Available immediately is BuddyPress 1.5.2. This is a compatibility release intended to fix some cosmetic issues with the new WordPress 3.3 toolbar, and is a recommended update for all existing BuddyPress 1.5/1.5.1 and WordPress 3.3 installations.
Download BuddyPress 1.5.2 from WordPress Extend or BuddyPress.org.
Come and get it! BuddyPress 1.5.1 is now available. This release fixes over 25 issues that have popped up since BuddyPress 1.5 “Lombardi” was rolled out in September.
BP 1.5.1 is a recommended upgrade for all sites currently running BuddyPress 1.5. Haven’t upgraded to BP 1.5 yet? Be sure to check out our 1.5 upgrade guide and some of the other resources suggested in the BuddyPress 1.5 release post.
As usual, this release couldn’t have happened without the fantastic BuddyPress community, valiantly manning (and womanning) our support forums and Trac. Special thanks to the following community members, whose code patches appear in BP 1.5.1: boonebgorges, djpaul, Grimbog, mind1, r-a-y, sushkov, techguytom, wdfee, wpmuguru.
Download BuddyPress 1.5.1 from WordPress Extend or BuddyPress.org.
Are you (or do you aspire, from the bottom of your heart, to be) a BuddyPress plugin developer? For several years, the go-to template for building BP plugins has been the BuddyPress Skeleton Component, originally written by Andy Peatling and Jeff Sayre. Through time, the original BPSC has gotten a bit out-of-step with the current best practices for BuddyPress plugins. And with the recent release of BuddyPress 1.5 – with its new BP_Component class and a whole load of new goodies for plugin devs – the time was ripe for revisiting the Skeleton Component.
And so, available immediately is the brand new BuddyPress Skeleton Component, version 1.6! A quick overview of improvements:
BP_Component class, making it dead-simple to register globals, create navigation items, and hook into the BP load orderWP_DEBUG notices removedPlease note that, due to its use of BP_Component class and other new features, plugins based on BPSC 1.6 will only work with BuddyPress 1.5 or greater. If you need to retain compatibility with earlier versions of BuddyPress, it’s recommended that you *first* build your plugin for the current version of BP, and then build the 1.2.x compatibility as an afterthought. See the “1.5 plugin update” series on bpdevel.wordpress.com and earlier versions of the Skeleton Component for more details on building plugins for BP < 1.5.
Questions, comments, or suggestions about the BuddyPress Skeleton Component? Check out the buddypress.org forums. You can also follow (and contribute to!) the plugin’s development here.
BuddyPress 1.5 “Lombardi” is here!
Version 1.5 is a major feature release for BuddyPress, encompassing hundreds of bug fixes, enhancements, and all-new features. BuddyPress 1.5 comes with a completely reworked Default theme, a brand-new installation and update wizard, integration with the WordPress navigation menus and Admin Bar, a rewritten interface for managing profile fields, and scores of smaller improvements. To see the complete list of BuddyPress 1.5’s fixes and features, check out the dedicated BuddyPress Codex 1.5 features and fixes page.
We’ve given BuddyPress 1.5 the codename “Lombardi”. The BuddyPress core development team is made up of pizza fanatics who thought it fitting to pay homage in this release to the first pizzeria in the United States. (As a bonus, two of our developers hail from the Badger State where the name “Lombardi” has a different but no less important connotation.)
Do you have an existing site that you want to upgrade to BuddyPress 1.5? We’ve worked our hardest to ensure that your upgrade will go off without a hitch. The most popular BuddyPress plugins have been updated for full BuddyPress 1.5 compatibility, and on standard installations most of your other plugins and themes will continue to work as well. There’s a page on the BuddyPress Codex devoted to the process of upgrading to BuddyPress 1.5 where you’ll find lots of helpful resources on making your upgrade as smooth as possible. Don’t forget that the Codex is a wiki – if you’ve got some words of wisdom to share with the community, don’t be afraid to jump in and edit (using your buddypress.org account)! As usual, you’re encouraged to run upgrades in test environments before upgrading your live site.
If you’ve never used BuddyPress before, there’s never been a better time to try it out. BuddyPress 1.5 is the most secure and stable version to date.
