HumHub. It’s an open-source social network platform

Yes, I’m familiar with HumHub. It’s an open-source social network platform that can serve various purposes such as a social intranet, community, or collaboration platform. HumHub is highly customizable and extensible, allowing you to adjust it to your needs through its module system, marketplace, and theming mechanisms. It offers a range of benefits including being free to use, self-hosted or cloud-hosted, easy to install and maintain, and supports custom themes and modules. Additionally, it’s open-source, has a transparent development process, and a supportive community.

To get started with HumHub, you can either create a demo instance on their cloud hosting or set up your own installation by following the Installation Guide. The platform is built on the Yii2 Framework and follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern, making it a good fit if you’re comfortable with PHP and MVC architecture.

HumHub’s core functionality includes features like posts, spaces, streams, activities, and notifications. Posts are the simplest form of content, allowing users to share updates, ideas, or information. Spaces act as rooms or groups for projects, departments, or events, facilitating organized collaboration. The platform also supports a wide array of content types beyond posts, thanks to its modular design, enabling functionalities like meetings, calendar events, or wiki pages through additional modules.

If you’re considering integrating HumHub into your projects, it’s worth noting that it requires familiarity with setting up and maintaining a web server environment, such as a LAMP stack. Given your background in PHP and interest in expanding your web development skills, exploring HumHub could be a valuable addition to your toolkit, offering a blend of social networking capabilities and collaborative features that can enhance internal communication and project management within teams or communities.

Further reading …

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Does HumHub support integration with other popular software tools commonly used in business environments?

Yes, HumHub supports integration with several popular software tools commonly used in business environments. These integrations can enhance the functionality of HumHub and facilitate better collaboration and productivity within an organization. Here are some notable integrations:

GitHub: Integration with GitHub allows for seamless collaboration between software development teams, enabling direct access to repositories, issues, and pull requests from within HumHub [2].
ONLYOFFICE Docs: This integration provides comprehensive document editing capabilities, allowing users to create, edit, and share documents directly within HumHub [2].
Azure Active Directory: Supports secure authentication and authorization, simplifying user management and enhancing security [2].
DeepL Pro: Offers translation services, making it easier for multinational teams to communicate effectively [2].
OAuth Platform: Enables integration with various third-party services using OAuth for authentication, providing flexibility in extending HumHub’s functionality [2].
Jitsi: Allows for video conferencing directly within HumHub, facilitating virtual meetings and collaborations [2].
Firebase: Can be integrated for real-time database functionalities, enhancing dynamic content and interactions within HumHub [2].
ONLYOFFICE Workspace: Provides a suite of office productivity tools, including document editors, spreadsheets, and presentations, accessible from HumHub [2].
Google Calendar: Integration with Google Calendar helps in scheduling and managing events, improving team coordination [2].
Okta: Offers identity and access management solutions, streamlining user provisioning and deprovisioning processes [2].

These integrations demonstrate HumHub’s versatility and its ability to adapt to various organizational needs by leveraging existing tools and platforms. By integrating these services, businesses can create a unified workspace that enhances communication, collaboration, and productivity across different teams and departments.

Additionally, HumHub’s modular design and marketplace allow for further customization and extension of its capabilities, catering to specific organizational requirements. However, it’s important to note that while HumHub is designed to integrate other software, the reverse might require more effort due to its comprehensive module system and platform-specific configurations [3].

Further reading …

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How easy is it to customize HumHub’s modules and extend its functionality beyond the available integrations?

Customizing HumHub’s modules and extending its functionality beyond the available integrations is feasible but requires a good understanding of PHP and the Yii2 framework, upon which HumHub is built. Here’s an overview of how you can customize and extend HumHub’s functionality:

Changing Existing Features

HumHub provides a variety of events that can be hooked into for modifying or extending the behavior of existing features. For example, you can intercept and extend widgets based on humhub\widgets\BaseMenu and humhub\widgets\BaseStack using the humhub\widgets\BaseMenu::EVENT_INIT event [1]. Similarly, to completely replace a widget implementation, you can use the humhub\components\Widget::EVENT_CREATE event [1].

Creating Custom Modules

To create a custom module, you need to extend one of the base module classes provided by HumHub. For modules that should be installable on a global level, extend humhub\components\Module. If your module needs to be installable on a space or user profile level, extend humhub\modules\content\components\ContentContainerModule instead [2].

