[thehighplainsdrifter]

Say i have a normal wordpress site

it already has a menu – home, about, contact us, etc etc

by installing buddypress am i simply adding the ‘community’ tab onto that menu which will then open up the social networking side for the site

users can create profiles
users can create groups
users can communicate with one another
etc
etc

im just a little confused when i see buddypress themes etc, im right to believe that by installing buddypress i wont have to change my design of my blog right?

[Tammie Lister]

It opens up social networking and other things besides yes. Where the menu item is though is down to the theme and also up to you if you edit files.

You do not have to change the look of your blog you’d use the template pack to allow your theme to work for BuddyPress. There are some files you’d need in your theme but the template pack solves that.

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bp-template-pack/

[thehighplainsdrifter]

ah i see its starting to make more sense now
i am in the process of converting a large php social site into wordpress and just came across buddypress and it looks like the answer to my problems.

So when a user signs up to my site in wordpress are they signing up through wordpress and then buddypress takes this information and allows more social things to be done with it?

I have to pick a new theme for the site so i guess it wil make sense to pick a wordpress/buddypress theme to make sure i get the most out of it all.

[Tammie Lister]

BuddyPress has it’s own integrated with WordPress users – you can add profile fields and have other control things. In theory they are the same but with additions.

Yes, if you want to maximise what the site does getting a theme designed from the start for BuddyPress is a good step. But, with the template pack as said you don’t have to do that.

[Ratspeed]

Apparently the pack is currently broken with the current WordPress version (3.2.1).. Until it’s fixed, anything we should do in the meantime?

[@mercime]

What “pack” are you referring to?