[gazouteast]

Don’t give up Grosbouff – you have a lot of people hoping for you to complete this … including me

Gaz

[gazouteast]

Aargh – that is disastrous news – I have a site project that has classifieds at it’s core and front end, and your plug-in sounds just the ticket for it (I’d half decided to go with a WPMU+BP engine) as I refuse to pay $200 to Noah’s for what is supposed to be an open source script.

Grosbouff, please press on with the project (I prefer the route of a dedicated blog to house the classifieds) because I am sure you will pick up “early mover” advantage and community acceptance based on that.

Good luck

Gaz

[gazouteast]

Cheers Jeff – that tip-off has really done the biz and rescued the project from the dilemma of which script (BP or WPMU) had seniority on the site – it works a charm – I like that.

That’s why it took me a wee while to get back to you – I got carried away diving into the setup of some basic groups and stuff – LOL – addictive when it works, innit?

Yup – seen a lot of talk here about Gigaom, … still haven’t the faintest clue about who they are though – must look into that when I get a minute.

Right, sleeves are rolled up, and even though it’s after 1:00am here, I’m about to dive in with renewed vigour.

<wink>

Gaz

[gazouteast]

@DJPaul

For example if members.TLD.com is Blog id 2, put this in your wp-config.php:

define( ‘BP_ROOT_BLOG’, 2 );

You are hereby promoted to the status of … DemiGodPaul

That one tiny tip has completely rescued my current project – well done that man

Gaz

[gazouteast]

@David – I kinda figured that might be one way to look at it, and hesitant due to not being the fastest in the world at theme writing or css churning. (I’m also not a big fan of too much white space on a web page either – but that’s due to wearing jam jar bottoms for spectacles – LOL). Still I do wish BP was “in a container” below the WPMU theme and ingherited from WPMU css/theme instead of having to go the other way about … it IS the junior member of the family you know? <wink>

@Jeff – title of that looks intriguing – will go have a read now – many thanks

Gaz

[gazouteast]

I found one fix – it might not work for everyone, but see the last couple of posts from me in this thread – https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/grasping-at-straws-now-should-wpmu-bp-be-in-same-db-or-different

[gazouteast]

Andy / Jeff – in line with my latest topic-start in this forum … can you give us a statement on what BuddyPress is supposed to be?

When I first started trying to get it into play, I was led to believe it was a community suite that tagged onto WPMU, but that’s not true. Yes, it’s a community suite, but it completely takes over and dominates WPMU, and that’s not what I wanted at all for this project, where the core function of WPMU had to be dominant.

Now it may be that this position is due to the default BP theme and its layout etc, in which case more themes (that are site-purpose structured, not BP purpose structured, need released) – instead of themes that “look pretty” with BP, we need themes that are for xyz purpose of site, and lots of them – take a lead from the accounting softwares and the business-type templates they provide in their softwares.

Example – themes for clubs, for charities, for communities of e-tailers, or communities of pub and hotel owners – these types of groups want their core site function to be to promote what there club / charity / business does – which is a great use for WPMU, but not if BP takes over and subdues the blogs into oblivion with all the chat and community slap and tickle.

At the end of the day, there is no real business-oriented community software as such. Sure some softwares have been tweaked for it (e.g. LinkedIn) but it would be a great niche for BP+WPMU if the theme developers kept such considerations in mind when designing the templates.

Gaz

p.s. – how do I demote BP to be a plugin and subservient to WPMU – I still can’t figure it out.

[gazouteast]

Thanks Jeff – I had one heart-stopping moment after BP reinstall when one of the images on the test blog post didn’t load – but that was a connection blip via the ISP. When I refreshed the page, it came up normally.

That function absolutely is needed by the avatar cropper too – I spotted a call for it in the code, so it needs added to the pre-install requirements list. I checked around a few hosting services using pre-sales livechat functions, there’s an awful lot of them have it turned off by default, especially on the east side of the Atlantic.

Gaz

[gazouteast]

Maybe a better summary question would be – how can I make BP a sub-site of the main site?

Think about eBay and the eBay forums – the forums are nearly as heavily trafficked as the shopping pages, but they closetted away off on a sub site – that’s where I want BuddyPress to be.

Hope that’s a clearer picture?

Gaz

[gazouteast]

Hi all – I’m very pleased to say that the above fix appears to have been the root problem with avatar uploads and cropping – they work great now

Many thanks to all who contributed – perhaps the php readfile() function requirement should be added to the install readme? It’s save a lot of support topics appearing here in the forums.

Gaz

[gazouteast]

OK – thanks all

I’m sorry if it appeared I abandoned ship – I went back to the beginning and uncovered an issue with WPMU that may be contributory …

Undocumented in the WPMU readme file and not specifically called out anywhere in their forums or Trac, WPMU requires that the PHP function readfile() be enabled – my hosts for some strange reason had it disabled. This meant that images in WPMU were not displaying onto blog posts in the edit screen or public pages. They’ve now fixed this and I’m about to try putting buddypress back into what is around the dozenth reinstall of WPMU.

