirm your request to become a friend. Out of the box, elgg comes with friending feature which work like followers on twitter, there is no confirmation. This plugin add friend confirmation to simulate facebook like friending.