Tutorial : Creating a buddy list system in Drupal

Anyone who has used a social networking site won’t have failed to notice the importance of having a buddy or friend list system to allow site users to connect with each other.
So in this simple tutorial I’m going to show you how to create a buddy list system in Drupal using the buddylist 1 module.

Which module(s) to use

As some of you may have noticed there are two versions of the buddylist module; version 1 and version 2 (buddy API) as well as the relatively new friend module for Drupal 6 and the User Relationships module, so it’s important you choose the module that suites you needs and site the best.
I choose version 1 of the buddy list module because I only wanted to deploy a simple buddy system on DrupalSN. Version 1 is very lightweight and integrates with the views and the activity modules as well as providing a built in notifications (email) system.
If you wanted to create a more complex buddy system with buddy shortest route (a la Facebook) and buddy privacy settings it’s worth looking at the buddylist2 and the user relationships module as they provide API’s that you can interact with. Both these modules provide all the functionality of the buddy list module and more but if you only want a simple system they can be overkill.

One last thing on the modules, I’m not saying any of these modules are better than each other as I haven’t fully tested them all, they all offer something slightly different so it’s down to you which one suites your site the best. For this tutorial I’ll be using version 1 of the buddy list module.

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Courtesy : Drupalsn.com