BuddyPress.org

Hello again,

First off, I’m a total noob to buddypress development, but better at regular wordpress development. So, here’s how I proceded:

1- in functions.php, I added two widgets, like this:
register_sidebars( 1,
array(
‘name’ => ‘showcaseImage’,
‘before_widget’ => ‘

‘,
‘before_title’ => ‘

‘,
‘after_title’ => ‘

‘
)
);

register_sidebars( 1,
array(
‘name’ => ‘showcaseCaption’,
‘before_widget’ => ‘

‘,
‘before_title’ => ‘

‘,
‘after_title’ => ‘

‘
)
);

2- I copy/pasted page.php and modified like this (removed loop and sidebar call):

<?php
/* Template Name: Showcase */
get_header();
?>

3- in _inc/css/default.css, I added this custom code:

#showcaseImage{text-align:center; width:720px; height:300px; overflow:hidden; margin:0 5px 0 0; border:1px solid #fff; float:left;}
#showcaseCaption{width:200px; height:300px; overflow:hidden; border:1px solid #fff; padding:0 18px 0 13px; float:left;}

4- in settings, I replaced the homepage by this static one.

That’s the whole hack, I guess. By removing the default css id’s and classes from page.php, and replacing them with my own, I place the widgets wherever I wish. Maybe there’s a better way? Not knowing enough about buddypress, your technique seems complex to me

Next step (for you and me): add some sweet jQuery and make this a slideshow

Additional next step for me: document this in a tutorial, I’m pretty sure it will come up handy for many.

~ hiddenson

@chembro303 – I have the same issue, did you manage to find the form screen anywhere in regular WordPress?

Andy has already recommend the WP-FB-AutoConnect (https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-fb-autoconnect/) before this. Check it out.

Instead for me it’s the only one that works very very well (and I have tried wp-fb-autocnnect, Gygia, simple fb connect, Facebook Connect to Adam Hupp, Faux Facebook Connect -only for comment- and others)!
The only ones that work (for me) are Gygia (but only if you have a normal WordPress installation) and BP-Facebook connect (there is a very little problem with logout redirect). And more, Bp-Facebook gets also the (facebook) email of user.
I don’t love its method to work, but it works.

I have Buddypress 1.2.3 and WordPress 3.0 beta 1 (network installation with subdirectory).
The very great problem that I have with Bp-Facebook (at the moment) is the incompatibility with WordPress MU Domain Mapping: if my secondary blog mantains subdirectory url, BP-facebook works (too well).
But if I change a subdirectory url with a primary url (example.com/secondaryblog to secondaryblog.com) it goes crazy.
And this is a problem!

I hope Peatling update his plugin!

Use the plugin that says autoconnect. It works great and is coded with BP in mind. https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-fb-autoconnect/

@gtn

To exclude any WP page from the navbar, try this plugin:
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exclude-pages/

To add links to your footer, simply edit your child theme’s footer.php file.

Get this plugin:

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/add-users-sidebar-widget/

@jeffsayre @jackreichert @deltina etc.

Can I just counterpoint?

Chiming in here. I’m waiting for @apeatling to also talk more about this issue. Somebody mentioned DiSo. As I understood it, DiSo was more than just trying to systemically build distributed social networking out of WordPress or BuddyPress, but trying to do so through the establishment of more widely accepted protocols, i.e., the “social stack,” which included things like OpenID, OAuth, PortableContacts, and so forth. (“Social stack” is less of a buzz word today, but that was part of the beginning.)

I partly agree with the sentiment about WordPress needing implicit ground-up structural changes for the implementation of better social protocols, however, part of the problem @ the time actually had more to do with a lack of experience as well the protocols were still being nailed down. For example, we’re entering a second phase in all of this, as OAuth 2.0 is in the process of being released as a spec, and a 2nd iteration of OpenID will be issued as OpenID Connect — part of the problem also in the first place was these two protocols weren’t designed at the same time, so they didn’t work together conjunctively as well, but phase two here has the benefit of a foundation, so they can now build off each other. (See http://openidconnect.com/ and http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/05/new-openid-connect-proposal-could-solve-many-of-the-social-webs-woes/ )

There were also several other issues in flux, a major one being discovery. XAuth is providing a temporary solution for this going forward. Other less-known, but increasingly important protocols matured or are maturing rather rapidly: Salmon, PubSubHubbub, Activity Streams, to name a few.

That said, I think @Jeff_Sayre has been a little bit of a voice in the wilderness on all these matters. I just read this blog post of his http://jeffsayre.com/2010/05/15/repackaging-the-promise-of-the-social-semantic-web/ and it hit the nail ON THE HEAD for what’s staring everyone in the face. Sometimes things are so obvious that it’s hard to perceive them, you know?

That being said, can I just make one plea? Sometimes I hear a lot of the main BuddyPress developers intimate that they don’t really like the protocols being developed toward this end…the technology is wrong, etc., etc., and then there’s sometimes talk of how to do it right or how to do it better than the social stack.

I don’t involve myself *too much* in development here @ BuddyPress central, but I’ve been following development from the beginning, perhaps most especially with an eye toward distributing the social network beyond just one BuddyPress silo, and I do have a fairly solid view of the history of both the social stack and BuddyPress.

Can I just offer that we try and go with the flow of the protocols already being worked on in other arenas? The Internet Identity Workshop is taking place tomorrow (Mon. – Wed), it’s 10th session in just five years, and so much has happened and will continue to happen — just look at what’s on the agenda: http://iiw.idcommons.net/Proposed_Topics_IIW10 (Main site is here: http://www.internetidentityworkshop.com/ ) It’s true that these tend to be a lot of big players, i.e., Google, Facebook, MySpace, and so forth. But a lot of the people @ this particular workshop started out working small (like on DiSo), and have the interest of the open source community in mind. I sort of feel like I’m preaching to the choir, but I do think it’s really important that we all not forget the work that has already been done towards establishing solid protocols. In other words, instead of bitching about how to do things right, I think we ought to come to the IIW table, so to speak. These new internet standards have come a long way since then, and we still have a long way to go, so lets help make that happen.

#1) Try https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bp-registration-options/

“What access if any does wordpress.com give to plugins.”Was a somewhat rhetorical question

“None whatsoever.”

Unless you’re a wordpress.com VIP member and then there’s some room to negotiate. Although, I’d be very surprised if they let even VIP members run BP on it.

Your second, third and fourth requests can be taken care of by making sure the groups are set as Private. That means that they don’t show up in public listings, and their contents are only visible to members of the group.

In order to make sure that people can only be part of a single group, you’ll want to hide the Send Invite screen for all users, or at least for non-admins. You could either do this through CSS, or by modifying/reproducing the functionality defined at bp-groups.php groups_setup_nav().

As for the first question, there are WP plugins that allow you to restrict membership to invited members. A ten-second Google search turned up this: https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-invites/, for example. I imagine that this would work fine for BP as well. The most straightforward way to populate groups would then be for the admin to use a plugin like BP Group Management http://teleogistic.net/code/buddypress/bp-group-management/, which allows admins to place people manually in groups, bypassing the invitation process.