BuddyPress.org

@mercime I posted that questions, but I really need this theme to work.
As it is already up and running, and I can’t change the layout.
I have to tweak the theme and make it work.

Do you have any other suggestions?

I understand that answering all those questions on the forum might be overwhelming but if you know how, anyone, please help, the launch of my site depends on that. I wont publish a site where the activity page is full of unuseful info and long comments page.

@ubernaut thanks for the reply! Sorry but my internet has been down and life a little too busy to log back in here.

I finally got a reply from the theme developer, but his answer didn’t help. He did at least confirm that it was a problem with the theme and then told me to just upgrade to the new theme they were developing (which is still in beta and has massive problems), so not useful at all. I hacked in some custom CSS I’d found for someone else havign as similar problem with a different plugin to trick it into displaying correctly while I look for another theme.

I believe it is somehow related to the fact that buddypress sidebars are not the same as site sidebars, it just doesn’t see that there are any sidebars at all. I went through the codex and the pages and tried to see where I could fix it myself since the developer has essentially abandoned the theme but it’s just a little beyond my coding skills at present. I think my ultimate solution will be to find a theme by a developer with better support. Hopefully as I learn more problems like this will be less of an issue.

—

On another note:

I realize that this is an open source, free product but I have to say that the attitude from the developers here in the threads I’ve read is incredibly off putting. Rolling your eyes at people who’ve installed a plugin but do know how to code and find your codex incomprehensible is extremely unhelpful.

Wordpress was designed just so that people who didn’t know how to code could build custom blogs and websites. Whipping out a hipster sneer and telling them that they should be grateful is both rude and mean. You are the ones who chose to develop a plugin for a different user base than the core product. Don’t slap them across the face for assuming your plugin might work for them (since it’s apparently the #1 plugin on WordPress.org) and then having questions when it doesn’t.

I will say that having read the forums here first, I almost didn’t install BuddyPress at all because I don’t really want to interact with devs who treat their users so poorly solely based on the excuse that it’s free so you should be able to talk at us however you like, or simply ignore us if our questions are “too stupid”. If I didn’t have even at least a little experience with programming and web development I would’ve passed over it completely. I won’t be able to recommend it to any of my clients because I wouldn’t ask them to have to deal with this themselves.

You are lucky that you have users here helping one another, because for the most part they are the only one I see providing any support.

Thanks. That worked!

So I’m clear on what fixed it … the “999” at the end prioritizes the addition of the action? I’ve looked high and low for an explanation of this number. Since I put bp-custom.php in mu-plugins, it probably was executing prior to crating the nav items.

As long as I have your attention, have you got a link to a tutorial on how to make the dropdown item labels on the wp-admin bar match those in the profile page?

Thanks again for the fix and thanks, in advance for answering the subsequent questions.

@mercime,

Thank you for the support questions.

I use the newest versions of both (WP 3.7.1 and BP 1.8.1)

I am hosted at Hostgator, domain through GoDaddy.

I have checked, if I deactivate BuddyPress all email work fine.

i think i’ve tracked it down. there seems to be a conflict between buddypress and ‘Take Control Of The WordPress Toolbar’ plugin.

i’ve posted a support question but it doesnt look like the author is answering support questions any more. if anyone has any idea of how i might be able to fix this it would be brilliant as i am reluctant to delete the plugin, although i expect that will be the only option in the end.

@mercime I should have added more info

It is default behaviour when the WP static front page is set to “Register”. I actually came up with a way of doing what I needed with the help from folks over at Stack Overflow:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20039607/different-wordpress-front-page-for-logged-out-and-logged-in-users

My final code after some minor tweaks to the accepted answer is:

function bp_custom_front_page() {
	if ( ! is_admin() ) {
		if ( is_user_logged_in() ) {
    		$page = get_page_by_title( 'Contact' );
    		update_option( 'page_on_front', $page->ID );
    		update_option( 'show_on_front', 'page' );
		} else {
   			$page = get_page_by_title( 'About' );
    		update_option( 'page_on_front', $page->ID );
    		update_option( 'show_on_front', 'page' );
		}
	}
}
add_action( 'init', 'bp_custom_front_page' );

After taking a look at how BP does it my questions 1 and 2 have been answered. Now facing a new but related problem:

When I redirect the user back to the edit profile page to display the “Too many characaters have been entered” message – any new text the user may have entered into the input fields is lost.

For example – the max characater limit for location is 10

1. Location value is currently: London
2. The user updates the location field to: London, United Kingdom
3. The field validation kicks in – the page is refreshed with error message displayed “Too many characters”
4. Location value reads: London

So, you can see the illegal value the user has entered “London, United Kingdom” has been lost. My aim is to redisplay the illegal value so the user can modify it under 10 characters.

Perhaps location isn’t the best example. Imagine if the user has written an about me paragraph which is over the character limit – on clicking submit the page refreshes and they are told they’ve entered too many characters. Their old about me text is displayed and all their new hard work has been lost.