BuddyPress.org

FYI, I did start something over on the bpdevel site about this back in May:
http://bpdevel.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/summary-of-may-5th-dev-chat/#comment-254

Feel free to add to the writeboard.

From LPH’s list, I view #2, #3, and possibly #6 as vital.

Is this thread only about buddypress.org or about the Buddypress script?

@Andy Peatling (“If you want a new feature or something changed, write a patch…”)

It’s not about new features. Less is more. Buddypress needs to decide what it is and what it isn’t. At the moment it’s the kitchen sink. The problem is in the architecture and underdeveloped core features like member management and privacy/security. More community activity won’t fix that, it will only build on the confusion. Only Automattic can bring clarity.

@Erich, yes, I use an older version of Marius Ooms group blog plugin and have integrated P2 into my theme, so it is used on all the blogs. For a visitor who is not logged in or part of the blog team, the blog looks normal, without a post form at the top. P2 has lots of options to configure how that looks and works. I still have to figure out how to hard code some of that into the theme instead of using the settings in wp-admin.

There are probably many different ways to integrate and configure P2. Mine is probably a bit messy. I’ve added the p2 functions to functions.php, p2.js to my js folder, kept other folders as they were. I had to add code to header.php to load the p2 stuff only where needed, because it clashed with another jquery script I had somewhere. Plus a few other hacks to solve weird problems. It sorta works now, even on WP 3.0 so far, but there is still a lot of clean-up and fine-tuning to do.

There are also a few flexible WP front-end posting plugins available that may be usable to create a more user-friendly member profile page. Also on my to-do list as I hopefully start to understand better how p2 works.

The only requirements for registration are:

-Username
-Email Address
-Password
-Display Name

Apart from that, set all your other xprofile fields as “not required” on the “BuddyPress > Profile Field Setup” page.

You might have to edit the /registration/register.php template file depending on how much you want to modify the look and feel of the page.

@apeatling — Here is my thread for an “action plan” for the website.

https://buddypress.org/community/groups/requests-feedback/forum/topic/buddypress-org-changes-what-id-change-about-bp-org/

I’ll gladly help out with the changes as I’m learning BP.

@sj; I discovered that it’s not always the obvious file. Windows Vista’s internal file search fails me for some reason, so I downloaded a freeware tool called Agent Ransack, which hunts through folders and files very quickly. I search inside files for text labels on-screen, and always find the relevant template(s).

I do not want to speak for Jeff, but I recognized from his posts on this Forum that he knows a lot about Privacy-stuff.

I guess Jeffs Privacy-Features could have been build into the Core-Code already and would have added value to BP.
Let him allow to build his basic-features into the Core-Code and give him the chance to make some money on top of that by providing a plugin which gives “Advanced Privacy Features”.

The same goes for the Events-Plugin which probably only would have needed a bit of support from the Core-guys to get it properly running ?

No Plugin and Core-Code will be 100% perfect from the beginning, but with building this stuff into the Core-Code (with having the ability to activate / deactivate those features in the backend) and therefore having the benefit that many BP-webmasters will have the chance to test those features and providing lots of feedback and for coders providing patches on each of those features in order to improve it.

I guess that is what this article says (read it again !):
http://toni.org/2010/05/19/in-praise-of-continuous-deployment-the-wordpress-com-story/

Just apply “continuous deployment” to BuddyPress.

Currently there are many coders working on their own Plugins and are the “Gatekeepers” of their own little walled garden, but think about “Crowd-Sourcing”:
Why not providing a TRAC-tool, which gives all the talented coders on this Forum the chance to commonly work TOGETHER on a specific BP-feature (e.g. Privacy, Front-End-Blog-Posting, Events, etc.) ?

Step out of your own tunnel-vision and take the bigger-world-view and EVERYBODY will benefit.

this pos here -> https://buddypress.org/community/groups/bp-fbconnect/

@apeatling Andy regards commit access I would have thought that you already have at least four guys here that seem to have a pretty deep understanding of the code base involved would it not be a start and indeed lighten the burden on yourself and JJJ if they were to have commit access right away?

<quote Andy >ask your questions at the BuddyPress meetings bi-weekly (there has been a serious lack of questions lately, why?)<quote>

That might be due to the holding of these meetings not being that clearly mentioned? Might just be me being dense but where I was aware of them I wasn’t sure really where to go to participate (yes course I could have asked )

So part of the site should perhaps be used to announce these and perhaps provide a brief transcript or bullet points of the talks – recently came across Paul Gibbs’s blog where he did provide a transcript of one.

I don’t think any of us hate this site it just needs finishing and I’m sure you’ll agree it was upgraded, some work appeared to go on while the site was live then it was left in a half finished state? The site is vital to the project it’s it’s home and central focus but I doubt anyone would argue against that.

re: register button, read this:
https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/faq-how-to-code-snippets-and-solutions/?topic_page=2&num=15#post-41850

re: admin bar – Hard to tell since we don’t have your custom theme to look at. Check your stylesheet for a line like this:
#wp-admin-bar {display:none;}

and remove it. If you don’t see such a line, then you have some custom code in your child theme’s functions.php.

Hello,

I enabled “View Activity Comments on Forum Posts” in the backend and I edited the theme with the code provided. But when i go to the forum page to test if that works, I get this error :

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ENDWHILE in /home/user/public_html/wp-content/plugins/buddypress/bp-themes/bp-default/groups/single/forum/topic.php on line 4

when I removed the “endwhile” it works but my sidebar shows inside the content’s div.
btw..I’m using the fishbook theme, can anyone help please

thanks

I’ve thought long and hard about how to address this thread after seeing the conversation so far. I’ll do the best I can.