If you experience problems with your BP 1.5 installation or upgrade, the BuddyPress community has assembled a collection of resources for you. In addition to the fixes and features and upgrade pages, there are many other tutorials and guides available from the Codex home page. buddypress.org is also the home of a vibrant set of support and discussion forums where you can read, ask, and answer questions about 1.5 and BuddyPress in general. And if you find bugs in BuddyPress itself, our development community’s home is http://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org.
BuddyPress 1.5 is the result of thousands of hours of work by hundreds of community members, in the form of patches, design, and testing. The following folks contributed patches that ended up in the release: AaronCampbell, AD7six, aesqe, andrewteg, apeatling, Backie, balbert, BB_Othella, bizybee, boonebgorges, bowromir, calvin_42, chestnut_jp, cnorris23, davidtcarson, dchase, ddean, deadpan110, defunctlife, delayedinsanity, denis.ogun, Dennissmolek, dgwatkins, enderandrew, for, francescolaffi, Ghost_ufa, gian-ava, greuben, gzeidan, Harry, hnla, intimez, ipstenu, j.conti, jefferai, jessica120, jfarthing84, johnjamesjacoby, johnpbloch, jond, Jonnyauk, karmatosed, kunalb, LanceHudson, lpryor, luccame, lucianop, lunabyte, mareck, mdawaffe, mercime, mikekennedy, modemlooper, mrmaz, nacin, nerrad, nuprn1, Paul Gibbs, PedroMiguel, ptahdunbar, r-a-y, rebootnow, sboisvert, sbrajesh, SergeyBiryukov, slaFFik, slambert, smurkas, sorich87, stas, sushkov, swinton, to, TobiasBg, travel-junkie, wpmuguru.
Many thanks to them and to everyone who helped test during the entire 1.5 development cycle. Without the contributions of this awesome community, BuddyPress simply would not be possible.
Now that that’s out of the way, order yourself a pizza and download BuddyPress 1.5 today!
BuddyPress Template Pack is a Totally Tubular plugin that helps you to bring BuddyPress functionality to any WordPress theme. And now, after a bit of elbow grease, the latest version (1.2) is fully compatible with the so-close-it-hurts BuddyPress 1.5!
BPTP works, in brief, by copying over some necessary template files from BuddyPress into your existing theme, where you can customize them to your heart’s content. In order to protect any customizations that you may already have made if you’re already using the Template Pack with a BuddyPress 1.2.x site, BPTP won’t overwrite the any BP-specific template files in your theme, even after upgrading to BPTP 1.2 and BP 1.5. If you’re upgrading, and you’d like to get the shiny new templates from BP 1.5, you’ll need to remove the BP template directories from your theme (activity, blogs, forums, groups, members, and registration), and hit “Reset” under Dashboard > Appearance > BP Compatibility. If you’ve previously made customizations to the BP templates copied into your theme, you’ll then have to copy those changes over to the newly moved template files. Sound like a lot of work? Don’t worry – the template changes between BuddyPress 1.2.10 and BuddyPress 1.5 are not huge, so it’s likely that your old templates will continue to work just fine. In any case, make sure you back up your theme before attempting any monkey business!
Special thanks to r-a-y, who did most of the work to make BuddyPress Template Pack compatible with the latest BuddyPress. Woo hoo, r-a-y!
Download BPTP 1.2 from the wordpress.org plugin repository.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve released three – count ’em, three! – beta versions of BuddyPress 1.5. During that time, we’ve gotten some great feedback, and some great patches, from our user and developer community. With a clear mind (and a clear milestone), today we are releasing the BuddyPress 1.5 Release Candidate.
The “release candidate” label means that we think that the current codebase is rock solid, and this final stage in the release cycle gives users one more chance to find any remaining kinks before the stable release.
We’d like this RC period to be short – we’re as anxious for the 1.5 release as you are! – so please give the RC a go in your test environments, and try the latest code in a live testbed at testbp.org. As usual, we recommend that you don’t run pre-release code in mission-critical production environments.
You can download BuddyPress 1.5 RC 1 today, from the bottom of our Trac page.
In addition (it’s been quite a weekend): available immediately is BuddyPress 1.2.10. This minor update includes an important security fix, as well as fixes for a few deprecated function calls. It’s a recommended update for all BuddyPress installations. Upgrade through your WordPress Dashboard, or download BuddyPress 1.2.10 from WordPress Extend or BuddyPress.org.
