Community is a TYPO3 extension for social networking functionality. It started in 2008 and was rewritten in 2010 using Extbase. It provides features like profiles, messaging, friend relationships, photo galleries, and notifications. The extension is actively maintained and has a roadmap to improve search, groups, and performance. It uses Extbase for its architecture with access control configured through TypoScript. Privacy and access control present ongoing challenges to implement flexible settings across actions, records, and properties.

1. EXT:
Community
Tymoteusz Motylewski
T3DD12

2. Tymoteusz Motylewski
AOE media
Wiesbaden
TYPO3 & Magento
Twitter: @tmotyl
Mail: t.motylewski@gmail.com

3. You?!
• Have you played around with Community?
• What are you interested in?
• Do you have Extbase experience?

4. EXT:Community
• Started around 2008 as pibase extension
• Rewritten during GSoC 2010
• Currently based on Extbase
• Finally stable beta

5. Where to find it?
• Forge:
http://forge.typo3.org/projects/show/extension-
community
• Mailing list
http://lists.typo3.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/typo3-
project-community
or news://lists.typo3.org/typo3.projects.community
• Git repository
git://git.typo3.org/TYPO3v4/Extensions/community.git
• Gerrit

6. Websites running Community
• Caremaid.net • Ambasadapiekna.pl
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dieselbug2007/414348333/

7. Features
• Friends
• Messages
• Wall
• Gallery
• Simple search
• Notification service
• Access control configurable in TS
• Easy to extend
• Documentation!!!

8. Not covered by Community
• Registration
• Access on a page level
• Groups (but planned)

9. Features - Profile
• View
• Edit
• Delete
• Report bad profile

10. Features - Messages
• Classic view
– Inbox
– Unread
– Sent
• Threaded view
– List of conversations
– Whole conversation with one user on one
page

11. Features – Relation management
• Requesting, canceling, confirming
friendship
• List of friends
• Possible states of the relationship:
– New
– Confirmed
– Rejected

12. Features - Wall
• Posting messages
• Smiles (requires ext. „smile”)
• Deleting messages

13. Features - Gallery
• Gallery
– Albums list
– Photos list of one album
• Album
– Title
– Cover image
– Privacy settings
• Special album with profile pictures

14. Features – Notification service
• Mail, private message, wall message….
• Multiple notifications per event
• Easy to use API
$notification = new Tx_Community_Service_Notification_Notification(
'relationRequest',
$this->requestingUser,
$this->requestedUser
);
$notification->setFoo(„BAR”);
$this->notificationService->notify($notification);
• Configurable in TS
relationRequest {
10 {
template = RelationRequest
handler = Tx_Community_Service_Notification_MailHandler
serverEmail = {$plugin.tx_community.serverEmail}
}}

15. Features – Notification service
Want to notify by SMS after receiving private message?
1. Create own notification handler which implements
Tx_Community_Service_Notification_HandlerInterface
- send() method is required
e.g. Tx_CommunityLocal_Service_Notification_SmsHandler
2. Add typoscript configuration
plugin.tx_community.settings.notification.rules {
messageSend {
20 {
handler = Tx_CommunityLocal_Service_Notification_SmsHandler
}
}
}

16. Architecture
Architecture

17. Architecture – Base controller
• Base class for all controllers
• Resolves requested and requesting user
• Access control in initializeAction()
– Return nothing if user has no access

18. Architecture – Access control
Types of access for different requests:
Requesting Requested Are Access type Notes
(logged in) user friends
user
NULL NULL - ACCESS_PUBLIC Public, guest access. No logged in
user, no requested (target) user.
Used e.g. for “list of 10 newest users”.
NULL John - ACCESS_NOBODY Public, guest access, no logged in
user. Public, but user specific plugins.
Bill John NO ACCESS_OTHER Bill is logged in, but he is not a friend
with John
Bill John YES ACCESS_FRIEND
John John | NULL - Access granted by If requested user is not set, and we
default. are logged in, then requestedUser =
requestingUser
– e.g. we are seeing our own profile

19. Architecture – Access control
• On action level
• Configured in TS
– Actions are mapped to „resource names”
accessActionResourceMap {
User {
image = profile.image //image action from UserController
edit = profile.edit
}
– Access rules are set for resource names
accessRules.friend {
profile.image.access = 1
profile.relation.access = 1
}

20. Roadmap
• Use Ajax wherever possible
• Privacy settings for user properties
• Groups
• Performance tuning
• Notification queue
• Advanced search
• Standard image sizes defined in TS
• Commenting on wall posts

21. Workshop tasks
• Installing community
• Features/roadmap brainstorming
• Discussion
– groups handling
– privacy settings
• ???

22. Privacy/access control challenges
• Levels
– Action level (MessageController->sendAction)
– Record level e.g. user/ album
– Record property level – $user->email,
$user->name
• Defaults
– Global defaults: deny or allow
– Defaults for table/record/property

23. Privacy/access control challenges
• Allow user to change his privacy settings
• Easy to extend (new models, new
controllers)
• Fast
• Transparent
• Configured in single place
• …

24. Questions?
Mail: t.motylewski@gmail.com
Twitter: @tmotyl