Follower Extension for CKAN

Today we're announcing the release of Follower, a new extension for CKAN. This feature enables users to follow CKAN packages, which can be viewed as analogous to following repositories on Bitbucket or Github, or following people on Twitter. When the extension is installed, two new buttons will appear below the title of each package page. The first shows the number of people that are currently following the package and the second allows the current user to follow and unfollow the package if they are logged in. [caption id="attachment_271" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Package page with follow buttons[/caption] If there are people following the package, clicking on the follower count (first button) will bring to you a page that lists the people that are following the package. [caption id="attachment_274" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Page listing people that are following a package[/caption] Every user will also have a list of packages that they are following shown in their account overview (the third item in the Activity section, shown below). [caption id="attachment_275" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Followed packages shown on user's account overview[/caption]

Future Development

This is a beta release so there is plenty of room for improvement. Planned updates include:

• Making a page or widget showing the most followed packages, or most recently followed packages.
• Giving users an activity stream based on their followed packages, showing a list of recent updates to the packages for example.

Do you have any other suggestions for improvements? Please let us know.

More Information

You can see the extension in action now on CKAN.net. To get the extension or for more information, see the code repository at: http://bitbucket.org/okfn/ckanext-follower