I'm a person who has to have some sort of plan.  This doesn't mean that I have to have step by step instructions for everything that I do (although that's close)… but it does mean that I need to at least have a some sort of idea of where I'm going. 

With that in mind, I have created a mini-planner to help me stay focused on what I am going to attempt to achieve in the hour a day I intend on working with Community Builder.  I may wind up going over an hour some days…but for the most part, I need to keep it to that.  The site I am working  thru this with is at http://www.salestrainingandnetworking.com

These are my notes for today:

• Implementing The Captcha Plugin brought up a few questions, mainly having to do with documentation…and user understanding.  I'm probably not the brightest bulb in the pack, so some of the questions may be much easier for others to understand.  Those questions primarily were:
  • The documentation says it can only be installed on a CB 1.2 RC2 site.  Being the overly cautious one that I am…it took me about 5 minutes to decide to go ahead and put it on the RC4 site.  I didn't want to make an unnecessary mistake.  After installing the plugin, things appear to be working at this time.  IF it is indeed compatible with RC4, then the line in the documentation should be changed to reflect this.
  • "This CB Plugin must be installed using the CB Plugin Management backend. "  It took me another five minutes before I realized that the text 'Install Plugin" was actually a link to install a plugin.  Yeah.. I know.  Pretty goofy on my part.  However because that link is on the same line as the page title, I really didn't see it.  Maybe a link below would be easier for dummies like me.
  • What in the world does "Include Captcha in other uses" REALLY mean?  The difficulty of documenting applications is a tedious task.  Very time consuming, and not easy to change once it's done.  I appreciate all the work done (else I wouldn't be a subscriber) and am only making notes about what I see, in hopes it might help others.
  • Installation Steps for Captcha

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All CB plugin packages are installed via the CB Plugin Management backend (not via Joomla/Mambo install menus).

1. Install plug_cbcaptcha.zip as a CB plugin via CB Plugin Management backend

2. Publish is via the CB Plugin Management backend (toggling the publication icon or editing the plugin, selecting the publish=yes setting

   and saving the settings).

3. Configuration parameters are included in plugin parameter area. Study and set these to suite your needs.

• The PMS implementation for the site
  • I went thru the documentation and again was stumped on a few things.  My confusion was centered on the implied suggestions to remove/unpublish the mypms/pro installations, because they are considered obsolete.  Then, later in the publication there are instructions on how to implement that plugin.  I just didn't get it.  I wound up spending about 10 minutes looking for the PMS applications on extensions.joomla.org and deciding to just use the mypms plugin anyway. 
  • I haven't been able to get the 'Quick Message" tab to show up… I will have to re-read the documentation and see what checkbox/toggle I have missed. 

• What do they use for their downloads area?
  • I didn't get to this.. Not enough time.

• The new subscription model (for sites with paid subscribers)
  • I didn't get to this… not enough time.

• Notes made concerning changes I need to make, discovered during this study time.
  • Need to change the fields on the registration form
    • Remove unnecessary fields on the registration page
    • Remove the double login on the registration page
  • It is not easy for me to find the information that I am looking for on the Community Builder site.  There are some areas that are in my opinion more of a 'circle jerk' than helpful.  For example, I was attempting to find out where I might make a donation to the Captcha people….but found myself revisiting the same pages over and over.  I finally gave up.