BuddyPress.org

We’ll be doing some maintenance to BuddyPress.org this week, so don’t be alarmed if a few things aren’t working or go missing for a little while. We’ll try to make it as painless as possible, and we promise it will be worth it in the end. 🙂

Available immediately is BuddyPress 1.2.9. This is a bug-fix release of the 1.2 branch to ensure full compatibility with WordPress 3.2. (Note: This does not use the new bbPress 2.0! We’re working on it!)

BuddyPress 1.2.9 includes fixes related to the new version of jQuery (1.6.1) that comes packaged with with WordPress 3.2. These changes affect the javascript and ajax behaviors in the bp-default theme. You can read more about them on the WordPress development blog. If your BuddyPress site runs bp-default (or a child theme of it) you’ll need to update to BuddyPress 1.2.9 immediately after updating to WordPress 3.2.

Questions? Let us know in the comments or in the support forums, and stay on the lookout for an early preview of BuddyPress 1.3 sometime in July!

Download BuddyPress 1.2.9 from WordPress Extend or BuddyPress.org.

I’ve just released version 1.1 of the BuddyPress Template Pack. BP Template Pack is a plugin that provides you with the necessary templates to make your existing WordPress theme BP-compatible. The plugin now provides templates that are 100% up-to-date with the latest stable release of BuddyPress, which means that users will get all of the features and AJAX niceties enjoyed by sites that use the bp-default theme.

Those upgrading from an older version of the BuddyPress Template Pack can replace their existing BP templates, using the “Reset” button at Dashboard > BP Compatibility. Keep in mind that you’ll need to delete the BP template folders from your active theme (activity, blogs, forums, groups, members, registration) – for purposes of safety, this is must be done manually via FTP. Remember to back up any changes that you’ve made to these template files before deleting.

EDIT: As r-a-y points out, it’s a very smart idea to *back up* or *rename* your existing template directories instead of simply deleting them. Test this on a development installation before you do anything in a production environment, if you can.

During the day of Monday, April 4, we will be taking BuddyPress.org down to perform some routine maintenance. This will effect profiles.wordpress.org as well. We’re not doing anything fancy yet, just updating some of the inner workings to pave the way for future updates and enhancements.

Our next item up for bid is BuddyPress 1.2.8, which includes a few small bug fixes to the 1.2 branch of code and is a highly recommended update if you are updating to WordPress 3.1.

This release backports a few important fixes from the currently in-development 1.3 version of BuddyPress to play nicely with the new and very much improved WordPress network administration interface. We’ve also updated the bundled version of bbPress from 1.0.2 to 1.0.3, which addresses a few issues that do not effect BuddyPress directly.

Every effort has been put into supporting both WordPress 3.0 and 3.1 with this release to make updating your sites as painless as possible, so this should be another worry-free update!

BuddyPress 1.2.7 has just been tagged, and is ready for download! This maintenance release fixes several problems, and is an important upgrade for all BuddyPress installations. Check out the details of the 1.2.7 release at the official changelog.

Before upgrading your BuddyPress installation, make sure to back up your data and files, and deactivate BuddyPress-dependent plugins. (Or, as I like to call it, BUD. Somehow I have a feeling that won’t catch on….)

The community of BuddyPress contributors continues to grow! Huge thanks and überprops go out to those who have contributed to this release cycle: andrewteg, bizybee, calvin_42, cnorris23, intimez, jond, ptahdunbar, r-a-y, swinton. If I missed your name, let me know in the comments below.

Enjoy BuddyPress 1.2.7!

Ready immediately is BuddyPress 1.2.6 which includes a number of important bug fixes to the 1.2 branch of code and is another highly recommended upgrade. As always, be sure to back-up your installations before upgrading, and deactivate any dependent plugins that you might have to ensure there are no conflicts or errors during the process.

This version improves WordPress 3.0 compatibility, makes some minor tweaks to the included theme, and fixes a total of 91 reported issues! Check out the BuddyPress release history for details on the important fixes in this release.

BuddyProps

With almost 100 bugs fixed and issues addressed in 1.2.6, you can bet we have some people to thank. Firstly, congrats and thanks again to Boone and Paul for all of their help and contributions. They are both huge assets to the BuddyPress project and Andy and I are really happy to have their continued support. Props go out to benfremer, cnorris23, dwenaus, erich73, francescolaffi, hempsworth, intimez, jeffsayre, kunalb, paulhastings0, r-a-y, wpmuguru, and everyone else that contributed. (If I missed you, slap me with a trout and leave a comment below.)

