WordPress.org

Author: Eduardo Graells

El Aleph is a plugin that implements some characteristics of social networks for a single installation of WordPress, including relationships between users and profiles.

To do this, El Aleph has two main components:

• A 'User Query' class, which implements a query for users according to a certain criteria. It's based on the WP Query class.
• An 'Aleph Taxonomy' abstract class, which defines a interface for the taxonomies implemented in the plugin.

As with WP Query, in El Aleph there are wrapper methods for the User Query class. They mimic the way WP Query works, so a user could easyly create "user loops", in the same way as post loops. Template tags for accesing the user loop data are provided. Also, the user query provides a "Profile", which acts in a way similar to single posts.

The current taxonomies in El Aleph are:

• Author Favorites: each user can have a list of favorite posts, made by other users.
• Author Contacts: each user can have a list of contacts or friends.
• Author Interests: each user can be interested in something. This taxonomy allows a visitor on the site to see which users are interested in a certain term.
• Author Sets: each user has "sets" (like flickr), or albums. A set is a user-specific category. So each user can have his own categories :) For example, in this way you could implement user galleries. Let each user create their own sets and upload his photos.

Please note: El Aleph is not a "one click install" plugin. You have to create new template files for your theme. Please read the readme file or the installation notes before installing this plugin.

El Aleph supports localization and pretty permalinks. Suggestions, bug reports and fixes (specially security fixes) are welcomed.

Sample links (note the use of pretty permalinks):

• An Author Profile. Note the use of query_posts inside the template to get the latest articles by the user. This profile exists even if the user doesn't have published posts.
• A User List, showing a list of users registered. Note the use of avatars, those avatars are provided by the user photo plugin, but managed with a custom plugin (so you don't have to query each user for his avatar). Also note that the list has navigation links at the bottom, just like a post loop.