Group Tools

Elgg groups allow group administrators to enable/disable various tools available within a group. These tools are provided by other plugins like blog or file.

Plugins can access group tool register via elgg()->group_tools.

elgg()->group_tools->register('my-tool', [
        'default_on' => false, // default is true
        'label' => elgg_echo('my-tool:checkbox:label'),
        'priority' => 300, // display this earlier than other modules/tools
]);

A registered tool will have an option to be toggled on the group edit form, and can have a profile view module associated with it. To add a profile module, simply add a corresponding view as groups/profile/module/<tool_name>. This view will only be called if the tool is enabled.

If you simply wish to list some content in the group you can use the groups/profile/module view with some additional parameters.

entity_type: in combination with the entity_subtype it can generate everything the module needs

entity_subtype: in combination with the entity_type it can generate everything the module needs

no_results: custom no results found text

The following will be automaticly generated:

title: based on the language key collection:<entity_type>:<entity_subtype>:group

content: elgg_list_entities() based on given type/subtype

all_link: based on the route name collection:<entity_type>:<entity_subtype>:group

add_link: based on the route name add:<entity_type>:<entity_subtype>:group and with a permissions check to the given type/subtype

// file: groups/profile/module/my-tool.php

// if you wish to list some content (eg. files) in the group
// you can use the following
$params = [
        'entity_type' => 'object',
        'entity_subtype' => 'file',
        'no_results' => elgg_echo('file:none'),
];
$params = $params + $vars;

echo elgg_view('groups/profile/module', $params);

Alternatively you can generate your own title and content

// file: groups/profile/module/my-tool.php

echo elgg_view('groups/profile/module', [
        'title' => elgg_echo('my-tool'),
        'content' => 'Hello, world!',
]);

You can programmically enable and disable tools for a given group:

$group = get_entity($group_guid);

// enables the file tool for the group
$group->enableTool('file');

// disables the file tool for the group
$group->disableTool('file');

If you want to allow a certain feature in a group only if the group tool option is enabled, you can check this using \ElggGroup::isToolEnabled($tool_option).

It is also a possibility to use a gatekeeper function to prevent access to a group page based on an enabled tool.

elgg_group_tool_gatekeeper('file', $group);