[jivany]

@xspringe You are correct. The BP interface should be designed for the end user. This keys off my peeve that BP is marketing itself as enabling social networking “out of the box”. Yes, it can but not without some tweaking for each specific site application. And I’m not talking about simple template colour choices or layout modifications.

If we look at Facebook or Twitter, both of these do the same basic thing once a user logs in. The user is taken to the page that has all of your friend’s/groups/pages/forums/etc. recent updates. This is a user-centric focus. It plugs the user directly into what they are interested in in the shortest period of time. It can be done with BP but it’s not the default. If it was the default, I think all of the other components would tie in nicely in a very intuitive way.

@Modemlooper I agree – the disconnect between the activity stream commenting and everything else is a huge usability hole. It sucks. At the moment, my only solution is to disable commenting on those activity stream items (which you can with an existing radio button on the options page IIRC). That makes it more confusing for the user but at least we don’t “lose” replies.

[jivany]

@Peterverkooijen said: Why would you need forums? What makes forums so great for collaboration?

You’re confusing me now. You don’t see the benefit of forums yet you have basically created a forum on your site.

Everyone has to think outside of the box because “forums” != bbPress. I’ve spent many many years on many different “forums”, all the way back to USENET and “newsgroups” and BBS’s. Forums are a useful tool on any website unless you are trying to create the next twitter clone where no one really cares what anyone said 5 minutes ago.

I do agree that it might be nice for BP to drop bbPress and embrace the multiple post-type functionality that WP 3.0 offers. Stuff like Akismet could then be used for comments/replies to “forum-thread” post-types. No duplication of functionality, etc.

Maybe an alternative would be for “someone” to write a forum plugin leveraging the new WP3.0 post-type functionality that also plugs into BP activity streams, etc.

[jivany]

@Peterverkooijen based on your setup description, I don’t understand your BP forum complaints. You don’t use forums because you have basically replicated the forum concept in blog posts/comments. The only advantage I see of this setup (without looking in great detail) is the benefit of using the more robust WP commenting system.

Fundamentally you have created a forum.

[jivany]

@stwc Agreed – I’m a developer – I can (mostly) make BP do what I want it to. I’m not a community builder because there is really no such thing. As a site owner, I can only offer up tools that I think my site needs to help it become a community. Once a community forms, the community will be what drives new site features as they will use the tools provided in the manner they see fit.

As @LPH2005 (basically) mentioned, you can’t force people to use a site they have no interest in. Yes, some might discard that particular example because it’s “kids” but think about it – kids are the ones that are going to be most able to pickup a new concept. If they can’t figure BP out and it doesn’t interest them then there’s a huge problem with BP.

[jivany]

@Peterverkooijen said:

@stwc, can you answer the question, what makes forums so great for collaboration? What can you do with forums that you can’t do with blog posts + comments?

I’ll wade in here (ugh, bad idea?) with one major difference between forums and blog posts. On a typical WP installation, blog posts are written by site owners and/or their chosen authors. This means only certain selected groups of people can start a new discussion point/thread.

Forums typically allow everyone to start a new discussion and have their peers comment on that topic. Site owners that offer up forums are opening the door to a *community* where people feel they have some ownership of the site/content, etc.

Looking at activity streams – they are wonderful but really, they are best suited for sites where people really want to know what their peers are up to over and above the “normal” discussion threads that can happen in blog comments or forum threads. The stuff like posting pictures of your newest pet or latest vacation – that “personal interest” and “personal interaction” stuff that makes people warm and fuzzy and feel like they belong to a group/community.

@Peterverkooijen, you are totally correct in your statement that blogs and forums should be the same. Even more correct when you look forward to WP 3.0 with it’s flexible post-type definitions.

[jivany]

Thanks guys. I figured I would have to do it manually.

[jivany]

As seen in other threads (and this one) I don’t think you can easily define a Social Network. People have different needs and desires when it comes to connecting with other people. Fundamentally, connecting is the only thing we’re all trying to do in one way or another.

Buddypress really is the kitchen sink. It offers everything you could want for a social network but without some careful planning for your specific community/target audience, BP could be a huge confusing mess.

This is what we’ve seen happening here on BP.org. Fundamentally, people want to come to this site to get information and help on BP. The forums are ideal for a support type of site with each thread being a question with answers, etc. That sort of interaction is difficult in an activity stream sort of model, especially if users aren’t fully immersed in the site. They come, ask their question, wait for an answer and leave until the next time they need help.

Groups are also handy in this sort of site as it allows people with similar interests to create a topic specific forum that doesn’t fit within the “main” forums. Instead of having one massive topic specific thread with many internal sub threads, they create their own group.

