Everyday here at Social CMS Buzz we get around 3 - 5 requests to review websites, most requests are quickly cobbled together default installs of pligg filled with RSS Imported content needless to say these sites do not get reviewed. In contrast EntirelyOpenSource is in no way a default pligg based site but rather a combination of Pligg, Joomla and DokuWiki, with a great deal of time and effort having been placed into development and design EntirelyOpenSource is one site that’s definitely worth writing about.
EntirelyOpenSource’s creator P.J Swesey describes the project as a social news site, open source software directory, and a news aggregating service rolled into one site. The first thing you will notice when visiting any site is the design and you can clearly see the effort that has been placed into EntirelyOpenSource’s. It’s layout is familiar to most pliggers but the colours and extra little touches give the site a really professional look and feel, we would go as far to say it’s one of the nicest pligg designs we have seen for a very long time.
The Social News section of EntirelyOpenSource operates like any pligg based install, members submit interesting content to the site which other member’s can the vote and comment upon. The most popular content in turn is then promoted to the EntirelyOpenSource homepage after it has received enough votes.
EntirelyOpenSource’s open source software section of the website is built upon the DokuWiki system. DokuWiki is a standards-compliant, simple-to-use wiki which allows users to create rich documentation repositories. It provides an environment for individuals, teams and companies to create and collaborate using a simple yet powerful syntax that ensures data files remain structured and readable outside the wiki.
This section of the EntirelyOpenSource could prove a fantastic resource as more content is added, it basically lists a massive amount of open source software with descriptions of the projects and links to relevant sites. The image below is taken from the Content Management Systems / Drupal section to demonstrate exactly how a projects information is set out in a nice clean and concise fashion.
Any registered member can contribute information to the Wiki, whether it be updating a current listing or adding an entirely new project listing. If you like Open Source Application it’s worth keeping an eye in this section of the site.
Finally we have the aggregation section of EntirelyOpenSource which is built on the Joomla platform, this section of retreives stories from external websites through rss importation. It’s another good resource if you want to keep up to date with the latest news in the realm of open source.
If we could change one thing about EntirelyOpenSource it would be the requirement for separate registration accounts between the various sections, it’s a trivial matter really but would make the site feel more fluid to users if they had a single login account that covered all sections. EntirelyOpenSource is a site we really liked here at Social CMS Buzz, with good content, and a really nice design it’s definitely one site you will want to pay a visit.
Visit: EntirelyOpenSource
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This post was written by:
Lincoln - who has written 182 posts on Social CMS Buzz.
Founder of Social CMS Buzz and a fan of all things open source, social and design related.
I came across this site a few days ago and was immediately impressed.
They did a fantastic job.