BuddyPress.org

So following the plugin bunny trail that we’re on I’m going to throw my shoe out there.

BP is/was a group of plugins. When I install BP I’m not actually installing one plugin. I’m actually installing 7: Activity, Blog Tracking, bbPress Forums, Friends, Groups, Private Messaging, and Extended Profiles.

If BP can provide the best, fastest, most extensible core hooks and loops, then let the plugin developers code and extend to their hearts desire.

if (BP Core == diving board)

     plugin authors = the bells and whistles of BP

The way I see it, there should be 3 classes of plugins.

1. The Core BP plugins (i.e. currently the 7 components… this list will increase, such as Basic Privacy).

If you’re not running all or most of these, then you’re not really running BP.

The BP is officially “in charge” of keeping these plugins updated.

2. The Senior Plugins (e.g. Media-Albums, Oembed for Activity Streams, BP SEO, Enhanced Privacy etc.)

These are plugins that almost 65% (or some other number) of sites will end up using but we’re not sure that they will.

BP officially endorses and most likely will use their paid developers to keep these plugins functional.

3. The Normal Plugins (e.g. GEO Locations, Extended Profiles, Gifts, etc.)

Plugins that authors create for different purposes. While many sites use them, they don’t have the same widespread use and support as the Senior Plugins.

BP has no official position with respect to these plugins.

Currently only category 1 and 3 exist. There is no category 2.

2. I know you use the FB metaphor about creating an album first but I’d make the media add process a logical next step. Right now you create the album and the process just kinda stalls.

3. The member tags field will cause my folks to do nothing. I’d suggest making it more FB like. You click a button that says “tag this photo” and a list pops up of your friends to tag with. Now, I know there isn’t yet the ability to tag faces, but it needs to be clear that you can tag your friends in pics (maybe something along the lines of the auto suggest in the private message area?

@Mike Pratt

I like those ideas.

testing v 0.1.9.2 Excellent progress so far. I have not been able to break this build (yea!) but I have a bunch of usability comments to add and, hopefully, help with.

1. I’d consider giving admins the ability to decide what users are presented with when they upload media e.g. whether they have to deal with visibility options at such a granularity. My site is behind a wall so “public” will only throw them off. This is minor, I know.

2. I know you use the FB metaphor about creating an album first but I’d make the media add process a logical next step. Right now you create the album and the process just kinda stalls.

3. The member tags field will cause my folks to do nothing. I’d suggest making it more FB like. You click a button that says “tag this photo” and a list pops up of your friends to tag with. Now, I know there isn’t yet the ability to tag faces, but it needs to be clear that you can tag your friends in pics (maybe something along the lines of the auto suggest in the private message area?

Will send more feedback as I go thru. Many Thanks so far.

What is BuddyPress?

An open source script for blog-centric private social networks.

Potentially a next-generation social network, starting from the best elements of Facebook and Twitter, but more suited to content (blogs) and collaboration (groups).

Less is more! I don’t expect social networking in a box. There are already several commercial products that serve that need better. I’d like to see a solid, stripped down core with a flexible API that a developer community can build on.

General Site Tips:

1. Try private testing with a focus group (not your designers or developers).

2. Don’t add too many features, determine the level of request and see if they fit with the spirit of the site.

3. Don’t be afraid to make the site live. Just get the site out there and let users provide you feedback. I know clients that test, refine, etc. and it never makes it out the door.

Social Network Tips:

1. Facebook, Twitter, and social networking integration is important. Please love to login with other accounts.

2. Create a way for users or even visitors to easily locate interesting people straight from the homepage.

3. Make sure search is simple, easy to use, and as powerful as possible. Finding connections should be a no-brainer.

4. Social networks grow the best when people can invite other non-users into the network.

5. Social networks also grow quickly when members can share links, media, etc. with those within and outside the network.

6. Give incentives for people to come back to the network. Awarding users for actions (like Foursquare) is an interesting way to do this, although there are plenty of other examples that can fit your particular network.

7. Avoid long registration forms at all costs.

Try visiting your private group and then click on the “Forum” sub-tab to add a new forum post.

f you think you can help me I sure would appreciate it. Cause I cannot figure this thing out – I have tried and tried.

YES, I moved the bp-default theme into wp-content – themes… okay I deleted it just now AND for a second I thought I was going to lose my blog posts – it looked like it in IE – I have deactivated the plug in buddy press and the buddy press template pack – and actually deleted them from the system. I do NOT understand php, but do understand css and html – I would really like to get this thing to work with my template currently. Can you help?

