Community 3.0 - January 11, 2012

The latest release of the Media Community application includes major upgrades and changes to both the underlying code and feature set.

The most significant changes were re-architecting the application using Media Factory groups, porting the application to JQuery, and implementing the latest Facebook functionality.

Groups

Using Media Factory Groups is a very powerful and flexible way to manage media and users in your community. For the first time, groups are now fully integrated into the architecture of the Media Community application.

Groups have both searchable standard metadata such as name, address and description, as well unlimited custom metadata. This is very useful in creating group pages – home pages for sections of your community.
Media can be placed in multiple groups, allowing your content to span multiple categories without duplicating files

Groups was a major part of Media Factory 3 and this is the first product to fully exploit the feature.

The best way to experience the application of groups is to take the Media Community demo for a test drive!

JavaScript

All JavaScript in the Media Community has been rewritten to make use of the jQuery JS library. Here are the main benefits of using jQuery, among many others:

Fewer conflicts with other libraries that our clients may wish to use
Much more lightweight than other libraries, leading to faster load times
Broad adoption means lots of plugins, tutorials and support available

This project allowed us to move away from our Prototype-based and Scriptaculous libraries to a library that will enable our clients to further customize and extend the Media Community application.

Facebook

The Media Community application has been updated to support the latest developments of the Facebook Platform. Some highlights include:

Meeting the requirement to use OAuth 2.0 for Facebook authentication and authorization for added security and better support for older browsers
Re-write of all Facebook interactions with the JS SDK for consistency, efficiency and better session management
Enable frictionless sharing for uploading, commenting and voting

This project creates a solid foundation for us to build out new social features that make use of the Facebook Timeline in 2012.

Google Maps API

Maps are a big part of the Media Community and we now use Google Maps API V3.

We are using Google maps v3 plugin for jQuery with great example code, allows us (and you) to much more easily create custom mapping features
The Google Maps API key is no longer required

Other Features

With over 170 new features and improvements, Media Community 3 continues to build on the most powerful user-generated content application: