[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

I’m not sure why there were br tags outside the quote marks in the code above. That’s HTML, not PHP. This is the code I’m using in my child functions.php file (below). It works. It’s for the BP 1.2 theme (which only has one sidebar). So I’m basically just creating two new sidebar areas (Member and Public) and then unregistering the default sidebar from the parent theme (which again… is the BP 1.2 default theme).

<?php



/* Register Sidebars */

if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') ) {

register_sidebar(array(

'name' => 'Public',

'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',

'after_widget' => '</div>',

'before_title' => '<h3 class="widgettitle">',

'after_title' => '</h3>'

));

register_sidebar(array(

'name' => 'Member',

'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',

'after_widget' => '</div>',

'before_title' => '<h3 class="widgettitle">',

'after_title' => '</h3>'

));

}



/* Unregister Parent Sidebar */

function remove_sidebar() {

unregister_sidebar('sidebar-3');

}

add_action( 'admin_init', 'remove_sidebar');



?>

To display these widget areas in your pages, just add this where ever you want in your templates (most likely in the sidebar.php file).

<?php if ( !dynamic_sidebar( 'Public' ) ) : endif; ?>

<?php if ( !dynamic_sidebar( 'Member' ) ) : endif; ?>

Of course… I also have this wrapped with if (is_user_logged_in()) since in my case, I want a different sidebar for logged in users vs. logged out users. Just modify the above for your needs.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

What?

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Ahh… I was actually aware of the group forum post notification plugin. I still miss the ability to post to the wire however and have everyone notified. Much less ‘friction’ for users than having to create a new thread just to make an announcement of some kind. Oh well.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Thanks for the plugin pointers guys!

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

@Mike: I know there is the group blog plugin but it’s not deeply integrated into groups. I haven’t tried the new links plugin altho’ it sounds great. I’m not aware of any plugins to accomplish group notifications. bp-events shows great promise but needs some work. And there really is no way to have group documents that I know of (downloads or collaborative wiki pages). But I’m sure all of this will come in time. My main point is that out of the box… BuddyPress Groups are pretty limited. They basically just group people and allow them to make comments and forum posts.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Yes, the current group functionality is fairly limited. All you can really do is post comments and participate in forums. There’s no ability to create group content (posts, pages, videos, etc.) and very limited notification options. There used to be an option to post a wire update and notify all members of the post by email. Even this has now been removed in 1.2-bleeding… perhaps a casualty of the merging of the wire and update features. Hopefully it will come back. And hopefully bp-events will progress as well. It’s been very quiet lately.

That said, there is a good foundation in place that I’m sure will be built upon over time by the core team and by plugin developers.

As for the group blog plugin… I tried it but it didn’t do much for me since it doesn’t really integrate very deeply with the group. It’s basically a standalone blog that doesn’t live within the group context.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

I agree. Just turn off blogs. I don’t necessarily see BuddyPress as a social network for bloggers.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Answered my own question. They are different. But some people have issues trying to use both: http://www.freshblurbs.com/beware-eaccelerator-and-php-zlib-compression

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Is zLib compression the same thing / idea as Zend eAccelerator? I installed eAccelerator on my server and it made a huge difference. Wondering if I should also enable zLib?

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

I installed Zend eAccelerator on my server. Made a HUGE difference.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Are all those br tags intentional?

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

I think BuddyPress will be different things to different people… including the developers.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Quick posting from the front end is on the Roadmap. They can’t give us everything we want immediately

I agree that having two interfaces is confusing for people who are use to things like Facebook. But as I say, the Dashboard isn’t likely to be overhauled anytime soon because a) it doesn’t need to be and b) it was just done earlier this year. Total overhaul.

But the Dashboard is a Blogging / CMS interface. For what it is, it’s world-class. In my opinion. But it’s not a social networking style interface where everything is done inline on the front end. No, that’s not ideal. I completely agree. But the alternatives have their own issues. So the choice of which open source software to use is really up to the individual.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

The Dashboard of WordPress has gotten two complete overhauls within about the last year. The current version is awesome. Extremely user-friendly and easy to use. It’s just jarring to go from BuddyPress to WordPress’ Dashboard. But there are no usability issues with it as far as I’m concerned. Would be nice if you could turn off most of the screen options by default though.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Works for me too… but it does not currently work with the new theme in 1.2-bleeding.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

That is a core file. Don’t hack that. I’m going to assume you’re using the parent/chid theme that comes with BP 1.1.3. If so, copy the following file into your child theme (including the folders… i.e. /directories/groups/):

/wp-content/themes/bp-sn-parent/directories/groups/index.php

You can find the sidebar area there pretty easily:

<div id="sidebar" class="directory-sidebar">

Simply code what you want right inside that div. Or to make it use one of the existing three sidebar in the classic theme, add this code:

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('third-section') ) : ?>

This would add the widgets from the “third-section” sidebar in Appearance > Widgets.

You could also register a new sidebar if you wish, just for groups. Create a functions.php file in your child (if you’re using a child theme) and add this:

register_sidebars( 1,

array(

'name' => 'groups-sidebar',

'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',

'after_widget' => '</div>',

'before_title' => '<h2 class="widgettitle">',

'after_title' => '</h2>'

)

);

In that case… just change “third-sectoin” in the code above to “groups-sidebar”… or whatever you choose to name that widget area when you registered it using the “register_sidebars” function above.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Cool. It’s a great start anyway! Better than what we have now. Which is to say… nothing

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

I unregistered the sidebars. As mentioned above, they go by ID… not name. Also, if you want to register NEW sidebars… they come first in line. So let’s say you register a new sidebar in your child’s function.php file named “my-sidebar” and want to unregister the other three that the parent theme uses. You have 4 sidebars now to deal with. Your’s (id = sidebar-1) and the other three from the parent. You would do something like this:

register_sidebars( 1,

array(

'name' => 'my-sidebar'

)

);



function remove_sidebar() {

unregister_sidebar('sidebar-2');

unregister_sidebar('sidebar-3');

unregister_sidebar('sidebar-4');

}

add_action( 'admin_init', 'remove_sidebar');

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Parent / Child is pretty simple. A child theme can be as simple as a single style.css file with a link to another theme (it’s parent) in the comment section at the top of the file. i.e.:

Template: bp-sn-parent

Done. Now you can make your own styles to override the parent styles. And additionally… as you probably know… you can override any parent template file by placing a template file of the same name (and location) in the child theme. That’s about it.

And I would assume that any wordpress functions / constants / etc. that refer to template locations (other than the blog_info(‘stylesheet_directory’) will refer to the parent.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

The constant TEMPLATEPATH is a reference to the absolute path to the template directory for the current Theme. I don’t know how it behaves with parent / child themes but it sounds like, from your experimenting, that it points to the parent. Which makes sense. The parent theme IS the theme as far as the system is concerned. The child is just along for the ride. It’s just hooked to the parent via the style.css file.

The syntax you have above is correct.

<? include TEMPLATEPATH.'/directories/members/featured.php'; ?>

And there are no parameters for TEMPLATEPATH. It’s just a constant. Anyway, if stylesheet_directory works… may as well just go with that.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Yup. A child funcions.php file is the one file that will NOT override the parent file. It adds to it. So you have to make sure your functions have unique names.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

I think a directory page might make more sense than a sidebar list. What happens once you have 100 documents? Also, it would really make sense with the rest of the BuddyPress world. You could have tabs for “all documents” and “my documents”. You could have sorting by “active”, “recent”, “popular”. etc. And you could have “search” of course. Maybe not to start… but you know… Phase 2.

And how could anyone hate the WordPress backend?! It’s awesome!!! Show them Joomla… then their heads would truly explode. But I understand how being taken into a completely different interface would be jarring. And I think it’s a huge bonus that this will all work on the front end. Nice.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

I answered this above. No. There is no parameter for the template tag bloginfo() called “child_theme_directory” or anything similar. To write in the child theme directory, use “stylesheet_directory”. That works. For a full list of parameters that this tag will accept, please read the manual. They’re all listed under the header “Parameters”:

https://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/bloginfo

p.s. Looking at the codex page above, I see there is a parameter call template_url. No idea of that will write in the parent or child dir. But it’s one you haven’t tried I think.

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

I’d be fine with an index / directory page. That page could perhaps even use sorting / filtering (at some point) similar to the BuddyPress directory pages in the latest default theme… i.e. most active, most recent… my wikis, all wikis… etc. And if you’re leveraging WordPress functionality… another way to organize the wikis would be by tags and categories… perhaps with a sidebar widget and a dynamic directory page depending on which tag / category you click on. Lots of ideas

[@takeo Participant 16 years, 10 months ago]

Two thoughts.

1. I love you (and your team).

2. The pages should maybe go in a vertical list rather than horizontal. Just thinking that you’re going to run out of space if a group has more than a handful of documents. Perhaps the page view template is still in progress.