BuddyPress

Someone asked me yesterday about what different group roles (Admin, Mod, Member) meant, mentioning that the BP codex didn’t contain any information about this issue. So I decided to be a good citizen and create a starting guide for group setup: http://codex.buddypress.org/getting-started/group-settings-and-roles/

I’d like to encourage others to take the initiative of expanding the codex when the opportunity arises. That is, if you see a question being answered time and time again on the buddypress.org forums, or if you find yourself constantly referring others to a particular tutorial on how to accomplish something in particular within BuddyPress, consider taking a few minutes and adding it to http://codex.buddypress.org.

Moreover, if you notice that existing pages are incomplete or out of date, feel free to click the Edit This Page button at the lower left and make the fix. If not you, then who?

Verily you are a good citizen

Codex is in desperate need of attention as you state. It would perhaps be a good idea if those that have a notion and the energy to add to it perhaps focussed initially on guides that were aimed more at the new user, novice user or Neophytes as a colleague was found of describing newcomers, for it is these users that are sometimes overwhelmed by pages such as http://codex.buddypress.org/how-to-guides/modifying-the-buddypress-admin-bar/ and need things simplified; it’s easy when one has long forgotten ones own development path just how confusing what may seem clear to us is in reality far from, in fact much is still confusing to me

Write but then then read as though you were just setting out on the arcane and lonely path of the coder.

+1 @hnla. The specific quote I got from the person who emailed me was: “BuddyPress appears to have a pretty skimpy codex, one that covers installation and technical issues more than descriptions of various parts of BP, like the how user roles are defined”.

The good news is that this is a part of the codex that a larger number of us would be able to contribute to – you don’t have to be a hardcore developer to write some good beginner’s documentation.

I agree the codex needs help. I’ll see about making a few additions. The more the better. If we all share just a little bit, it could be a great resource.

One thing we should take heart from: WP took years before there was anything resembling the codex they have now, in the beginning, and for what seemed like an age, it was pretty thin

Documentation! the coders favourite pastime

Hopefully we will all chip in and help, but we must have a few brave souls check it over from time to time and just ensure that entries are clear accurate and got the good grammer and spealings, oh and the punctuation thingies. (my personal bugbear)

I’d say add it regardless of if they are clear, accurate and have good grammar. People are usually happy to correct that part of it;-) It’s the starting it that people aren’t as good at.

I added a new section about accessing Group Info by the Group ID: http://codex.buddypress.org/developer-docs/action-reference/groups/

I thought it would fit better in a different place off the main page. Plus, I thought it might encourage other people to contribute similar tricks to accessing the BP data. However, it doesn’t seem like I can edit: http://codex.buddypress.org/home/ to be able to add a new link on that page to a new page. Do we need to create a bunch of “Stub” documentation pages so that people can start editing the stubs? Sure, it’s unfortunate when someone comes to the documentation and finds a stub, but it also could prompt people to make something of the stub.

I think that the only way to add new pages is to go to http://codex.buddypress.org/wp-admin > Pages. Make sure you give them the proper parents. (BTW – I’m unsure whether this option is available to everyone – let me know if it’s not and I’ll make stubs for you)

Guys Stubs are good in fact they can be important structural elements.

Boone I think it would be a good idea if the codex was set out with a few more category stubs to guide people to some extent in what sections are required or simply provide a hierarchical doc outline.

I’m going to take it upon myself to update the FAQ page:

http://codex.buddypress.org/getting-started/faqs/

Since forum stickies aren’t working properly, it’s hard for new users to find this FAQ thread.

Can you edit this FAQ:

Can I run BuddyPress on a Windows server?

Yes.

to:

A: Don’t call Windows a server it’s a …

Actually a link to XAMPP might be helpful for those few not sure how to set up localhost dev environment

A Windows server is not just a WAMP package like XAMPP. It can be IIS as well, which is problematic as there are a lot of reported bugs between IIS and BP (mostly permalinks and 404 pages).

I can understand the purposes of the FAQ codex page; keep it simple, don’t inundate the reader with too much info.
I think I might need to create a sub-page for specific FAQs.

Don’t talk to me about IIS it’s a dog! have had the misfortune of having to maintain a production server running it, utter rubbish, gloamed onto all the IP addresses wouldn’t release any without a patch only available on disk! and as for mod_rewrite *deep sigh*

I think I might need to create a sub-page for specific FAQs.

wouldn’t get bogged down in too much detail, save that for a rainy day.

Stub suggestion: Troubleshooting 101
The absolute basic frequently encountered issues i.e the white screen – script memory limit; the whitescreen – disable all plugins, rename etc

I am most interested in the template tags page, which I find to be useful all the time but I suspect it is incomplete. Does anyone know of a way to automatically generate a list of all the tags currently used in the latest version of BP? Or does it just take hunting through the core?

I can do you action and filter names, but not template tags. However, look in the [component]/[component]-templatetags.php files – they’re all the template tags for each component.