[neekolaus]

Hi all,

I am a first time BuddyPress user looking for some advice! I’ve basic HTML, CSS and Javascript programming knowledge, and would like to ask if BuddyPress can fulfill the following requirements:

– a directory site for music studios with an individual listing for each studio
– each listing will have various fields e.g. price range, location
– a multi-attribute ratings system for each studio with an overall weighted rating
– users must login to rate the studio
– ability to search, filter and rank studios based on ratings and the various fields

I’ve noticed some plugins for WordPress that allow for multi-attribute ratings but not requiring a user login, and thought BuddyPress might be a way to achieve this. Would you advise so, and are there any resources I could refer to with regard to integrating plugins in the manner envisioned?

[modemlooper]

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bp-group-reviews

This works like the plugin reviews on this site. Example: https://buddypress.org/community/groups/buddypress-xprofile-custom-fields-type/reviews/

You can turn groups into “Studios” by creating a language file and changing all instances of Group/Groups to Studio https://codex.buddypress.org/translations/

[Roger Coathup]

@neekolaus – you can build a directory site with reviews on top of BuddyPress.

http://plazaa.de (built by Poolie) and http://enterprisenation.com (our own work) are good examples built on BuddyPress.

You would use WordPress custom post types to model the studios, with BuddyPress handling the user accounts. The custom posts types can be integrated with BuddyPress based profiles giving you a seamless experience. For ratings / reviews, GD star rating is one of the more complete plugin solutions.

Unfortunately, it’s not something you could tackle with basic web development skills – it would require fairly advanced PHP, WordPress, BuddyPress knowledge. We’ve built a number of bespoke directory type sites, but I don’t know of anyone providing a good ‘off the shelf’ solution (yet!!).

[neekolaus]

@modemlooper thanks for the advice! will try it out.
Roger Coathup, could you point me in the direction of some resources? am i right to say this implementation is different from what modemlooper has suggested, in that you are customising wordpress posts instead of buddypress groups?

To update, I’ve set up a localhost using XMAPP on OS X. Still trying to sort out some issues with the Buddypress install – am getting a “Object not found” 404 error when clicking on links from the home page.