BuddyPress.org

The name field was previously split into “First Name / Last Name” fields, but this is an issue for internationalization. In future versions it may be possible to apply rules to profile fields that will determine the content allowed.

That is such a silly argument. 90 percent of the civilized world uses firstname + lastname. Why make life difficult for the rest of us just because theoretically a few places in the world use only one name or three names or whatever? Why not let them hack a workaround it?

My issue with this is also not just about that field, but more about what it says about Buddypress’ priorities. If you want to register members in your company or sports club with name, address, phone number, etc. there is no easy way to do it, you’ll have to hack core files and later you’ll have to use custom functions to retrieve the data from several different tables in the database.

Also, BuddyPress will automatically synchronize profile fields with the WP profile fields. Check the function xprofile_sync_wp_profile()

No it doesn’t. Version 1.0 only added first name and last name to wp_usermeta if a user updated his account data after signup. You couldn’t count on the data to be there for every member. I had to write a custom function, based on xprofile_sync_wp_profile, to force that synchronization to happen upon registration.

It should be hopefully replacing the files with the new ones, but you can not be sure , until there is a feature freeze.

As Andy mentions, there may be some unexpected changes(very less expected though) from the current trac to buddypress 1.2 beta.

My advise, if you want, you can go ahead with this, just keep an eye on changes or you may wait till mid of January, then you will have the beta version to work with.

The software that will win out in the race for enterprise collaboration is a combination of all applicable web services that have an API that allows them to be easily mashed-up. Social media/networking/collaboration software should be glue not paper.

No software can be all things to all people, but if you create a platform where the CTO of a small company can pick and choose from hundreds of online apps from multiple sources and easily mash them up, then it will hit the stratosphere (although not sure how to profit from this). The key word here is “easily.” I am not talking about plugins, I am talking about marrying separate applications.

I don’t think this will ever hit the huge corporations though, because of all of the privacy regulations and security issues. Small firms with small budgets will be willing to take the risk, I think.

I agree with a lot of what David Lewis said, but my description would be that most open source collaboration software has a very “huge” and/or clunky feel to it. I want something that feels “light.”

Also, BuddyPress will automatically synchronize profile fields with the WP profile fields. Check the function xprofile_sync_wp_profile()

The name field was previously split into “First Name / Last Name” fields, but this is an issue for internationalization. In future versions it may be possible to apply rules to profile fields that will determine the content allowed.

I’d like this shift. I’ve always found web friending a bit silly. I’m trying to use Buddypress for semi-professional communities. Groups is where the action should be and where Buddypress could really set itself apart from the Facebook wannabees.

To me the biggest barrier to more professional use of Buddypress is the lousy member/user management. Everything is based on username/password. There isn’t even a built-in way to get people to sign up with their real name, first name + last name. There is a required custom field for “Name”, but with the way the sign-up form is structured new users are almost encouraged to enter a garbage name – lowercase, one word anonymous nickname bs.

After lots of painful hacking in core files I now have a form with one Real name field on top. My custom code in the back splits the real name and stores it in various places in the database, so at least I have synchronized data in wp_usermeta etc. Buddypress does none of this out of the box and in general BP developers don’t seem to see this as a problem. But the one field for real name still doesn’t really force new users to enter a full two-part name.

In a previous version of my site I did have separate first name and last name fields. I NEVER had people sign up with cutesy one name names. Sure, you can create custom fields in xprofile, but synchronizing the input with all the other username, nickname, name etc. fields in the datebase and integrating them with other member management scripts businesses will have on their server requires serious database and php programming skills.

@ Jeff Sayre

impressive with this OAuth, BuddyPress, and Privacy plugin and this is the future..

So OAuth would make your site expand more maybe with FB and others !

I have a network of web entrepreneurs. It’s hard enough to get them to create blogs and actually use them. OK, that’s not only BP’s fault of course, but “full invested writer/bloggers” will set up their own blogs – I’m also a journalist, I would never write/blog in someone else’s network.

I think more advances are necessary to take it beyond this where users can contribute more content without having to be a full invested writer/blogger.

That’s why I need to come up with an external blog feed-in solution. Currently stuck in upgrading my theme… I also like the microblogging suggestions.

And Groups has limitless and unique opportunities; dynamic groups with lots of content within a private social network/community.

My worry:

Will Buddypress eventually target schools, companies, trade associations, sports clubs, etc.? Or even become enterprise ready? Or will it stay a more limited play thing for insider groups of dedicated blogging geeks with a lot of free time on their hands?

I HOPE that BuddyPress does not become a member aggregation site where, the more people, the more successful a site is “perceived” to be. That to me is the game that Ning is playing. Why in the world woulu Buddypress want to be another Ning?