Ever since I was given the opportunity to work on BuddyPress full time I’ve put every ounce of energy I have into the project. It has gone from nothing – literally fifteen lines of code to something that powers a number of large sites and a whole array of smaller ones. The community has sprung up since then and has grown fast, but it would not exist first without something that people enjoy using and want to discuss.

That has always been my number one priority, build something that people want to use. Without that we have nothing and all the work around the project is in vain. I am not a trained project manager, but up until now I’ve done my best to help the community flourish and feel part of the process.

Now, yes, I haven’t been working as much on BuddyPress for the past three months – anyone using Trac will notice that. I’m no longer spending all my time developing the next version of BuddyPress. I’m working on some features for WordPress.com, helping out with other tasks around WordPress along with continuing to develop the project. The hope is that some of the features I work on for WordPress.com can merge there way back into BuddyPress in future versions or as separate plugins.

The issue we have, and the whole reason behind this thread is that I’m still far too large of a percentage of BuddyPress as a whole. When I slow down or have other priorities the whole project suffers. It should not be like this, the community should not look to me as the final word or the only bringer of direction or progression. If I’m not around for a while BuddyPress should continue to flourish and move forward. JJJ is doing his best to help balance this, but he is only one guy, and a busy one.

To quote a past line from a certain Mr Mullenweg “the best way to dig a hole is to grab a shovel and start digging”. Discussion is great, but to see any change we need action. If you want a new feature or something changed, write a patch. Submit it to Trac, keep consistently writing patches, answering tickets and fixing bugs. I guarantee you will end up with commit access. Right now we have only 10% of tickets with patches, that’s not even close to enough.

If you hate the new site (I agree it’s a mess) then design some mockups, write some HTML wireframes, tell me how much it sucks and your plans to change it. Start a community discussion, but with the goal of a plan of action. I am more than willing to provide access to people who want to get stuck in, but endless forgotten lists of what needs to be improved will not change things.

If you want to write posts for the BuddyPress blog then start writing them, they will be published. If you want to have your say on the direction of the project as a whole then show up and ask your questions at the BuddyPress meetings bi-weekly (there has been a serious lack of questions lately, why?).

Action, action, action. There are many people in the community doing a great job, but if we’re going to reduce the dependency on the core devs then we need more people to step up and start digging.

If you want to get content from different blogs on a WPMU/WPMS installation on a single BuddyPress page, you’ll probably have to use the function switch_to_blog(), and its partner restore_current_blog(). For example, if you run switch_to_blog(5) from your BP blog (I’m assuming it’s blog #1), any blog-specific functions you run (such as query_posts) will be with reference to blog 5 instead of blog 1. Use restore_current_blog() to switch back to blog 1.

This method is pretty resource intensive, though, so it might not be the best choice if you’ve got a huge site.

It doesn’t matter if you install WP or BP first.

The only thing you have to take into consideration before upgrading BP is to deactivate any other BP plugins you’re currently using:
https://codex.buddypress.org/getting-started/upgrading-from-10x/

If you’re upgrading from WPMU 2.9.2 to WP 3.0, read this guide by Pete Mall:
http://developersmind.com/2010/06/17/upgrading-wordpress-mu-2-9-2-to-wordpress-3-0/

It’s also a good idea to backup every step of the way. Before upgrading to WP 3.0, backup. Before upgrading to BP 1.2.4.1, backup.

“There is almost no benefit whatsoever of Friends within BuddyPress …”

Buddypress was supposed to be social networking added to blogging. Friends could form groups and work together in blogs. Friending itself is probably most relevant for internal email. The one thing you need to make that work is beefed up member management beyond default WordPress:

– full real names instead of anonymous meaningless usernames
– extendable, flexible member data fields
– ways to manage member lists
– ways to manage member roles
– ways to manage relations between members
– privacy and security controls on member data
– front-end functionality for members to manage their own profile data
– front-end functionality for members to manage their relationships
– etc.

None of these points get the attention they deserve. Again, if you have the three solid elements (1) members (“users”), (2) posts, (3) comments, all the rest is just a matter of displaying the data in different views, including forum view.

The shift in focus from blogging to the old-fashioned bbpress forum structure further derailed the project. Adding social networking to blogging should have been the main focus.

“the best setup is having either Forums or Activity.”

I use neither. I’m trying to structure my custom 1.1.3-based theme around member profiles, blogs and groups with group blogs. My activity stream just reflects what’s happening on the profiles, blogs and groups; it’s not a discussion thread in itself – I think I originally broke the ajax and had to remove reply buttons etc…

@johnjamesjacoby what you say is true and is useful for members of the BuddyPress community to learn from, but, again:

The main issue in this thread is around communication, project leadership and where BuddyPress goes from here. Not how to contribute; that’s a side issue, albeit an important one.

Go and read @jeffsayre or @hnla ‘s earlier posts again.

First, let me say that I am a big fan of BP. My post above simply shared criticism from my members and some frustrations from me, trying to get real-world people to use BP’s features.

@techguy, I agree that BP is “about groups”. My point was simply that BP doesn’t do a very good job of incorporating member’s blogs. They don’t show up in search results and they are impossible to sort-and-find. If your members don’t have blogs/sites, this is no big deal. But for those of us that run MU/MS and our members have blogs, this is frustrating.

Everyone’s using BP in different ways…I’m just trying to provide some actionable feedback from my experience.

That is part of WordPress core. I suggest you disable BuddyPress; if you have the same problem, then it’s something to do with your WordPress install rather than the BuddyPress plugin. Let us know how you get on.

Yes, there is.

https://codex.buddypress.org/how-to-guides/changing-internal-configuration-settings/
Put this in your wp-config.php

define( 'BP_ENABLE_USERNAME_COMPATIBILITY_MODE', true );


@kevin
As Greg’s said; the reason is that enabling multisite loads more code which needs more memory.