Pligg Pro Shop

This module adds a new feature to your Pligg site that lets users post 'Status Updates' on their user profile page. These status updates are similar to the micro-blogging features that sites like Twitter and Facebook offer. They are designed to allow users to quickly post a general comment, usually about what they are currently up to. This module was designed to let users communicate with each other in a public forum and gives friends (or followers) a way to see what that user is up to.

This module offers a lot of options that can be enabled or disabled from the admin panel. It also offers some features that might need to be explained or demonstrated to your users in order for them to make the most out of it. I suggest that you document some of the features through a static page on your website. These features will be described below, feel free to borrow some or all of the text if you choose to create a page that describes the features for your users to read.

User Directed Updates

Similar to how Twitter and Facebook allow users to direct messages toward other users, this site allows users to use the Status feature to send messages to friends. To direct a message and for them to see that message appear on their profile they must set your account as a 'friend'. This requirement is to reduce the chances of status update spam appearing on user profile pages. Once the user has marked you as their friend they will see all of your status updates appear on their profile page, unless they select to disable this from their profile settings page. You can then direct a message to the user by adding the @ symbol before their username anywhere in your status update. For example I could type the message 'Hey there @johndoe' and it would direct a message to the user 'johndoe'. If 'johndoe' has set his account to receive email updates whenever someone directs a message to him he will be emailed a notice that someone has mentioned them. The status update may also appear unique from other status updates on that user's profile page if the site has configured a special style for directed messages. One last note is that the username will be converted into a link to that user's profile when you direct a message.

Admin Features

We wanted to give 'God' level users the ability to mass-post status updates on every profile so that they could send out site updates or announcements easily. A feature has been into this module that allows you to send messages to either different user levels or all users. See the table below for instructions on how to send messages to these user levels.

Send message to ALL users: *all
Send message to NORMAL users: *normal
Send message to ADMIN users: *admin
Send message to GOD users: *god

A few final notes about sending user level status updates. If you set it to send messages to *all or *normal you will not see the *all or *you in the message body. You are also limited to sending status updates to 1 user level (and user group) at a time.

'God' level accounts are also able to insert HTML into their status updates, which lets them add links or media to their updates. This is very useful if you would like to place an image banner across all profiles to advertise a contest, site update, or other announcement. 'God' level users have no HTML tag limitations so you can embed just about anything in your status update posts without having to edit anything.

Group Status Updates

Just like username and user level directing messages, you can direct a message to group members. This requires first that the user sending the message to the group belongs to that group. This is a requirement to prevent users from abusing the status update module and sending a large number of messages. If a user tries to submit a message to a group that he does not belong to he will see an error message. To use this feature just add an exclamation mark in front of a group name. For example 'Hey there members of !Johns Group, what's going on?' will send a message to all of the other members of 'Johns Group'. It will also convert the group name into a link to that group's page.