A call to developers, Collaboration, and ElggCamp BA

Elgg 1.7 is getting close. A few of the final pieces are coming into place and I'd like to ask developers to grab the latest SVN to help us test. Please point your SVN client to http://code.elgg.org/elgg/trunk/ and give it a go!

We are specifically interested in testing, feedback, and bug reports of the following:

• Backward compatibility with 1.6's plugins.
• Correct support for UTF8 in the database for new and upgraded installations.
• Correct migration of user data files from username-based storage to GUID-based storage.
• Services APIs
• New search plugin

In order to provide the best release possible, we must have a large number of test cases. Many people use Elgg in clever and unique ways that we can't always anticipate, so please, developers, test.

Test new installations; test migrated installations (Need to duplicate your live site?); test installations with the core only; test installations using all the plugins you can find. Just test! The more people testing, the fewer bugs there will be in 1.7 final!

Collaboration is what makes an open source product tick, and I'm happy to have had the opportunity to work with some community volunteers on this version of Elgg. Cash Costello has been a very active member of the community for a while, and has spent the last month fixing Elgg's Services API. He's working hard to make sure Elgg's services APIs are up-to-date, bug-free, and consistently easy to use. Thanks Cash!

Justin Richer and his team at MITRE introduced the base of what is the new search. While there are still details to sort and bugs to squash, this new search is factors better. Justin and I are keeping in close contact to make sure the new search is easily extensible for plugin authors, and simple for users. Thanks to Justin and everyone at MITRE!

Elgg Camp Buenos Aires is quickly approaching! I'm flying down tomorrow to meet up with the guys from Keetup, Condiminds, and Farmsphere. I'm honored to be giving the keynote and am very excited to meet other Elgg developers! Be on the lookout for pics, tweets from (me and the official Elgg account), and hopefully some SVN commits from the southern hemisphere!