Webcrossing Community: flexible mix-and-match features [Part 2]

Last time we looked at Webcrossing Core, the engine that runs everything. This time, we'll look at Webcrossing Community.

As its name implies, Community is designed fundamentally to be used as a web forum, although beyond that there are a million directions you can go.

Community starts with Core, which provides all the fundamental functions like users and access controls and all the various included servers. On top of that are layered scripts to provide a plugin architecture, apply editable CSS automatically as settings are changed, produce the WCMS (Webcrossing Customization Management Suite, a method of customizing without scripting), and allow for translation or just rewording of the User Interface.

Community is fundamentally flexible. You can have an unlimited folder hierarchy. Want to have all your discussions at the top level of your site and no folder hierarchy whatsoever? You can do that. Want to carefully organize your site so every discussion is neatly filed into a folder > subfolder > subfolder > subfolder > subfolder hierarchy? You can do that too. Neither of those may pass the "how to best organize your site" test, but the point is you are not limited by some arbitrary idea of how a site should be organized. It is entirely up to you.

Because Community has a plugin architecture, you only have to install the features that you really want. Install Register Plus to get enhanced user profiles, support for COPPA, and to put a copy of the Terms of Service on the registration page. Install Time Since to see "posted 3 minutes ago" rather than "posted 11 January 2015, 8:45 am." Install a WYSIWYG editor. Install calendars. Or any of 70 other plugins. And they're easy to install. Just click the link to "shop for plugins," find the ones you want, and they are downloaded and installed automatically. Then you decide where to turn them on.

And of course, everything is scriptable.

With Community, you can build whatever type of web forum you want. If none of the plugins do exactly what you need, your new feature can be scripted. It really is almost infinitely flexible. If you need that flexibility and don't need the full-on social networking capability of Neighbors, Community is for you.