The current WPMU reinstall is 100% vanilla with zero plugins or tweaks – not even an extra theme in the themes folder – so this will be the acid test of whether or not that was the issue.

Wish me luck – I’ll post back with results

Gaz

[gazouteast]

Genuine pause for thought – why does buddypress use a javascript image cropper to bring avatars down to size?

Why not use a simple auto-thumbnailer (there are many as plugins to standalone WP) and use css to control the sizes where they’re needed? Even WP has an autothumbnailer built into the media library – that’s why it creates 3 images on server for each one image you upload (which really bugs me – I KNOW what size I want to upload, I’ve already resized it locally BEFORE upload – quit re-inventing the wheel.)

Beddy-bies time for me, sleep needed, I’m getting way too cranky

Night all

Gaz

[gazouteast]

Hi Jeff – key comment in this reply is the last line

So, if your source image is smaller than 150 on at least one of its dimensions, you could have issues with creating the large avatar. If it is smaller than 50 on at least one of its dimensions, you could have issues with creating the small and large avatar

So what happened to css basics?

e.g.

maximum-width; 150px

note the use of maximum-width as opposed to width – or is that not available in javascript ? (genuine query as I don’t know js coding at all) – also, note the dimensions I gave in reply to Xevo way back up the thread.

it may be that your server is running too old of a version of the GD image library

possible, though highly unlikely with this particular host – I’ll check with them though.

never use the auto-upgrade feature when upgrading WPMU or BuddyPress. It is simple and quick enough to manually upgrade them and it gives you more control and assurance that it is done right.

Side topic response, but – I’m 2,000 miles from the closest of my servers (Singapore) and 8,000 from the main one where the install is running a deadline, and 12,000 from the US hosts that I also use heavily. It is NEVER quick to manually download the package, extract it and upload it from here – assuming the locals can keep the electric on for more than an hour at a time, and the internet connected for two consecutive minutes – that’s why the auto-upgrader was such a godsend when it arrived in 2.5 Having said that, I’ve noticed some very consistent differences on it with UK and US hosts – both the auto upgrader and the plugins/theme direct download to site and upgrades, work flawlessly on US hosts and never ask for FTP login. On UK hosts, they all always ask for FTP user login from wp-admin, and greater than 50% of the time they fail to complete all expected on-screen steps. I’ve also noticed that UK hosts tend to override the timeout preventions built into WP, which US hosts do not do. ….. don’t get me started on the pricing differences either – LOL

Are you on a shared or dedicated server? Talk with your hosting firm to see if there is some javascript-based application that the hosting firm has running on your server that could be interfering with the basic JS operations in WPMU

It’s a shared server, but a reseller account – half way step between shared and VPS as in limited main accounts per server but with dedicated RAM per reseller account and so on.

The background js / mootools question is a good one that I’ll fire at them.

On the UK install, I’ve tried every possible config right down to the barest of bones – even to the point of deleting (not just deactivating) all plugins and themes and dropping all tables created by any plugins – still problems persisted.

It got to the point a couple of hours ago that I finally had enough and made liberal use of the Ctrl+A and Del keys

Pffzzzzzt – zap – gone – empty domain space. I’ll be nuking the database in a minute or two as well, then uploading from scratch and starting again in the morning (1:00am+ here now) after letting the dust in my head settle after spending the whole weekend scouring the WPMU and BP forums trying to resolve this.

I’ll also be starting with a WPMU install that has no periods in its directory and folder names – i.e. NO ” blogs.dir ” style of names – I am convinced that is a major source of some problems related to images, just as I am convinced that the user blog folder tree goes way to deep for Google search bots to follow it all the way to the bottom – and that’s gonna hurt SEO.

As I said up a bit, I’ve nuked the install (and the test installs) and will make a fresh start tomorrow … to mis-quote a famous movie line –

“I love the sight of deletion in the evenings” ~ Major Lee Pistoff, in aPressolypse Now

LOL

Gaz

[gazouteast]

Yikes – I think I’ll have to wait for the official upgrade release – way too much there for me to attempt manually without making a complete pigs ear of it – I learned that lesson with osCommerce contribution installs.

Thanks for putting some obviously serious effort into it, even though I’ve only spotted one edit I understood (removing the <div> size from the crop tool display.

Gaz

[gazouteast]

Them errors was when it was activated. I’ve since deactivated it, then went for a siesta to cogitate on this.

I’m starting to think I need to wipe the install and database, and start again from scratch – if a full new install continues to give the same errors then I might just give up on it altogether, and ditch BP for a year or so to allow it to “mature” while I build the blog-only WPMU sites I have on the drawing board.

I appreciate your help and everything, but such a “little thing” as avatars have lost me a week of site development already, and if BP is going to go rogue on me and kill the site each time I upgrade WPMU (knowing they issue uprades every time the wind changes) then I can’t risk trying to build any sites around it.

