BuddyPress.org

Hi…Big news here.

But (in parts) bad news :

I was cleaning the code of my plugin, which is at this point almost finished.

I was trying to find a reliable way to handle categories and tags : my code is working but categories and tags are in 2 different custom tables (the code is a little dirty); there is no admin page to manage them…

Well, I was looking at how WordPress was handling them because I wanted the code to be strong enough to keep maintaining my component in future easily.

Then I start to look at the taxonomy system.

Then I saw that WP 2.9 will include custom post types…

And then… I’m half disappointed, half excited :

Half excited, because “custom post types” means that you will be able to define new post types (-actually, there is just “pages” and “posts”), like, let’s say … “classifieds”.

That means that you will be able to use the WP dashboard to write a classified like you write a post, and use categories and tags for those classifieds as you do for a post. Those categories or tags will not be those you use for your posts but custom ones just for your “classifieds” post type.

The wire for a classified is no more necessary as you can will be able to use the core comments system with your classified.

Idem for pictures that you will be able to upload and attach directly from there.

That also means that you will be able to search,filter and display those classifieds with the same functions that you do for your posts.

Well, well, that means that this is a big step for WordPress…

But this is also a disappointment for me because that means that lot of the time (several months so far – not full time of course, and i’m an autodidact) I spent to write my plugin was useless as now, the WP core will be able to do by itself a lot of what I wrote in my plugin.

So I think that it would be a wide decision to wait that the custom post type stuff came and to… almost start writing a new plugin from scratches.

Yes, some pieces of my work will still be reusable to make all this “buddypress-friendly” (attach classifieds to groups, notifications, etc), but 95% of my actual code will potentially be useless as WP core function will do the same, and better.

But from what I read, we don’t know exactly when all that stuff will came. Some parts of the functions will be available in WP 2.9 but it’s not sure that the whole thing will be usable in that version, neither we know when WPMU 2.9 will be out : in the trac, they say

I really see no reason we cannot get this into 2.9 since a large majority of the work has been completed already. Even if we only get some of the basic functionality of this into 2.9 it would still be a big help and a basis of something to build off of for 3.0.

.

Well… think the best thing to do should be :

STEP 1 :

Sleep. Cry. Sleep. Howl.

STEP 2

-restart from scratches if I feel the courage for it

-write a new plugin that creates a new blog just for Classifieds at the plugin’s activation.

-All the members of the BuddyPress installation would be members of that blog and so have the capability to write posts.

-Use the posts on that blog as the “classifieds” displayed in the BuddyPress site.

-Control the data sent – number of images used in the post, number of chars, post boxes displayed, etc).

-Add the BP features for notifications, activity, “attaching” classifieds to groups and so.

-use that blog as the basis of my plugin; then

STEP 3

This will be able to make the component ready for WP 2.9 or WP 3.0…

There shouldn’t be lots of stuff to modify in the code. change the post types of the posts in the custom blog to “classifieds”, move them to the main blog and add specific capabilities to decide who can do what. Example : you could be able, as subscriber, to write classifieds but not posts or pages.

And why not differenciate classifieds written on the main blog and classifieds written on a user’s blog, if any (ex. company blog).

STEP 3b

Add a BP-friendly posting system ?

So here’s where I am.

As I said I’m feel a little sorry.

Maybe I should have though of handle the data from my component from a blog from the beginning. But that when we make mistakes that we go further !

The good thing is that I learned a lot about WordPress & BuddyPress and that I know now what I can do with it, and i’ll release my own BP project soon or later. And that once that custom post type system will be available, writing the classifieds component should be a piece of cake, or almost.

If I feel it, i’ll start to rewrite it soon as I explained it in step 2. But I have a lot of work now so I’m not sure I will be able to do this at this moment. I’ll tell you about it in a few days.

Anyway, RIP (for the moment) my-custom-component You can still see some pictures of the work achieved here : http://dev.benoitgreant.be/2009/11/18/classifieds-component-postponed/