Announcing the Community Kit for SharePoint: Enhanced Blog Edition 2.0 (CKS:EBE) final release!
I'm incredibly proud and pleased to announce that after 9 months of work (all volunteers!) and 2 very well received/tested beta versions, the final release of the Community Kit for SharePoint: Enhanced Blog Edition 2.0 is now available on the CKS project space on CodePlex at http://www.CodePlex.com/CKS. As a reminder, CKS is a community driven and supported open source project that consists of a set of best practices, templates, Web Parts, tools, and source code that enables practically anyone to create a community website (or social computing application) based on SharePoint technology for practically any group of people with a common interest.
Here's a rundown of the EBE's key features as posted on its release page at https://www.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ProjectName=CKS&ReleaseId=5134 where you can download the installation file and guides for setup, design, and use as well as the source code.
- Theming
- Modular Theme Framework (MTF) - no need to wrestle with the default blog master page - start from the HTML you want and simply insert the blog content via XSL.
- SEO Friendly URL's - blog post URL's that look like /archive/2007/08/25/sharepoint-chart-tool.aspx instead of /Lists/Posts/ViewPost.aspx?ID=37
- 5 very cool themes to use as-is, or to get you started on the development of your own including dynamic per-post links (e.g. Digg this), tag cloud, etc. Check them out here
- Linkbacks (aka Trackbacks)
- Send linkbacks to other blog posts you are linking to in your EBE blog post (these show up as trackbacks on the other blog)
- Receive linkbacks from other blogs who are posting about your blog post (these show up as trackbacks on your EBE blog)
- Spam Control
- Akismet integration to detect comment spam
- CAPTCHA to help block comment spam at the source
- Option to automatically delete spam to recycle bin
- Option to automatically approve spam-free comments
- RSS
- Custom RSS link (e.g. http://feeds.feedburner.com/myblog)
- Post trimming (only a portion of post is sent via RSS)
- Specify RSS feed item count
- Category specific feeds (e.g. /rss.xml?cat=coolstuff)
- Validates against W3C standards
- Miscellaneous
- Securing of system pages (e.g. so anonymous users can't browse your lists and libraries using SharePoint UI)
- Metaweblog API to support Windows Live Writer and migration tools.
- Client Date/Time - displays date/time in time zone of user instead of server
The EBE is deployed as a solution package (*.wsp) for either WSS 3.0 or MOSS 2007 and activated as a Feature on a blog site. You can activate the EBE feature on an existing SharePoint blog site and de-activate later without losing any data. Most of the EBE features are configurable on/off through a settings page accessible to the site admin.
This version of the EBE would not have been possible without the generous contributions of time and energy from the following project members:
For their efforts, each will receive a Zune 8GB device as a gift from the SharePoint Product Group.
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