Activity streams are a huge mess on this sort of site and can add huge confusion. This isn’t really a socialization site where people are setting up their weekend plans or commenting on their buddy’s latest unfortunate event. That is where an activity stream comes in handy. I see it as being more for “personal connection” sites.

On BP.org, I don’t look at the main activity stream. I find it far to confusing and of little use. The Support index page is about the only place I go because I can see the latest questions and hot topics. It also shows me what public groups are currently getting a lot of traffic.

IMHO, the biggest missing piece in BP right now seems to be the connection between the activity stream and everything else. The activity stream needs to be more than just a content aggregator. Allowing people to comment on the activity stream implies that their response will be connected to the activity item. This is not currently the case and it is a huge usage nightmare.

Anyhoo, enough rambling. BP offers the tools but at the moment I can’t see many sites needing all of the features enabled.

[jivany]

Blah. I’m still having a hard time navigating at the moment which is why I didn’t notice your other thread. That’s sort of a good thing because it’s making me very aware of how I need to make changes to my own BP project.

[jivany]

Not sure if anyone else noticed (sorry, I haven’t gone through the 5 previous pages of this thread) but the “Load More” link/button on the activity page only loads a second page worth of status updates. If you hit “Load More” a second time, it reloads the same set of updates.

[jivany]

On the /support/topics/ index page, it would be nice if there was a way to link to the latest post in the thread.

[jivany]

There’s an errant “a” in the followers template right after the body tag.

[jivany]

You could try what’s mentioned in this post:

https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/new-install-of-bp-press-cant-post-any-topics-in-forum#post-42915

[jivany]

Edit: Yeah, what Ray said.

[jivany]

Look in the error logs for anything that suggests why the page load failed to complete. Typically, you would load the page to reproduce the problem and then look in the logs for the most recent entries and see what they say. If you’re not sure, post them here and someone can probably offer some pointers.

[jivany]

@foxly: Have you guys considered publishing a timeline/roadmap like BP has (or maybe you already have and I just haven’t seen it)? This might help others plan their own projects around estimated feature roll-outs.

[jivany]

@akingston47: What you’re looking for is basic WP functionality. If you want to see all of the posts for a category, navigate to the category index page/URL like @Jamesmarsland suggested.

If you want to do this on a page, you need to modify WP “the-loop”. There’s a whack of information on the WP codex about how to do this sort of stuff.

https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop

[jivany]

Hmm, php5.anything should be good.

What is the max_execution_time value in the phpinfo? If it’s really low (<30) that might cause problems.

I’m out of ideas though. This is a “generic” WP issue with plugin activation so some more Googling might turn up other ideas. I searched for “wp 500 on activate plugin”. The 500 is the Internal Server Error code.

[jivany]

Think it might be something like:

#admin-bar-logo:hover {

background-color:#222222;

}

Not sure if the colour is correct though.

[jivany]

@Erich: sidebar.php from the BP bp-default theme. #2 on your list. Everytime someone refers to a theme file to be copied into your child theme, it will be from bp-default.

[jivany]

What version of PHP are you running (check the phpinfo output)? I just did a quick search and it sounds like some people have the same issue if their host is running an outdated version of PHP.

[jivany]

So it works? Tag the topic as resolved.

[jivany]

Fixed but it would be good for an admin to go and see who made the change in the first place. Well, assuming whatever wiki the site is using actually maintains that information.

[jivany]

It becomes just string manipulation. Create a new function (my_funky_function) and do something like this:

function my_funky_function() {

echo str_replace( "username","", bp_get_the_profile_group_field_ids() );

}

Then replace the bp_the_profile_group_field_ids() call in edit.php (in your child theme of course) with my_funky_function().

I think that will work but it’s not tested.

Edit:

Oh, sorry, I’m sort of wrong. This is what I get in my edit.php form in the HTML:

<input type="hidden" name="field_ids" id="field_ids" value="1,3" />

Field_id 1 is the Username for me. You just need to filter that out so the str_replace call should be “1,” instead of “username”.

[jivany]

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. Create a new file on your webserver with a .php extension (for example info.php) and put the following in it:

<?php

@ini_set('memory_limit', '64M');

phpinfo();

?>

Then navigate to that file with your browser. Find the “memory_limit” line under PHP Core and see if the first column (local value) shows 64M. If it doesn’t change to the value you are setting, then your host is not allowing you to change your memory limit.

Make sure you delete the file you created as soon as you are done! The phpinfo() output is not something you want anyone else to be able to view easily.

[jivany]

<input type="hidden" name="field_ids" id="field_ids" value="<?php bp_the_profile_group_field_ids() ?>" />

That line is your problem. Well, more specifically, the call to bp_the_profile_group_field_ids() which creates a list of the expected field names.

Unfortunately it doesn’t have a filter so you’d have to clone and own the function into your functions.php file and manually filter out the “username” field from the string that gets generated.

Make sense?