Paul, Boone, and I spent almost 3 full days together at WordCamp New York talking about what we’d like to focus on and what direction we’d like to see things go. This version of BuddyPress has been one of our longest development cycles to date since we’ve gone 1.0. By bringing on Paul and Boone we’re going to ramp up production and set our sights on the next major version somewhere around the end of 2010.

Have fun and thanks for using BuddyPress!

Today at WordCamp New York (about 30 minutes ago in fact) I had the privilege of introducing Boone B. Gorges and Paul Gibbs as new core committers to the BuddyPress project.

In recent months both Boone and Paul have been heavily involved in team meetings, forum moderation, and producing outstanding core code patches. If you spend any amount of time in our forums or in our development Trac, then you have definitely spent some time with them and know that this isn’t really a huge surprise. 🙂

You know what this means, right? Look forward to some more awesome stuff coming in the next few weeks from the BuddyPress team, the project as a whole, and stay tuned to this blog for more news coming soon!

Congrats gents!

The Open Source Awards is an annual online event held by Packt Publishing to distinguish excellence among Open Source projects.

Now in its fifth year, the Award (formerly known as the Open Source Content Management System (CMS) Award) is designed to encourage, support, recognize and reward not only CMSes but a wider range of Open Source projects.

This year BuddyPress has the honor of being a finalist in the “Most Promising Open Source Project” category, which is for all Open Source projects that made their debut within the past 2 years. We’re up against some stiff competition with LiveStreet CMS, Pimcore, Tomato CMS, and WolfCMS, so we’re asking for your support!

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want or care about the $2,500 prize for winning our category. Andy would really like a sweet 3D-TV, and I could use a posh new living room set myself, but we decided donating the proceeds to the WordPress Foundation was probably the best way to use any cash winnings. 🙂

To help make voting worth your while, PacktPub is giving away free Amazon Kindles to random voters and nominees. If showing your BuddyPress pride isn’t enough, do it for the opportunity to score a free Kindle!

So click the banner below and be whisked away to Packt Pubs voting page, where you can [help Andy enjoy Jurassic Park like it was meant to be enjoyed] [help John take epic naps on a new comfy couch] help support BuddyPress and maybe win yourself a Kindle!

If you haven’t heard the word, there is a fury of activity going on at this very moment in the WordPress community. For the first time in over 8 years, the core development team is not working on the next version of WordPress, but rather on an initiative that’s been dubbed “3.org.”

3.org is a very appropriately named project that is focused on building and polishing the surrounding elements of WordPress rather than on WordPress itself. Part of this initiative is the conversion of bbPress from a standalone platform into a neat little WordPress plugin. I’ve volunteered to lead that initiative, and wanted to take a moment to explain what that means for BuddyPress, bbPress, and what you can expect for the next few months.

Since BuddyPress 1.1, bbPress has come bundled in the package to help make the installation as smooth and easy as possible. Through a little bit of massaging we successfully integrated bbPress into a dedicated forum component to allow for group discussion, and we included a central discussion directory to help put all of these topics in one easy place. All of these ideas were great on paper but have had mixed feedback and results in practice. Making bbPress a standalone plugin will help allow for more customizable installations which is great news for anyone that’s currently using BuddyPress for the forum component, or has been holding off because of the complexity of it all.

Our goal with me giving some attention to the bbPress plugin project is to keep it tightly integrated with BuddyPress, but have them act totally independently or alone if necessary. This means in a future version of BuddyPress, bbPress will no longer come packaged in the download, and both plugins will be aware of each other being activated. When that happens, additional features will be available to you to help create the kind of community that you’d like to have, instead of forcing forums to be tucked away into BuddyPress discussion groups.

The end result will be two plugins working harmoniously together, to easily enable setups where bbPress forums can be created for any other kind of object, component, or plugin. This is particularly awesome for BuddyPress developers because it will allow them to internally extend bbPress to fit the specific needs of their own custom BuddyPress components as they see fit.

With all this going on, the loose expectation is for BuddyPress 1.2.6 to roll out asap with a few bug fixes and maybe even a small new enhancement or two, with 1.3 to follow by the end of the year. bbPress 1.2 (the plugin) should be stable enough to start testing as soon as September 15 (give or take a few days and/or missing features) with a full release due around the same time as BuddyPress 1.3.