Community Tools

Answering the call for Web 2.0 functionalities, Six Feet Up has worked on several projects heavily focused on online social networking such as the Rosetta Project and OER Commons. These projects leverage many third-party components described below (as usual with open source developments, the feature set for each tool may be constantly changing as new revisions get released).

BlogS

Six Feet Up recommends to implement blogging functionalities using Quills, a multi-user, multi-blog weblog system for Plone.

Quills main features are: 
* Archival entry paths: access blog archives via standard paths such as 
http://example.com/myblog/archive/2007/07/26/ 
* Topics with descriptions and images 
* RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, & Atom feeds 
* BloggerAPI support for remote posting (80% complete) 
* Visitors can leave comments on blog entries (registration can be required to limit "Comment Spam")
* Unlimited Authors, Blogs per Author, and Authors per Blog 
* Site-wide blog aggregator 
* Blog Planets for groups 
* Multiple topics and advanced topic searching, with simple URLs

Messaging System/ Discussion Board

In the past, Six Feet Up has implemented Ploneboard, a simple yet robust conversation/bulletin board/forum product. Ploneboard utilizes the proven Plone user interface, and is made for easy integration into Plone sites.

Ploneboard allows the editing and deleting of content, and supports the delegation of forum permissions. Ploneboard's content is fully searchable and provides some sorting capabilities. The tool can also show new postings since the user's last login.

Wiki

Wicked is a simple Zope product that may be used for rapid content creation and "wiki-linking" in the text fields of content types in Plone sites.

Dynamic Surveys

In order to collect feedback from web site visitors on an on-going basis, Six Feet Up has proposed and implemented the setup of content-managed surveys on various past projects. Dynamic result pages allow site managers to easily collect (and even display) the data through self-created and self-managed questionnaires.

See an example on the OER Commons website.

RSS

The Plone CMS features a built-in syndication tool that automates the generation of RSS feeds for specific areas of the site. This feature provides subscribers with instant notification of changes to the website.

Streaming video/ Webinars

Support for large media files may be added via the Railroad Repository. More specifically, Railroad is a standards-based repository for binary files such as digital media, along with their metadata. It is designed to be easy to integrate with content management systems and other client software.

Photo Album

Several Six Feet Up projects feature photo album capabilities as schools and networking organizations frequently require the ability to easily upload pictures, as well as display them through a slideshow format.
These photo albums are usually password-protected for obvious privacy reasons.

Search Capabilities

Plone comes with powerful search capabilities by default. The general site search returns any public content (and password-protected content if the user is logged-in) entered as text in the site (including PDF files), and "LiveSearch" capabilities (see demo) make searching extremely fast and effective. Plone 3 now also provides the ability to restrict the search to the current section.
Plone also comes with a default member search form that allows visitors to easily find site members with a public profile.

Ultimately, search features can be tweaked to follow various custom needs. This is especially necessary when featuring premium content that requires visitors to have an account with the site.