BuddyPress.org

Now alive and ready for testing is the beta version of BuddyPress 1.2.

This version will work with both WordPress 2.9.1 and WordPress MU 2.9.1 or higher. We especially need standard WordPress installation testers to put BuddyPress through its paces. Installation instructions can be found in the readme.txt file.

If you’d prefer to not download and install the beta version, you can always help with testing by registering on our testing community site. This always runs the bleeding edge version of BuddyPress.

You can find a list of known issues and a place to post bugs via the BuddyPress Trac installation.

Testing Upgrades

If you’re going test upgrading a previous BuddyPress installation please read the following instructions (please only test backup copies when upgrading with a beta):

1. If you’re using a custom theme that is not a child theme of bp-sn-parent, please download and install the backwards compatibility plugin before doing anything.
2. Deactivate BuddyPress.
3. Upload and overwrite your existing BuddyPress plugin directory.
4. Delete “bp-default” and “bp-sn-parent” from your themes directory.
5. Activate BuddyPress. You do not need to move any themes.

We also now have a development blog. Weekly meetings are held in IRC every Wednesday at 19:00 UTC. Happy testing!

As we start to prepare BuddyPress 1.2 there will be a fury of activity both in the support forums and in the development trac. To help keep up with these changes and make it easier for you to get involved, we’ve followed the success of the WordPress devs and started our own development blog. We’ll be using it to talk about roadmaps, features, APIs, future enhancements, and the general technical details that maybe aren’t fitting for support forums or official announcements.

Because blogging and commenting back and forth sometimes aren’t enough to get the point across, we’ve also setup dedicated time each week to have a developers discussion in #buddypress-dev on Freenode on IRC. We’ll be using the development blog to set each weeks’ agenda and will be following a similar format to the WordPress dev chat, so if you’re familiar with that setup you should feel right at home.

Join in to #buddypress-dev on Wednesdays at 19:00 UTC (currently 7pm GMT, 2pm EST, 11am PST) and check out http://bpdevel.wordpress.com to come chat with us and help shape the future of BuddyPress!

Development for version 1.2 of BuddyPress is beginning to wind down and we’re looking at a feature freeze at the end of this month. I’d expect the new version to be released some time at the end of January after a period of beta testing. We’ve got a host of new features to look forward to in this new version and I’d like to give you a glimpse of a few of them.

One of the biggest changes is the activity stream. There has been a lot of focus on making the activity stream far more interactive in 1.2, and to do this we have merged together some of the features in previous versions of BuddyPress. Instead of having to post messages on a group or profile wire, or posting a separate status update, you can now post messages directly to the site wide stream, your profile stream, or a group activity stream. This stops fragmentation of the interface and brings content posting into one unified input box.

One of the benefits of this interactive activity stream is that we can now provide the ability for other members to post direct replies to your updates. In 1.2 the activity stream includes the ability for threaded commenting. This allows for full conversations to take place around activities and makes the activity stream that much more of a two way process.

Another major update in 1.2 is the introduction of a new default theme. We’ve worked hard to produce a theme that will help both end users and developers. The new theme offers a more usable and unified interface with far more personal customization than the previous default. The theme also greatly simplifies the HTML, CSS and Javascript that powers it, allowing for greater ease of customization. If you’re fully invested in the previous default, don’t worry, this theme is not going anywhere and has already been updated to support the new features in 1.2. The new default simply provides a fresh alternative.

If you’re itching to start trying out some of the features in the new version, you can head on over to the BuddyPress Test Drive. The test drive runs the latest development version of BuddyPress and represents the state of the newest version as it currently stands. If you’d like to start working with the development version you can always check out the latest version from our svn code repository. However, remember that until the final version is released code is subject to change.

I hope everyone has a wonderful festive season and an even better new year celebration. 2010 is going to be an exciting year for BuddyPress, I’m looking forward to sharing it with you.

The latest BuddyPress 1.1 point release is now available for download.

This release fixes a number of remaining issues with the 1.1 release of BuddyPress. Although this is not a critical upgrade, it is still highly recommended to ensure the stability of your installation.

Please consult the release history for a complete list of changes in this version.

I’d like to congratulate John James Jacoby (aka jjj) for doubling the size of the core development team and gaining commit access to the project!

BuddyPress is growing, and at a pace that just one core developer cannot possibly keep up with. I’ve been looking to expand the size of the core development team for a while now and I’m excited to be able to announce the first stop along that road.

If you’re a regular in the forums or trac you’ll already know who John is. He has been an unrelenting force for some time with quick responses to questions and quality core patches.

John will be helping with bug fixing to begin with, then looking to take on some of the new features listed on the roadmap. Congratulations again John, I’m very excited to have you on the core team.

This year at WordCamp New York there will be a whole track dedicated to WordPress MU and BuddyPress. Some of the topics being presented are:

Getting off the Farm:
WPMU Beyond Blog Hosting. We all know that WPMU can be used to host multiple blogs for public or internal signups. But what else can you do? How far can you stretch it? I’ll be showcasing a number of sites that use WPMU in interesting ways. Speaker: Andrea Rennick.