Here’s an example of a basic custom module structure:

// @mymodule/Module.php
namespace mymodule;

use humhub\modules\content\components\ContentContainerModule;
use humhub\modules\space\models\Space;
use humhub\modules\user\models\User;

class Module extends ContentContainerModule
{
    public function getContentContainerTypes()
    {
        // This module can only be installed on spaces
        return [Space::class];
    }
}

Overwriting Widget Classes

To overwrite a widget class, you can listen to the humhub\components\Widget::EVENT_CREATE event and specify a callback that changes the widget class to your custom implementation [1]:

'events' => [
    ['class' => SomeWidgetIWantToOverwrite::class, 'event' => Widget::EVENT_CREATE, 'callback' => [Events::class, 'onCreateSomeWidget']],
]

public static function onCreateSomeWidget($event)
{
    $event->config['class'] = MyOverwriteWidget::class;
}

Module Field Configuration

You can also configure public fields of your module class through HumHub’s configuration file (common.php). This allows for flexible module settings that can be adjusted without changing the module’s code [2].

Learning Resources

While official documentation provides a foundation, practical examples and community contributions are invaluable. GitHub repositories like humhub-modules-basic-module-dummy and humhub-modules-content-module-dummy offer concrete examples of custom module development [5]. Combining these resources with the official documentation can accelerate your learning curve and help you effectively customize and extend HumHub’s functionality.

In summary, customizing HumHub involves understanding its module system, leveraging events for extending functionality, and potentially overwriting components. While it requires a solid grasp of PHP and Yii2, the flexibility and power offered by HumHub make it a rewarding platform for customization and extension.

Further reading …

[10]

Can you provide more details on how to hook into HumHub events to modify or extend existing features?

Hooking into HumHub events to modify or extend existing features involves defining event listeners in your module’s configuration file (config.php). This allows you to attach custom logic to various points in HumHub’s execution flow, such as when certain actions occur or when specific components are initialized. Here’s a detailed guide on how to achieve this:

Step 1: Define Your Module Structure

Ensure your module has the required structure, including config.php, module.json, and Module.php files. The config.php file is crucial as it defines your module’s ID, namespace, class, and event listeners [1].

Step 2: Register Event Listeners

In your config.php, you’ll define an 'events' array where you specify the class you want to hook into, the event you’re interested in, and the callback function that should be executed when the event occurs. Here’s an example of registering an event listener for the TopMenu widget initialization event:

// @example/config.php
use humhub\widgets\TopMenu;

return [
    'id' => 'example',
    'class' => 'johndoe\example\Module',
    'namespace' => 'johndoe\example',
    'events' => [
        [
            'class' => TopMenu::class, 
            'event' => TopMenu::EVENT_INIT, 
            'callback' => ['johndoe\example\Events', 'onTopMenuInit']
        ]
    ]
];

In this example, the onTopMenuInit method in the johndoe\example\Events class will be called whenever the TopMenu widget is initialized [1].

Step 3: Implement the Callback Function

Next, implement the callback function in your module’s Events class. This function will contain the logic you want to execute when the event is triggered. For instance, to add a custom item to the top menu:

// @example/Events.php
namespace johndoe\example;

use humhub\widgets\TopMenu;
use yii\base\Event;

class Events
{
    public static function onTopMenuInit(Event $event)
    {
        /** @var TopMenu $menu */
        $menu = $event->sender;

        $menu->addItem([
            'label' => 'My Custom Item',
            'url' => ['/example/example/index'],
            'icon' => '<i class="fa fa-star"></i>',
            'sortOrder' => 100,
            'isActive' => function ($item, $params) {
                return Yii::$app->controller->id === 'example';
            },
        ]);
    }
}

This code adds a new menu item labeled “My Custom Item” to the top menu, linking to an example controller action. The isActive closure determines whether this menu item should be highlighted as active based on the current controller ID [1].

Additional Considerations

Ensure your module is enabled in the HumHub administration panel under Administration -> Modules.
Familiarize yourself with the Yii2 framework, as HumHub is built on top of it, and many of the event handling mechanisms rely on Yii2’s event system.
Explore the HumHub documentation and source code to identify other events and components you can hook into for further customization.

By following these steps, you can effectively hook into HumHub events to modify or extend its features according to your specific requirements.

Further reading …

https://docs.humhub.org/docs/develop/modules/
https://docs.humhub.org/docs/develop/events/
https://marketplace.humhub.com/
https://github.com/humhub/tasks
https://www.humhub.com/en/resources/
https://github.com/humhub/humhub

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HumHub. It’s an open-source social network platform

Changing Existing Features

Creating Custom Modules

Overwriting Widget Classes

Module Field Configuration

Learning Resources

Step 1: Define Your Module Structure

Step 2: Register Event Listeners

Step 3: Implement the Callback Function

Additional Considerations

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