BuddyPress

I had an idea for a plugin that I think would greatly benefit the BuddyPress community, especially for those using BuddyPress for it’s group features. The idea is to develop a plugin called BuddyPress Group Pages – which would give each group it’s own pages component where group members can create and edit pages.

The functionality would be very similar to the BP Wiki plugin (which I helped a bit on), but this new plugin would be rock solid. Why not just work to fix the BP Wiki plugin, well it’s foundation is not good, and it has had data loss errors for many months now – not a good sign. The foundation of this new plugin would be based on WP custom post types – and thankfully @jjj and @kunalb have just introduced a new plugin to implement that in BuddyPress called BuddyPress Custom Posts (http://buddypress.org/community/groups/buddypress-custom-posts/). While heavy on the MVC, it looks pretty good

The new BuddyPress Group Pages plugin would be built rock solid. It would be simple to start but highly extensible. I believe it would address the need for groups to collaborate in the way that they use Google Docs to collaborate.

Do people see a need for this plugin? and if so are any willing to become sponsors for this plugin? If yes, then I’ll list them in the plugin for as long as it shall live.

I’m interested to get some community feedback on this.

The concept sounds good. I don’t have much but I’ll chip in $15 to help you get started if there seems to be enough interest from the community.

Yes, I would be interested in contributing to this plugin as I was very interested in the BP Wiki plugin. I’ll commit $25.00 for it.

Im currently using the group wiki plug-in for an alternative use, though I do occasionally get errors with it as you have mentioned. Can’t donate much but would gladly beta test and give feedback.

so +1

Things I think that would be beneficial:

Exclude Page Creation from the group creation – It would normally be a lengthy process and Im sure most ppl wouldn’t be 100% sure what the ‘wiki pages’ are going to be about exactly when first creating a group, so only show the ‘enable group ‘wiki’ along with admin options.

Page Creation – when creating the group wiki pages, the ‘+’ sign ( adding pages ) is confusing at first. Maybe something more simplistic like the precess of creating a group ( steps one two three.. )

Preset Table Layouts – preset layouts would provide ease of creating a ‘wiki’ page, styled according to the ‘site context’. Would also bring a sense of uniform to the site, easing reading and usability. These Layouts could be defined by the site admin or just hacked in the plug-in for now, focusing on the core functionality

This is abit off topic but Iv’e found a great need for this. When customizing a plug-in, I would always loose trac of the changes I made and so on, so Iv’e started to keep a personal wiki of my changes using something like ‘WikiPad”. When the plug-ins are updated, I basically have to update it and make my changes acording to my wiki again. What would be nice would be a plug-in wiki shiper along with the plug-in, with whats been added and whats been reworked, so say if a plug-in had one line of code change ( updated ), now you could simply add that one line of code ( if you knew what had been added/changed ) rather than updating the plugin, having all your changes over written and then having to redo the work, over and over..

Sounds like a great idea Dwenaus.. Would love to see something like this

Thanks every for the feedback. If there are any more supporters please post. @nit3watch – as a rule I try to never change the plugin code. Either I use css to tweak what I want or ask the authors to put in actions or filters. It just saves so much time in the end and you never have to worry about updates ruining your site. my 2 cents.

@dwenaus I am interested in becoming a sponsor ($50), but I guess I need some more information about the plugin. I have been trying to use the BP wiki component, but the development seems to have stagnated. So, a bit more info on the plugin and Im probably in.

Same here I’m totally in if it puts the bp wiki component to shame. I son much need a great component that does that. What I’m also interested in is a directory wiki page, which aggregates all those wikis into one.

Thanks for the feedback. Are there any other people interested in being sponsors for this plugin? @finni3 it would be similar to the BP wiki plugin in functionality, however it would actually work. And it would be rock solid so that no users’ data is lost (which is the great downfall of the wiki plugin). Also, you could comment on pages as well as edit them. @Bpisimone it would be possible to have a global directory, but probably not in the first round – but it would not be hard to do.

Me and my friends are running a joomla-driven community for bands and listeners. I’ve tried all leading os-cms (drupal’s still the only cms fullfilling all my wishes – but hard work to get along with). WP + Buddypress would be an alternative if there’s a way to allow certain members (depending on a select field or role) to make their own pages. Sounds like your plugin could bring me in the right direction. Small donation could be paid…

I am also quite interested in the development of this plugin and can offer 20$ in support. Seems to me that this is really a standard, “gotta-be-there” feature for any kind of group system, especially (as some have already pointed out) for collaboration. So I say go for it. I’m absolutely sure it will catch on and all the more if you are using the new bp custom posts framework.

In addition to ideas already listed above, I would add the following to a wish list:
* the ability to place links to group pages in the new custom navigation system
* a solid admin system for an overview of all pages according to their group associations

@dwenaus If you are serious about pursuing this project, please let me know. This would be a great help in the development of a project I am working on and I would happily contribute some seed money – probably 50 dollars. In fact, if you’re committed to going for it, send me your PayPal info and I’ll contribute right away. From my pov it’s well worth the investment.

Hi @dwenaus This seems an excellent plugin. I am just starting out with BP for a client project and one of my requirements is to extend ‘groups’ to have more ‘content’, preferaby sub-’pages’. At the moment I am using the bp-wiki plugin but it seems, indeed, a bit limited.

To me it would be a great to be able to attach regular (sub-) ‘pages’ or ‘posts’ to groups and I would happily donate some money.

Hmm, just a quick though, but if you wanted blog-like content for a group – why not use an actual blog? No point in recreating core WP functionality.

Now, if there was a way to *link* the group blog with the group, that’d be awesome. It may exist, I have no idea,.

@Andrea_r actually I thought about that. The thing is, groups offer 80% of my needed functionality (I need to have ‘projects’ in a system that people can ‘subscribe’ to and discuss in a Forum). What I miss is the functionality of being able to add more content to ‘projects’ (groups): they can have ‘Documents’ through the Group Documents plugin, I can review/rate them through the Group Review/Like plugin, but I need to be able to have more (subpages) of content, with e.g. images etc. Indeed: like a regular Blog post or Page. Using those, though, would not give me all the Group functionality.

That’s why I though @dwenaus‘ Group Pages plugin will be perfect.

I am quite new to BP so maybe you or @dwenaus have a better way to deal with this than Groups or know of a good plugin?