Writing Plugins for WordPress/MU:
This session will be directed toward plugin developers. We will discuss platform differences & guidelines to keep in mind when writing a plugin for both WordPress & WordPress MU. Speaker: Ron Rennick.

User Authentication with MU in Existing Ecosystems.
Speaker: Casey Bisson.

How-to with MU: Using Multiple Domains, and Building a Member Directory.
A two-part session where we will dig in to two different concepts. First up, we’ll cover how to domain map member blogs, and the difference between multiple sites and multiple domains. The second half will cover how we built a business/member directory and what plugins we used to accomplish this so you can build one too. Speaker: Andrea Rennick.

Growing Community with BuddyPress:
Speaker: Lisa Sabin-Wilson.

Creating Killer Group Extensions in BuddyPress:
In this session learn how to build highly custom feature extensions to BuddyPress groups. Andy will be talking through how you can use the new group extension API to build Twitter stream integration right into your groups. Speaker: Andy Peatling.

Developing BuddyPress as a Collaboration Hub:
In this presentation, I’ll discuss some of the BuddyPress development I’ve done to bridge the WordPress/bbPress/MediaWiki platforms, taking BP beyond its roots as a social networking platform and turning it into a collaboration hub: a space where users can find, friend, and team up with each other (the social networking part BP that does well), work together to produce content (that’s the “collaboration” part), and feed the content back into BP (that’s the “hub” part). Speaker: Boone Gorges.

Other soon-to-be confirmed sessions: Setting up BuddyPress (workshop); BuddyPress theme framework.

For a full list of sessions please see the program page.

It should be a fantastic event with space for up to 1000 people. Tickets are selling out fast so if you’re thinking of attending, now is the time to hop in and buy a ticket. It looks like this is going to be the east coast WordCamp to attend. I’ll see you all there!

BuddyPress 1.1.2 is now available via an automatic upgrade or manual download.

This is an important security release and fixes two vulnerabilities found in version 1.1.1. To stay protected it is essential that you upgrade to this version of BuddyPress regardless of the version you are currently running.

For a full list of fixes and closed tickets please consult the release history.

The first BuddyPress 1.1 point release is now available for download.

This release fixes a few remaining issues with BuddyPress 1.0 theme backwards compatibility. Upgrade instructions are in the usual spot.

Please consult the release history for a complete list of changes.

The latest version of BuddyPress is now ready for download.

This release includes a substantial number of core code improvements as well as an array of useful new features.

Some highlights of this version are:

• One click internal bbPress forum integration allowing you to set up group forums in less than a minute.
• A global forum directory (example) allowing you to easily browse public facing forum posts regardless of the group they are attached to.
• Completely re-written theme handling. One theme now controls all of your installation. No hidden HTML, everything is in the template ready for you to skin.
• Easily create themes that are upgraded automatically when BuddyPress is updated.
• Total site admin control of all content within an installation. Edit user’s profiles, update avatars, mark users as spammers, manage all groups, delete site activity entries.
• Activity streams everywhere. Activity streams can be filtered allowing for feature specific activity streams or adding an activity stream to your custom plugin.
• A new status updates feature is included in BuddyPress 1.1. Actions and filters are included to allow plugin developers to hook into any external service.
• An awesome group extension API allowing developers to easily extend groups and add completely new features.

If you’re starting with a brand new installation, check out the new setting up a new installation help guide. If you’re upgrading from a previous version of BuddyPress, please make sure you read the upgrading from 1.0.x help guide before upgrading. There is a specific help guide on upgrading your 1.0.x custom theme to 1.1.

If you’re interested in building themes and plugins for BuddyPress 1.1, be sure to check out the new version of the BuddyPress Skeleton Component and the creating a BuddyPress child theme help guide.

I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone from the community who has helped in reporting problems, submitting bugs, writing patches and answering support queries. Without your help BuddyPress would not have the thriving community and development momentum it has today.

A special thanks to the following developers who submitted multiple bug reports and patches and also spent countless hours in IRC (#buddypress-dev) talking through issues:

JohnJamesJacoby, DJPaul, Junsuijin, JeffSayre, JasonG, Chouf1, GIGALinux, burtadsit, Ezd, Mariusooms, r-a-y, slaFFik, pertronic, j.conti

Happy BuddyPress-ing, and onwards to version 1.2!

BuddyPress 1.1 release candidate is available for final testing. As with the beta, this version is intended for testing, so please do not run it on production sites.

As with the beta, the release candidate is available for download via zip or via subversion.

If you download the zip version you will still need to download bbPress 1.0 separately. Please extract bbPress into the folder “bp-forums/bbpress” inside of the BuddyPress plugin directory. This will not be the case with the final 1.1 version.

There have been more than 70 bugs reported and fixed since the beta last week. Thank you to those who opened tickets and submitted patches.

Please report bugs on our trac site with the milestone “1.1”. There are currently no outstanding bugs at the time of writing. Put me to work! Please use your BuddyPress.org username and password to log into the trac site.

BuddyPress 1.1 final is on target for September 30.