Blog Development: Group Blogs

vBulletin.com Blog Entry: Blog Development: Group Blogs
Author: Freddie Bingham
Published: 17th July 2008 11:55 PM


The purpose of Group Blogs is to allow multiple forum members to post to the same blog. For example, one could create a new forum user under the name of 'Development Team' and then use one blog for all Developers to post.

How does one join/leave a group blog?

Members must be invited by the blog owner to join a blog. The simple act of inviting someone to your blog and having them accept the invite, makes your blog a "Group Blog". The blog owner must have the "Can Have a Group Blog" permission before being allowed to invite members.

Within the blog control panel, a form similar to friend management is used to invite members. Current blog members are listed, from which you may modify permissions.

Any group blogs that you may belong to, or have been invited to join, are displayed above the form. From here you may join a blog, decline an invite, or leave an existing group blog.



Who can join a group blog?

Anyone with the "Can Join Group Blogs" permission can be invited to join a blog.

What actions can a member perform in a group blog?

The blog owner has several permissions to control the actions that your blog members may perform. Blog members will always be able to post new entries. Beyond that, the following permissions are available:



"Own" refers to entries posted by the member to your blog. All entries still appear under the owner's name but a subtext of "by john doe" now appears throughout the blog.

The Can Manage Other Group Member' Entries permission gives the group member the same permissions as the owner. Group members will never be able to perform an action that the blog owner can not perform. If the blog owner is not allowed to delete entries, then blog members will not be able to either, regardless of what Can Delete Own Blog Entries is set to.

Identifying a group blog

A group blog has a small sidebar block that notifies the viewer that the blog is a group blog. From here, a list of the group members is accessible.



Member profile intergration

A block has been added above the recent entries in the blog section of the 3.7.0 profile. This block lists each blog that user is a member of. Of course, any blogs that can be viewed by the viewer won't be listed.



Release Timeline

Development of the next major release of vBulletin Blog is going to wrap up soon. A public beta will be released shortly after that.

I will post another development update next week.
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