It does seem a go idea to open a new folder on my site and install my theme and wp and buddy press and buddy press theme pack – to get it to work first… however, I have a LOT of posts in my blog currently and they are permalinked all over the place . I cannot mess with the permalinks and the posts. Can I transfer them into a new theme folder on my site and not lose the permalinks – I think not.

You know I am beginning to wonder if this thing works at all. So muc for the three step easy install. Does it work at all?

OK, I’d rather keep this in the forums instead of in private messages because then other can benefit from the discussion if they have the same issues.

First, it’s never a good idea to muck around with a live site. Go and install XAMPP or MAMP and setup a test/development environment on your local PC. It’s super simple. I’m doing this right now as are many of the other BP users.

Second, Installing BP will not cause you lose any of your posts. The only reason you are going to lose post is if you delete them or you do something silly and end up corrupting your database. Go back to the first point I made – don’t develop on a live site. This applies to everything online, not just WP or BP.

Once you have the offline test site setup with WP (make sure you mirror the setup you have online or you’re not going to have the same issues) and your current theme installed, add the BP plugin. Then add the BP Template Pack plugin and start following the directions. @Modemlooper has commented in a number of threads here about what typically needs to be done to make your theme work with BP.

Do the work required to get your test site looking how you want it to look. On the testsite, install the plugins you currently use (one at a time to ensure none of them break BP) and make sure they work and look how you want them to look.

Once you have that done, add any new BP specific plugins you want to run (again, one at a time) and get them looking “right”.

Finally, go to your live site and find the Tools –> Export page. Export your live site data into a file and then import that data into your offline test site. This will allow you to ensure your existing posts/content will look OK.

Once you’re satisfied with everything offline on your testsite, start uploading to the live site. Upload the new theme (but don’t activate it), install (but don’t activate) any new plugins required (including BuddyPress).

Yes, BuddyPress works. No, it’s not going to work for every single user in every single possible combination of WP installations. You will need to do some work to resolve issues.

hi Guys!

I have migrated from phpbb3 to buddypress

site went live today, there were some hiccups with script, and not everything was converted.. private msg or attachments. and links in posts are not right..

anyways, here it is. opentuition.com/forums

PS. I have not done it myself, but people who did it, if they did it for me, they can do it for you, drop me PM and i will forward your info!

Bpisimone,

The most obvious is group subscription/filtering I think. Basically, that someone can pay to get access to a private group. That would be a pretty killer feature.

I also think he should provide some pass through variables in the payment buttons. So, he could add a hidden variable to the buttons for groupid=”1234″ and then after the payment is processed, that ID would be sent to the “welcome page” where you could welcome them to that specific group. You could do the same thing for userid and make that userid a friend once they’ve paid.

For instance Blog Tracking is not happening at all across the site – when every setting suggest this should be happenning automatically. It simply isn’t!

Are the blogs, that aren’t appearing, marked as “private” in their admin? i.e. the “Hide from search engines option”.

@ella:

As I mentioned on another thread, it might be worth looking at Jeff Sayre’s “Featured Members” plugin. Since it appears that the list of people you want to feature in a sidebar is relatively static – only the Board of Directors members – this plugin would let you specify those specific people by ID, and output links to their profiles. Because this plugin is not tied to a group, the privacy restrictions of the group should not be an issue. You are simply identifying particular users to feature, regardless of the group(s) they belong to.

That said, the download page for Jeff’s plugin says it is compatible to BP 1.02, so I’m not sure if it will still work with 1.2.x. Jeff seems to be a very active participant here, and might be able to weigh in.

You mentioned in another thread that you don’t have the skills to code a plugin, so it might be worth finding a coder who could build what you need, or could modify Jeff’s plugin to meet your needs – perhaps the ability to add an option that specifies a particular group on the widget admin panel, and have the widget output a list of members.

The milestone you have set is okay. Also, I bumped the priority up to critical.

https://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/2293

No, there’s no easy way of doing this for private messages

Sort of but not easily. If you create a private group, non-group members can’t see who is in the group (by default).

If you code a suitable workaround then it shouldn’t be too difficult to put together some code to fetch the members list of a specific group and display their avatars, etc.

This is an interesting use though and I’d like to see any solution you manage to come up with.