Extension:SocialProfile/UserStatus

From mediawiki.org

Hi, my name is Yevhenii Vlasenko and I am a GSoC student, mentored by Jack Phoenix.

My work was based on implementing UserStatus feature into the SocialProfile extension. Our goal was allowing users to share their thoughts with others and do it as quickly and easy as possible.

As for results, the things we achieved are:

It has viewing mode (for all users)
Edit mode (for the owners of the status)
  1. Feature has an understandable and easy interface.
  2. It has a history of statuses.
  3. “Like” system.

Owner can use old statuses as the current one by clicking it.

Other users can read and “like” statuses.

There is a special page, Special:UserStatus, that allows users who have the “delete-status-updates” user right to delete other user’s status messages.

As for code, all JavaScripts are refactored to be object-oriented with the usage of jQuery. All queries are done through MediaWiki database abstraction layer. AJAX functions remove the need to refresh the page after status, “like” or history update.

To use this feature in SocialProfile extension you have to set the flag in LocalSettings.php :

$wgEnableUserStatus = true;

I think that things that can be done to improve the usability of this feature is an implementing API from different social networks, allowing sharing UserStatuses through them with the link on the primary source (wiki where status was posted).

If you have any ideas on improving UserStatus or just want to talk about it you can leave messages on my talk page.