[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

… if the current interface is not intuitive enough then no matter how many screencasts are created users will still be confused.

Absolutely agree. You should not have to educate users how to use your site. Please, if you have time to spare, use it to help improve the user interface instead of making videos.

Also a clear explanation to the users between their buddypress profile and blog dashboard would be nice!

How about closing the blog dashboard to members and bringing the functionality into the Buddypress profile, under Settings or Account, under the site’s theme?

I’ll have to figure that one out when I have the time…

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

…if a program doesn’t have the logic you require

That is the key for me. Buddypress misses a lot of things that I think should be part of the core. I’m not asking for features like galleries and event management, but basic standard member registration stuff, getting data to/from xprofile, etc. BP is still very new of course, but this attitude that, “hey, you can program it in 20 minutes” is worrisome. Andy has also made some comments that suggest separation of logic, data and presentation is not exactly a priority for him.

If you want to learn PHP…

I really don’t…

I don’t have the time. I can’t afford it. I’m on the content/publishing site. I don’t make any money from web development, although I’m kinda forced into a career change recently…

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

OK, I know this might not be well-received, but learning a bit of PHP will allow you to do almost anything with WP … I’m not a programmer, but a guy who bought a book on PHP/MySQL awhile back and WP is so easy you could teach yourself the basic stuff.

I’m being dragged kicking and screaming into learning PHP. I don’t have the time and can’t afford to hire a PHP programmer, but keep running into things that I’d consider basic core functionality that isn’t up to standard.

I’m not asking for new features, I just need a solid core that will let me get things done, starting with member management, including things like multiple user types.

When WordPress first arrived the point was to separate layout (html/css), functions (php) and data (mysql) as much as possible, so anyone with basic web development skills (html/css/design/content) could build and maintain sites. In Buddypress it all starts to mix again.

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

what needs to happen is to delay building BP_Group_Twitter until BP_Group_Extension is loaded.

… the best way to make your groups API plugin work in BP 1.1.3 is to force BP to load at the beginning of your plugin

How could I achieve that? Add required …/buddypress.php (?) at the top of the plugin?

Will Andy update/fix these plugins?

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

Will this type of functionality – multiple user types stored as usermeta, two-stage registration process – ever become part of the core? Is it on the roadmap?

Many site developers are not php programmers; they know html/css with perhaps a bit of jquery and php customizing skills, but not enough to code it in 20 minutes.

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

I get this error with the BuddyPress Group Twitter plugin in BP 1.1.3 + WPMU 2.9.1:

Fatal error: Class ‘BP_Group_Extension’ not found in /public_html/mysite/wp-content/plugins/buddypress-group-twitter/bp-group-twitter.php on line 15

Could M’s solution fix this plugin? Has anyone applied that yet?

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

I’ve worked on another Ajax problem here. The delete buttons is probably something similar. I’ll have to go through the code in _inc/js/ajax.js when I have time again – assuming the delete button code is there as well.

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

Unfortunately this

checkboxes = j("#inboxcheck");

kept breaking/never really worked to begin with.

For my custom template I still had to resort to this:

checkboxes = j("ul#message-threads li input[type='checkbox']");

This stuff is fuzzy…

And now read/unread seems to be the wrong way around and the select dropdown does nothing… :`-(

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

After painstakingly removing all the table, tr and td from ajax.js the form now works without tables, giving me a lot more freedom to restyle it.

I’ve also replaced this

checkboxes = j("#message-threads tr td input[type='checkbox']");

With this

checkboxes = j("#inboxcheck");

and added id=”inboxcheck” to the input tag in index.php.

It works fine. It actually seems faster.

I guess the broken delete buttons in 1.1.3 had the same cause. I’ll revisit that next week…

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

ZenPhoto is a inetresting plugin that I’ll look at but the rest are based on a SINGLE blog system.. Many use “posts” to hold data just like WP does instead of actual management..

Not sure what you mean by “actual management”. My worry is that there will be lots of plugins that hook into BP-specific features, but are crap at what they’re actually supposed to do – processing/managing images, managing events, etc.

ZenPhoto is not written to use WP’s basic toolset either, but it is a very solid and versatile gallery script. I’m saying it would be much more useful to develop a plugin the works as a bridge between a program like ZenPhoto and Buddypress.

Kaltura was last written for 1.1 not 1.2

1.2 is not officially out yet. Several key BP plugins are apparently already breaking on WPMU 2.9.1. Good luck staying up-to-date with your project…

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

You can prevent confusion if you generate the username (@peterverkooijen) from the real name (Peter Verkooijen), so I could probably live with this solution – haven’t tested it yet…

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

I haven’t installed BuddyPress Group Twitter and BuddyPress Group Blog, but those were big reasons for me to upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1.3. I’m reluctant to roll back from 2.9.1 to 2.8.6. I’m trying to get my installation to a point where I can leave it alone for another six months, until the next upgrade to BP 1.2 and WP 3.0.

What is the problem? Which changes in WPMU cause the plugins to break? Is anybody working on the fix?

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

I’d like to know this as well. You could probably put this on activate.php somehow.

Also the standard WPMU welcome email is sent on first login. That works via a function in wpmu-functions.php:

function wpmu_welcome_user_notification($user_id, $password, $meta = '') {

global $current_site;

...



wp_mail($user->user_email, $subject, $message, $message_headers);

return true;

}

I don’t see a hook in that function. It’s called/triggered from function wpmu_activate_signup in the same php file.

wpmu_activate_signup is called from function bp_core_screen_activation in bp-core-activation.php.

