BuddyPress.org

>>> Right now I only have 2 groups, as the site grows users will be able to create their own groups and have a forum. The 2 groups I have is one for all users (I don’t want a forum for this group), and the second group is just for businesses that join the site. The business member group has a forum that I am only making visible to the business members.

If you do not want a group to have a forum, then do not enable the group’s forums in that groups admin page.

If you want to make the forum visible to only the business members group, then make that group a Private Group or a Hidden Group.

>>> … the forums page is showing.

Not clear whether you’re referring to the group forum or the sitewide forums page.

>>> How can I set the forums page to be the sitewide forums? I have the custom link in the navigation bar and that is fine.

Not clear. Do you mean that you want to use the “forums” slug for your sitewide forums?

>>> But in the community widget, there is a link for forums and I do not want that because it just takes you to an empty forum and I do not want them to use that for their reviews. Ideally I would love for that to go to the review forum. Hope this makes sense.

Not clear. Which community widget? What theme are you using?

To answer your question, it could definitely be used for an online dating community.

Their is ALOT of code around the web that you can find via google.com to create a private community…
here is one: http://bp-tricks.com/snippets/code/close-down-your-site-for-logged-in-members-only/

Couldn’t you use something like travel-junkie’s walled garden technique:
`
function sh_walled_garden()
{
global $bp;
if( bp_is_register_page() || bp_is_activation_page() || bp_is_page( BP_FORUMS_SLUG ) || bp_is_page( BP_GROUPS_SLUG ) )
return;

if( ! bp_is_blog_page() && ! is_user_logged_in() )
bp_core_redirect( bp_get_signup_page() );
}

add_action( ‘bp_init’, ‘sh_walled_garden’ );
`
This goes in bp-custom.php and hides members and activity from those not logged in but enables forums and groups for everyone. It can also be customised…..

Chris Clayton discussed a similar method here

Having different menus for logged in users is discussed here – also see here

Speaking from experience I suggest WPMU, Networks+ ($$), and BP Multi Network. (You may wanna include the Domain Mapping plugin to map sites to domains.)
Install WordPress and configure networking, WPMU as a subdirectory installation. (Default)
Create your mu-plugins folder and upload Networks+. From here you’ll be able to create your different org networks. Each org network can offer blogs which can be created using the BP-Groupblog plugin. This way the group, whether public, private, or hidden, can be associated with the blog.
Create each of your org networks.
Install and activate BuddyPress on the main site first.
Upload your bp multi network plugin to your mu-plugins folder.
Activate BP on one of your org networks. Once activated your users will be shared across the entire network but your groups and blogs are specific to that org network.
I have it on a site / network I’m working on here:
http://teamnu.net
and here: http://alumnicreator.net

Not to take away from the plugins available here but you’d buy the Networks+ and Domain Mapping plugin from wpEbooks site and the support over there is awesome just as it is here.

gl

Theme author of Suffusion theme has a created a plugin to make Suffusion compatible with BuddyPress, so you don’t need to install and activate BP Template Pack plugin
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/suffusion-buddypress-pack/

@djbnotts – sorry, missed your reply the other day. Your welcome. Just thought i’d suggest it as users seeing errors is a serious problem.

BP Private community does the exact same thing as David’s code (his code is their ‘default’ mode, and their optional method can be easily done easily just by removing the Exclamation mark just before the conditional).

Private community doesn’t seem to be maintained anymore (last update was in 2010) so you might be better off using that code as it’s slightly more recent and works in current version of 1.6 bleeding.

Set the groups to private?

Yes, Agreed. I have found posts about this going back 11 months and no one seems to see this as a serious detractor for Buddypress. A group centered plugin that is not actually focused on its members.
Anyone can see ALL public group activity whether they belong to the group or not. Simultaneously that same person cannot see any Private or Hidden Group activity even if they belong to the groups.

Activity should be for groups the person is a member of. Otherwise buddypress is just confusing.

Please let me know if there is a patch since this is really a bug.

Obviously, the best thing is to set up a test site with BuddyPress and see if it does what you want. I’d suggest using private groups (one per client / project). For document sharing within that group, see https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-group-documents/

Sounds more like a question you should be addressing to bbpress support?

Hi there,
I’m not quite sure what you’re looking for, but if you want to make your complete Community private you can use the plugin “BuddyPress Private Community” or search for another bp privacy plugin.

I’m having issues with settin up a forum either.
Set up WordPress, installed Buddypress and first tried to get sitewide forums running. Kept getting the complaint that the forums component wasn’t set up yet, although I was quite sure it was.
Then de-installed bbpress and set up a groups forum.
I have a forum directory now, but when I want to create a new topic it says: please pick the group forum where you would like to post this topic. Although I just did in the little dropdown menu below.

I really, really would like to hav a step by step tutorial on how to set up a forum in buddypress, with a private community. One that fits the screens I see, because most blogs and tutorials about this look older and have losts of different screens and features.

Just remove the buttons in your theme templates.

Ha, I removed it at one point and now can’t remember how to add it BACK I did it in the theme’s CSS somehow…

Here ya go. Add this code to your bp-custom.php file.
http://pastebin.com/rgJ6BQc8

Just add “!is_page( PageID )” (with PageID as your tos page’s id) under “!bp_is_activation_page()”