Hi,

I have just installed heartbeat and have been trying to figure out how to use this module. What I want is to have a page that list all activities by friends (i am using friendlist) like posting comments, creating a new content etc. This page should show up for each user when they log in to the site so that know what their friends have been doing on the site...
any ideas how and where to start?

thanks.

BB

Comments

blueblade’s picture

anyone, please?

Stalski’s picture

Assigned: Unassigned » Stalski
Status: Active » Closed (fixed)

Hey blueblade,

I know it seems a little difficult at first, but you can read the post heartbeat module for drupal. Further there are some issues here that show how to do extra and more fancy stuff.

In short:
- The module is in fact ready to use because it has default rules with linked heartbeat messages to it. When using friends module for instance, you enable the friendlist activity module as well and that 's it.
There are some basic settings that need to be looked at. Especially the timespans and number of messages need to be set appropriate for your needs.
- You could also do things from scratch. Go to the heartbeat messages and create your own ones, following the explanation. Once you have done that, go to the rules administration to set or enable some rules or just create your own. (for friendlist rules it is best you look at how friendlist did things). Make sure you choose the heartbeat action to log the activity.
- Display can be done in two ways: the default blocks that come with the installation or views. There is a default view in fact, but again you can make your own views (choosing the heartbeat row plugin en heartbeat filters).

And that's that. Basically it is not that hard and even after installation, you can enable blocks and it should work right away.

I hoped i helped you with this.

PS: if you needs some help with rules : check that project http://drupal.org/project/rules. Most questions are appearantly related to that, or the used tokens ... so these module will help you explain things as well.

blueblade’s picture

Hello Stalski,

Thank you for your detailed reply..I have read that site and also read instruction for rules....but I am still quite confused and not able to use heartbeat.

I think it may be easier to understand the tricks when the site is launched and I get a few users to actually are doing things on the site...it may take some time but yes I will learn...

Thank you again for your help.

BB

dreadfulcode’s picture

"you enable the friendlist activity module as well and that 's it." HAHA.

I wish that were the case. Friendlist is not working out at all- gave up on that.

However , there is a glimmer of hope with flag friend and UR with heartbeat. But the documentation is very difficult to follow.

I did figure out how to display shouts and node adds. I still mulling over how to log relationships. Add tokens? That's it.... really?

Screencast, please.

Stalski’s picture

Activating the friendlist module does work. Just tested it with all three user relation api's (flag friend, friendlist and ur )

About the screencast : true, coming up

I did figure out how to display shouts and node adds. I still mulling over how to log relationships. Add tokens? That's it.... really?

Again, this works nice for me. you create events and you log activity for it. It's your choice to create events by coding (implementing a hook) or by using heartbeat_rules (with the rules module). Everything works great. The documentation is a bit everywhere but at the demosite, it's explained imho.

dreadfulcode’s picture

Yeah- that last comment was the result of a 12 hour day staring at the screen, contacts burning, 12 hours of fruitless, stoned efforts.

And 3 of those hours were spent searching for forum post concerning friendslist problems similar to mine, or installation & configuration. Sparse documentation, no problems. Everyone says it works. That's why.

I'll try it out on a clean install and then kick my own butt.

Stalski’s picture

But you have a point that for this module a screencast could be very helpfull. It 's a rather difficult module and i am fully aware of that.

dreadfulcode’s picture

Yeah, it's a tricky one. I imagine difficult to document, too.

A few days/ weeks of coding, then 2 years of explaining how it works.