Perhaps you could add a redirect there to the mandatory extra fields? There are already some if statements there, one with this:

bp_core_redirect( $bp->root_domain . '/' . BP_ACTIVATION_SLUG );

You could add your own? Just guessing, wouldn’t know what it would look like…

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

There’s not supposed to be any generated password upon activation in 1.1.3. No passwords are ever sent by email in 1.1.3. You may have missed something in the upgrade.

We had noticed that the welcome email includes a wrong password, perhaps because of different encryption between WP and BP. The password that was entered upon registration still works.

Note that in 1.1.3 the WPMU is disabled by default. To bring it back you have to remove a function from the core files.

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

Could this also lead to the wrong passwords in the welcome email?

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

Please concentrate on writing BP plugins that connect with more mature open source gallery scripts like Zenphoto, Coppermine or the NextGen WP plugin, instead of starting yet another ambitious project from scratch.

I use Zenphoto with the ZenPhotoPress plugin. I would love to have a ZenPhotoBP plugin, but I’d never use any of these new BP-only plugins and if Andy & co built a gallery into the core, I’d have to strip it out again.

This Kaltura plugin may cover your needs if you need more BP integration – semi-commercial third party product.

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

The welcome email is generated by this function in wpmu-functions.php:

function wpmu_welcome_user_notification($user_id, $password, $meta = '') {

global $current_site;



if( !apply_filters('wpmu_welcome_user_notification', $user_id, $password, $meta) )

return false;



$welcome_email = get_site_option( 'welcome_user_email' );



$user = new WP_User($user_id);



$fullname = $meta[field_1];



$welcome_email = apply_filters( "update_welcome_user_email", $welcome_email, $user_id, $password, $meta);

$welcome_email = str_replace( "FULLNAME", $fullname, $welcome_email );

$welcome_email = str_replace( "SITE_NAME", $current_site->site_name, $welcome_email );

$welcome_email = str_replace( "USERNAME", $user->user_login, $welcome_email );

$welcome_email = str_replace( "PASSWORD", $password, $welcome_email );

$welcome_email = str_replace( "LOGINLINK", wp_login_url(), $welcome_email );

...

I’ve added the FULLNAME lines. It works if used in the welcome email text in the wp-admin options.

But haven’t figured out how to get the right password…

Is there a way to put this customized function in bp-custom.php? And let the system use that one instead of the original in wpmu-functions.php? Forgot how that worked.

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

The plugin works with or without any other trickery; it uses the email in the database for authentication and ignores the username. Try it on an unmodified installation. Works fine.

The username is unnecessary. That’s why many modern sites don’t use them anymore. In WP/BP you still need something in the username database field because all kinds of functions rely on it, like the profile URL in BP or the ‘forgot password’ process. So you can’t just remove it entirely.

My solution is to generate a username onkeyup from the fullname via Javascript on the registration form, hidden from view. In an earlier attempt I used a script that just autogenerated a gibberish username.

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

the wrong password in the welcome email is the same number of chars as the password that was entered

Oops, not true. It’s 8 chars no matter what length the provided password.

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

The password in the welcome email, if you restore it…, is generated by this file in wpmu-functions.php:

function wpmu_welcome_user_notification($user_id, $password, $meta = '') {

global $current_site;



if( !apply_filters('wpmu_welcome_user_notification', $user_id, $password, $meta) )

return false;



$welcome_email = get_site_option( 'welcome_user_email' );



$user = new WP_User($user_id);



$welcome_email = apply_filters( "update_welcome_user_email", $welcome_email, $user_id, $password, $meta);

$welcome_email = str_replace( "SITE_NAME", $current_site->site_name, $welcome_email );

$welcome_email = str_replace( "USERNAME", $user->user_login, $welcome_email );

$welcome_email = str_replace( "PASSWORD", $password, $welcome_email );

$welcome_email = str_replace( "LOGINLINK", wp_login_url(), $welcome_email );

...

So I guess you should replace $password with something else from BP? Or maybe add $bp as global (whatever the hell that is…)?

EDIT: Adding $bp does nothing.

BTW, the wrong password in the welcome email is the same number of chars as the password that was entered, so I assume it’s an encryption issue. Unfortunately the ‘forget password’ function resets the password, it does not send the stored one. That’s probably more secure, but I don’t see where else I could find code that retrieves the stored password.

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

You don’t have to convince me why it makes sense to use email address instead of username. This post was the start of a long a painful process for me. Trust me, that plugin does what you need and then all you need to do is restructure the form and pick a fix for the user URL etc.

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

The plugin page says:

Compatible up to: WordPress MU 2.8.6 / BuddyPress 1.1.2

So it doesn’t work with 1.1.3? Or 1.2? Or WPMU 2.9.1?

Will the plugin be updated or was it more a one-time demo project?

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

… its for LOGIN not Registering.

logging in yeah, i can use it but first I need users with an email as username

That’s just a matter of restructuring the registration form (version 1.0 now, currently upgrading to 1.1.3). You can autogenerate the username from the fullname using this javascript trick and then hide the username field.

Hacking core files to actually put email addresses in the username fields in the database is a recipe for disaster. Why do you want to do that? What am I missing?

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

Use this plugin

[@peterverkooijen Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

Probably same problem reported at the top of this thread, before I derailed it…