BuddyPress.org

Will it be GPL License?

I think you have to pay for this plugin.

Is there a demo, to see it in action?

@Vincole: Check out BBPress, this site uses it also and it can be integrated into your BuddyPress site (takes some work though)

@mike

Well, in the case of the gallery plugin it looks like you don’t actually pay for the plugin, but for the access to it. Once you have it, you can do whatever you want with it, the code being (well, it should be) GPL. So, if dev stops (not likely, considering that Brajesh is making money off it), you could always fork it and keep the development going, involve the community to help out as well. Shouldn’t be too hard to make a plugin compatible…

If that doesn’t work out for some reason, then you still have all the data (the actual images and the database). You then would have to migrate everything to another plugin.

well, Now here is my view, as I am currently involved in developing this plugin.

I think I would like to clarify a few things which are mentioned above.

First of all thanks to Bowe and everyone interested in the plugins.

@Bowe, the membership is $30 for 3 months(and Hopefully It will include further updates free too, as far as I think of now). I won’t go into details as It is community site and advertisement should be avoided here.

@Svenl77

yes It is GPL and all what I have done is GPLed till date(But for the first time it contains a price tag, as I want to keep the development active and not let it die because of my other jobs).

@Mike

You know, this plugin requires a membership which is itself a guarantee that I will keep it alive/push the updates in future.

rest, It is GPL, so You can always fork and update it yourself incase you want, which I do not suspect will happen anytime soon.

@Travel-Junkie

Yes, you are right, this is going to be released under GPL, Currently I am charging some amount to access it. The reason I charge for it currently is I am going to put a lot more effort in future to make it better and better.

Once it reaches maturity in 3-6 months, with all the features, I will make it freely available, as after that, It may not require major updates on my part.

That’s it.

PS:If moderators feel anything I wrote is in appropriate, please feel free to remove that part from the post

I’ve tested several WP gallery plugins. NextGen is pretty good, but I now use Zenphoto which is much more powerful and versatile.

Zenphoto is a complete stand-alone script, not a WP plugin, althought there is a ZenPhotoPress plugin that makes it easy to integrate in WordPress. I haven’t tried it in Buddypress yet, but it should do 80 percent of what you’d need. If it doesn’t, you could probably write plugins to connect Buddypress to functionality in Zenphoto.

General point: Why would you want to try to cram this kind of functionality into Buddypress plugin? Or even integrate it into the core (shudder…)?

Same thing goes for event registration. If Buddypress had a more straightforward, standard member management structure, integrating any outside event management script would be a lot easier. Please concentrate on the core before adding more bells and whistles!

@Brajesh

I’m the last to say you shouldn’t profit from WP development, so no need to justify yourself really. I do it myself. And if you have plans to make it freely available in the future then kudos to you, mate!

@Peterverkooijen

Hmm, not a big fan of integrating other scripts. If there’s something available that’s built on BP or WP, then I’d rather use that, even if there are less features. If there’s something that I really need, then I’d just add it myself. I’d actually been thinking of turning NextGEN into a BP plugin. Now, I’ll have a look what Brajesh’s gallery will look like first…

@Peterverkooijen pics and events are hardly “bells and whistles” Why do you regard this effort as “cramming” it into a plugin or even the core? Are you really unsure as to the value of events and pics in a BP community site? You always claim NOT to be a programmer but have no problem taking shots at the evolution of the core. The member mgt is straightforward enough.

There are plenty of great gallery plugins out there but member integration is necessary (doesn’t mean difficult)

@Mike Pratt and Bowe, my general point is the same problem Microsoft Windows used to be criticized for; putting too many applications into an operating system while they should have strengthened/secured the core and focused on usability first.

Let 3rd party developers spend time on creating awesome functionalities for our BuddyPress sites which are fully integrated with BPs functions, so we should not have to revert to external scripts and “hacks”.

So Buddypress is The Standard and everybody else has to adapt? I don’t see Zenphoto rewriting their excellent, mature script to become a plugin for Buddypress. So then I would have to hope enthusiastic volunteers will reinvent the wheel within BP.