With BuddyPress 1.5 due any day now, we’d like to invite you to take the next major release for a test drive. If you’d like to help us out or even if you’re just curious what’s coming in 1.5, check out the official test site at testbp.org. It’s always running the latest versions of BuddyPress and bbPress, has almost 30,000 members, and is the best way to help us make sure everything is ready for release while letting you be safely behind the driver’s seat.
As a general reminder, we’re keeping running list of API changes for 1.5 in our codex at codex.buddypress.org.
We are putting the finishing touches on the forums component now, and are aiming to release 1.5 as soon as this week. Keep an eye out!
Available today for developer testing is BuddyPress 1.5 Beta 3. We’re keeping our momentum going and squashed enough bugs in Beta 2 that we want to give it another trip around the block to make sure it’s solid.
If you are a BuddyPress plugin author, please take the time to test your plugins against the latest code and let us know if something isn’t working quite right. We have an extensive change-log for 1.5 and we want everyone to transition from 1.2 as painlessly as possible.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one… Please don’t run BuddyPress Beta software on your live production site. We know there will be quirks and we are keeping up with your bug reports as they come in. Install BuddyPress 1.5 on a local installation or a test site, and let us know if you find anything that isn’t working the way it should. The end of August is upon us, and we’re ramping up for a release in the coming days.
You can download BuddyPress 1.5 Beta 3 today, from the bottom of our Trac page.
Just 5 days after 1.5 Beta 1, up for grabs today for all you early adopters and plugin and theme developers is BuddyPress 1.5 Beta 2. It fixes a few bugs that cropped up early in Beta 1, and we want everyone to test with the newest code available.
If you are a BuddyPress plugin author, now is your time to help us help you, and check out all the work that’s gone into making the next version of BuddyPress faster, more efficient, more secure, and easier to code against.
As always, please DO NOT run BuddyPress Beta software on your live production site. There are going to be quirks with existing plugins, and we will be updating code rapidly as bug reports come in. Install BuddyPress 1.5 on a local installation or a test site, and let us know if you find anything that isn’t working the way it should. We are hoping the beta period will only last a few weeks, with a release in August.
You can download BuddyPress 1.5 Beta 2 today, from the bottom of our Trac page.
Huge thanks to all of our testers!
Wait… 1.5? What happened to 1.3? Or 1.4 for that matter?
You see… BuddyPress 1.2 was released on February 16, 2010. We’ve shipped 9 point releases since then, but it’s been over 17 months since a major release of BuddyPress has come through the tubes.
We do our best to mirror the WordPress development cycles as closely as possible – maybe a little too closely. Back in 2004, WordPress went through a growth spurt of its own, going 9 months between major releases (also between versions 1.2 and 1.5) so we are doing the same, and skipping ahead to 1.5 ourselves.
Here are the stats we’re using to justify the version inflation:
The similarities between BuddyPress and WordPress development symbolize the nature of developing something totally new and exciting, so we think it’s fitting to bump our version number in a similar fashion.
Because of the volume of changes internally, we’re packaging up a developer beta so plugin authors have time to review our changes, report bugs, and give everyone a few weeks to tie up any loose ends that are left.
If you are a BuddyPress plugin author, now is your time to help us help you, and check out all the work that’s gone into making the next version of BuddyPress faster, more efficient, more secure, and easier to code against.
If you are a user or a designer, check out the changes to the BP Default theme. We’ve done our best to turn it into a theme you want to use, and have it still show off all the features too.
If you are neither (or both) of those things, you can help by documenting the codex. We’re trying to do our part by writing the phpDoc as we go, and if you can help move some of that into the codex, it helps everyone!
As always, please DO NOT run BuddyPress Beta software on your live production site. There are going to be quirks with existing plugins, and we will be updating code rapidly as bug reports come in. Install BuddyPress 1.5 on a local installation or a test site, and let us know if you find anything that isn’t working the way it should. We are hoping the beta period will only last a few weeks, with a release in August.
You can download BuddyPress 1.5 Beta 1 today, from the bottom of our Trac page. Happy Testing!