Another issue surfaced during the WPMU upgrade in that this server failed to complete the auto-upgrade (even though single-blog WP installs on the same server do upgrade using it) and I need to dig into why that happens with WPMU – see if it repeats with a test install of 2.8.4a – and if so, then, that’s another red card for the MU projects list. The failure was that it simply downloaded and unpacked the upgrade, then did nothing else, but the browser status bar reported a “Done” status from the upgrade script and nothing else. Below the actions list (where I’d usually expect a statement and link that all was well), nothing appeared.

I also need to test this on the other hosting services, because if all went to plan, I’d be launching a site a week using WPMU and BP – but that’s starting to look non-viable now due to the high maintenance-commit they seem to need.

Leave this one pending for now, and I’ll get back to you on it in a day or two after further testing.

Many thanks for your effort so far

Gaz

p.s. – the upgrade to WPMU ended up being done manually due to the auto-upgrader issue – all plugins (including BP) were deactivated for the upgrade.

[gazouteast]

@JJJ – how do we “try the trunk” ?

No idea what you mean by that, or how to do it

Gaz

[gazouteast]

Have upgraded WPMU to 2.8.5.2

First thing I noticed – no BuddyPress menu in the site Dashboard at wp-admin

Second thing I noticed =

Fatal error: Call to undefined function bp_page_title() in /home/serveruser/public_html/wp-content/themes/bp-sn-parent/header.php on line 9 (white screen of death on home page)

[gazouteast]

Hi JJJ – just had a mosey around the site back end – your avatar image shows in the WPMU users list, but not on the BP user list (e.g. if I go to “make friends” your user name is there, but not your avatar, same if I go to the members list from the main menu buttons below the buddy bar. Similarly, on the BP themed home page, your avatar doesn’t reveal in the site-wide activity in the recent activity (middle) column.

Will run the WPMU upgrade shortly – was waiting for you to finish trying before I did that.

Posts in WPMU blogging have a similar issue with images – example – using the site default blog, an image uploads fine but doesn’t display in media manager or in the post preview (both edit page and save-draft-&-preview.

I still keep coming back to that path name ” /blogs.dir/ ” I am convinced (without rational reason) that the period in that name is the issue. If upgrading to 2.8.5.1 doesn’t fix it, I’ll have a go at changing that folder name to a standard name type and see if that assists, then post back here.

It’ll be a couple of hours thouggh as I have some offline urgent jobs that are long overdue.

Many thanks for investigating

Gaz

[gazouteast]

Aargh .. and Duhhh Stoopid me – forgot to enable it for you – deep apologies – I’ve reset it to allow user and blog creation / registration – I’ll knock it out again when you’re done.

Goes to find suitable knobbly wall to bang head upon.

[gazouteast]

Tweet deleted – many thanks for taking the time on this – let me know if you need FTP or SQL access

[gazouteast]

@JJJ – tweet sent, please confirm receipt but don’t publish URL – site is not yet public

[gazouteast]

Thanks Xevo – just had a nosy at the groups here on BuddyPress and noticed all of them are using the generated avatars – wonders if that’s due to buddypress.org actually having the same problem, or if it’s because no-one bothered trying the custom avatar upload?

Edit to add – have joined 3 groups here on buddypress.org – the group avatars do not display in my profile groups list (just display a small 60×60 ? grey box with text link for “Group Avatar” in it.

Also sent friend request to JJJ in case that’s what is needed to send PM – my profile friends list shows no friendship accepted and pending shows no request sent, despite the screen showing confirmation at the time of requesting – will try it again

—

Another edit to add – the friendship thing with JJJ has straightened itself out (server lag?) but still cannot PM him – same error as stated above.

[gazouteast]

@Xevo

First image tried =

24-bit 72-dpi jpg 150×150 pixels, 6330 bytes size on disk, RGB

Second image tried =

24-bit 72-dpi jpg 60×60 pixels 2458 bytes size on disk RGB

Third image tried =

24-bit 72-dpi jpg 114×150 pixels 5373 bytes size on disk RGB

Fourth image tried =

24-bit 72-dpi jpg 300×225 pixels 5102 bytes size on disk RGB

Haven’t tried it with gif’s yet, and none of the files tried has transparency. jpg compression ranges from 10% to 50% to achieve the file size on disk (I like small file sizes for faster page loads).

Gaz

[gazouteast]

JJJ – tried to PM you three times now

“There was an error sending that message, please try again”

Have you blocked personal messages? Or is there something here that I’m missing?

Gaz

[gazouteast]

JJJ – will PM you now with the URL for the deadlined install – once you’ve joined, let me know your ID and I’ll also set an FTP and MySQL account for you and supply the backend (cpanel) details for you

Soon as I’ve PM’d you, I’ll pop back and post the image info that Xevo has asked for – need to fire up a graphics package and extract the data first.

Gaz