Activity Story Stream

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User stories can be scoped to site, group, or user information.

A tool for engagement

The Activity Story Stream widget allows you to view content directly in the activity stream and to engage with the content by commenting, replying to comments, sending private messages, liking, hashtags, and mentioning.

Using Document Preview, you can also preview documents placed in the stream.

Your own activity on the site is listed on your Profile > Activity tab on an activity steam widget. Note that the activity only includes actions where you are an "actor" (someone performing an action) in the activity story. Commenting on others' activity stories doesn't make you an actor in those stories, so they're not included on your activity tab. In addition to activity stories, your Activity tab includes application posts, friendships established, and groups joined.

Customizable activity stories

The kinds of activity stories reported are governed by individual activity story type plugins. You can customize this widget by enabling the plugin for each type of activity story - including:

Achievement activity - Adds a story for earning an achievement.
Blog activity - Adds activity stories for blogs.
Blog post activity - Adds activity stories for blog posts.
Calendar activity stories - Adds Calendar activity stories.
Calendar event activity stories - Activity stories for Calendar events.
External message activity - Enables external applications to write to the activity stream generically.
Forum activity - Adds activity stories for forums.
Forum thread activity - Adds activity stories for forum threads.
Friendship activity - Adds activity stories for users who have become friends.
Gallery activity - Adds activity stories for galleries.
Group activity - Adds activity stories for your groups.
Idea challenges activity - Add activity stories for Challenges in a group.
Ideas activity - Add activity stories for Ideas.
Joining community activity - Adds activity stories for users who have joined the community.
Joining group users activity - Adds activity stories for users who have joined a group.
Media file activity - Adds activity stories for media files.
Profile avatar activity - Adds activity stories for users who have updated their avatars.
Status message activity - Enables users to post status messages to the activity stream.
Twitter activity - Syndicates Twitter posts as activity stories.
Wiki activity - Adds activity stories for wikis.
Wiki page activity - Adds activity stories for wiki pages.

You can:

Enable or disable each activity type above from being reported in the Activity Story Stream on the plugin's configuration page.
Specify in the Activity Story Stream widget whether a user will see these activities for all community members, contextual user's joined and joinless groups, activity in a group or optionally subgroup, or contextual user only.

User interface

Content

The activity story stream content has the following characteristics:

Content is visible and accessible from the activity stream.
Thumbnails of all content can be viewed directly in the stream without having to navigate to each post for details about it. For example, if someone posts a video in the file gallery, an image of the video shows in the activity stream and, if clicked, displays in theater view. Using Document Preview, any compatible and enabled document type will be displayed in the activity stream.
Users can engage quickly with multiple content items instead of having to individually navigate to each one for commenting or bookmarking, etc.

Messaging and friends

You have multiple ways of keeping up with or responding to users in the activity stream.

Any time a user posts a new avatar, you can see it in the activity stream.
Stories show date and time ago (such as "2 hours ago") in the activity stream. Clicking on the "time ago" takes you to a view of just that story on the user's profile page.
"Send a Private Message" appears on user-hover when user settings allow for them, enabling users to start a conversation with the story author.
If a user has multiple friend requests, they're consolidated into one activity message.

Comments

Commenting is easier and more user-friendly.

Users can add a comment to a content item (or status message) directly from the activity stream without navigating to the original post.
Commenting on activities saves the comment with the content. For example, if a user comments on a new blog post activity, the comment is on the post, not the activity.
Comments are collapsed if there are more than four comments, and a link to "view all [#] comments" appears.
Activity stream comments for new users, new group users, new friendships, new user avatars, and third-party messages are not indexed in search.

Filters

The activity story stream scopes messages to the context and filters by interaction type, followers, or content type.

The Activity Story Stream widget can filter by messages and activities as well as by other configurable filters.
This widget can be scoped to the site, group, or user level in its configuration. So for example when it's in group mode, the widget scopes to that group's content.

Status messages

Status messages have the following characteristics:

Message authors or moderators can delete status messages.
An indicator displays next to new posts or comments since the last time you focused the browser.
The activity stream can be configured to enable infinite scrolling (the endless stream option) after 12 messages.
Status messages can be converted to forum threads or media gallery posts by the admin.

Videos

Video components have the following characteristics:

In the story view video, images appear (if supported with our file viewers and if the file viewers are configured).
Clicking on a video or image opens it in theater view.
If a user enters a URL to a video or image, an inline image appears (if supported and configured).

Updates

The stream is automatically refreshed when new activities occur, so users don't have to manually refresh to see updates.

Documents

With Document Preview, documents appear in theater view. Clicking the file icon opens the theater view, or clicking on the view link takes the user to the file gallery post.

Mentions

Activity stories can bring other users or groups into conversations by using mentions that link in the activity stream to the mentioned user's profile.

If a user is mentioned, he or she will see a notification in their profile Mentions tab. If a user or one of his groups receives an @mention, the @ icon on the Site - Banner widget glows to indicate new mentions. Mentions are searchable.

Hashtags

Users can link other tagged content to the current discussion by using hashtags: Hashtagged blog posts, forum threads, media gallery/file posts, and wiki posts create potential for discussion throughout the site. Hashtags are searchable.

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