If Buddypress has a solid core and APIs that make it easy to integrate external scripts, you don’t have to resort to hacks. Modular vs monolithic!

You always claim NOT to be a programmer but have no problem taking shots at the evolution of the core.

I have been an IT journalist for over ten years. I’m not a php programmer, but can sort of follow what the code does and see how the database is structured. Buddypress is built on WPMU which is built on WP and it shows. WordPress was for managing posts on a blog. A social network is for managing people/profiles, but Buddypress doesn’t even a have built-in way to store first name and last name, which immediately becomes a problem when you try to do event registration.

If there’s something available that’s built on BP or WP, then I’d rather use that, even if there are less features. If there’s something that I really need, then I’d just add it myself. I’d actually been thinking of turning NextGEN into a BP plugin.

The ZenphotoPress plugin is actually very effective. After testing both I absolutely prefer the combination of Zenphoto->ZenphotoPress->Wordpress over NextGen->Wordpress. The Zenphoto solution, not cramming everything into one plugin, is more solid and versatile.

@Peter

“So Buddypress is The Standard and everybody else has to adapt?”

no, but WordPress is the Standard.

I don’t see Zenphoto rewriting their excellent, mature script to become a plugin for Buddypress

The ZenphotoPress plugin is actually very effective

Make up your mind.

I’ll explain it one more time so even you can understand; a stand-alone application that has a plugin to interface with WordPress is NOT the same thing as WordPress plugin.

… plugins are not hacks. Plugins are modular.

I never said plugins are hacks. Learn to read. I’m a big fan of plugins, but I prefer plugins that interface with existing, mature applications over plugins with entire applications written from scratch.

Case in point – I want to commit to a Gallery plugin. So let’s say I do and get users to upload thousands of pics. All is well. Dev stops. BP progresses and gallery breaks. I am faced with either correcting myself, finding another and hopefully resurrecting all the images, comments, galleries, etc (prob impossible) or <shudder> asking people to re-upload (not happening) I am ok taking risks but wondered how others deal with this issue (same applies for the seemingly stalled events plugin)

Solution: Use solid, mature stand-alone applications like Zenphoto. If they don’t have an interface plugin with WordPress, write one.

The key word here is ‘was’. If you know anything about WP, then you should know that by now it’s one of the most versatile CMS around.

Sure, functionality is ever-expanding, but the foundation is still blog centered.

BuddyPress does have a way to store 1st name and last name….custom fields …

My point is that they are not built-in, which is weird for a social network. And if you add them as custom fields you have to write your own custom function to get them into wp_usermeta.

But OK people, good luck writing that kick-ass gallery plugin for Buddypress! I won’t be wasting my time on it. I’ll be busy restructuring Buddypress’ crappy registration form.

@Mike Pratt, the original subject of this thread was whether Buddypress should get a Gallery feature:

Can someone please tell me if there will one day be an Gallery / Albums feature for this software. I am holding back my site due to its main use is to let users create albums. I know there are some third party plugins but not of them i have found are truly any good. Please Please Please someone make this happen

Then David Lewis added requests for an event feature:

… bp-events. It’s not keeping pace with BP 1.2 development. Which is fine. What do you want for free… right?! But with BP being such a niche right now… we don’t have any other options. We have to live with the broken solution or roll our own.

My point is that Buddypress can never be all things to all people. Events may be “a mission critical component” to David Lewis’ site – also for me BTW! – but to someone else ecommerce may be mission critical. Or paid membership. Or collaboration tools. Or whatever.

The problems Vincole, David Lewis and even you mentioned are typical for plugins; many of them are simply not very good, are not keeping up with WP/WPMU/BP and sometimes development stops entirely.

So I argued that it’s probably more efficient to use plugins to connect to existing scripts and that the attention of Buddypress developers should be on APIs that make that easier and strenghtening the core, not chasing features.

I’m just giving my feedback as a non-PHP-programmer trying to use the script, but apparently questioning the primacy and infallibility of Buddypress is a grave offense to some on this board. That’s disappointing.