I agree. That model is dead. I believe the concept of “private social networks” is different. Jeff’s privacy component is essential – haven’t had the chance to test it yet.

But there should be opportunities for low threshold content creation and communication and I would develop them around (micro)blogging. Again, I have mixed feelings about the addition of old-fashioned forums.

@derek

I think you have hit the nail on the head with this post. I don’t think that it is necessarily a long term assessment, but it describes what BuddyPress is best at right now. I think more advances are necessary to take it beyond this where users can contribute more content without having to be a full invested writer/blogger.

I am not saying everyone will want those features, but it seems like a lot of people do want to use BuddyPress as a content aggregator, not just a publication.

Remember these are all just ideas and specific to the behind the scenes code. As far as the user interface is concerned there would be no overlap.

@Erich73 In my opinion a BudyPress site works best if there are blog creators/writers and subscribers. Hopefully if things go well the majority should be Subscribers. Those folks will rarely if ever see the backend. I for one WANT my bloggers to have almost full access to the backend and all of it’s features. You have to give them that level of control to ensure their buy in. To me the best example of a really great BuddyPress site is a group of a half dozen or so rocking awesome blogs and a community that develops around them, NOT a community where 100 users have 100 play blogs where “test” becomes the prevailing blog title. You add some additional discussion related features like groups, forums, and events and i think you have a great formula for a thriving community.

I HOPE that BuddyPress does not become a member aggregation site where, the more people, the more successful a site is “perceived” to be. That to me is the game that Ning is playing. Why in the world woulu Buddypress want to be another Ning?

when this is helpful to you in order to solve some issue as you described in the related TRAC, then this is fine. Also it will give additional options for the user, as he will have better Admin-rights to manage his Friends and have his own Forum (you really want to have each user having his own forum – probably a great idea….).

However, it should be a clear differentiation between “generic Groups” and “Friends”.

Lets say I am running a Dating-network on which I do have generic Groups like “Dining”, “Travelling”, “Hobbies”, etc. , then it would not be nice if Friends-Groups would get mixed-up with generic-Groups.

Settings template is hardcoded at the moment (yes, we know). That file is a remnant from an earlier version of BuddyPress that was meant to make it easier to create one-screen plugins.

That fixed it dude!

<high five>

MrMaz

https://trac.buddypress.org/browser/trunk click on the zip file link at the bottom of the page. this should work nicely for your use case. the wire and status updates are merged into one concept

@Travel-Junkie

totally agree with you.

An “Admin-Theme” which mirrors the current testbp.org default-theme would be great.

BTW: thanks a lot for your great and professional support to get my website up and running !

You may try zlib compression. I gave a tutorial about it here: http://wpmu.org/dramatically-speed-up-wordpress-and-wpmu-load-times-with-this-simple-tip/

It improved my transfer speed by 3.5 times on my BuddyPress test installation.

I agree that buddypress should have a front-end dashboard for the normal users. Actually the only big obstacle is to move the posts wysiwyg to the front-end. Some plugins allready do this, but none work “superb” yet.

Beside the blog posts the users wouldn’t need access to the admin panel.

@MrMaz

Heres a screenshot..

http://porscheheritage.com/members/admin/album/picture/4

it looks like a problem with Chrome

http://porscheheritage.com/links

also looks bizzare on Chrome — im gonna geuss that its gonna look weird on Chrome and Safari or anything WebKit related..

The way I see it is that the blogs are the icing on the cake you get with a social network built on wp and bp. I don’t see the sense in a quick blog post form in the frontend. If you only want to write a quick note then use the activity stream. The wp backend is one of the best I have seen and I’ve worked with a lot of different systems. Why take all those goodies away from your users by restricting them to only use a few of the available features through a form on the frontend?

I mean, I would never use the QuickPress widget on the dashboard for the same reason. If you think your users will have problems with the backend interface (not likely, let em play around for an hour and they’ll be pros), then half a dozen short introductory screencasts about the various features are the way to go. Easy to make and once your users get the hang of it, they won’t want to go back. The wp backend is the most intuitive out there and it’s not gonna change anytime soon. Why should it?

With all that said I do agree that a unified look can only be beneficial to your community, so if you want to go that extra mile, then get someone to build an admin theme that mirrors the look of your site (or do it yourself).

I’ll be modifying the backend just a bit, I think. Change some colors around, add my own logo and then there’ll be a help page full with screencasts highlighting the features of both the front and the backend.

WPMU 2.8.6

BP 1.1.3

I just ran the installer right from Buddypress to install bbpress. Anyway to fix this or point me to where 1.2 could be downloaded from?