BuddyPress.org

Put the wp-blog-header.php line at the top of your script.

Also try posting on the WordPress forums, as this isn’t really a BP issue.

eg. https://wordpress.org/support/topic/288455
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/285890

Run a Loop Outside of WordPress

Off-topic: Shouldn’t /community/ exist in the /public_html/ folder?
Anyway… did you try using a simple WP function after integrating the wp-blog-header.php file like a query_posts loop?

Read this for more info:
https://codex.wordpress.org/Integrating_WordPress_with_Your_Website

Within a plugin group, the Reviews tab does not display that proper ranking. See my plugin group for an example. It states, “Based on 1 rating” but then shows two reviews below: https://buddypress.org/community/groups/wordpress-hook-sniffer/reviews/

Again, this isn’t very clear.
Please outline your steps.

Let’s say your external bbPress install is located under /bbpress/.
Your custom template would reside in /bbpress/my-templates/YOURNEWTHEME/.

In this case, you’d want to put “bbbp-default” under /bbpress/my-templates/.
Then you go to /bbpress/bb-admin/ and activate the bbPress theme.

It’d also help to read the theme’s instructions. According to the theme author, you also need to add deep integration.

What is deep integration? Read the following article and read the section on deep integration:
http://wpwebhost.com/make-bbpress-theme-match-with-wordpress-by-deep-integration/

You need to attach a screen function to your admin page.

Check out the skeleton component plugin for more details:
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-skeleton-component/

Or copy the structure of your favorite plugins

I think techguy meant wp_insert_user:
https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_insert_user

That should give you some good ideas.

I think the ease of use and elegance of WordPress has somehow been lost in the most recent iteration of BuddyPress. Yes, we can make it whatever we wish it to be, but to do that we must be prepared to get under the hood and play with code while relying largely on untested or BP-approved plugins to extend its functionality. In one word, I would describe a BP install right now as ‘noisy’.

Seems to me the activity stream and the current group-forum relationship draws the ire of most people commenting in these forums. Right now, the activity stream is, frankly, a dog’s breakfast. The group-forum thing I can get my head around, but it would be very helpful if for example some of the functionality evident in bp.org was made readily available (the plugin group format for example) versus the current practice of teasing users with snippets of code all over the forums. Andy and the moderators here are great, but once again I think BP needs to figure out if it is targeting WordPress users or PHP developers as its primary target market. They are not one and the same, even those of us who are quite capable of handling a hosted version of WordPress.

I think BuddyPress should have focused its primary activity stream around the use of a microblog that comes standard with the install. A variation of P2 as the community blog right out of the box could provide an easy to follow timeline of user posts, shared links, etc. as per Twitter while a lot of the commenting and related noise created by the activity streams, etc. could be eliminated.

Looking forward to continued progress however on what is still the best option for developing a social networking application.

Have you seen this plugin yet? https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-links/

Wow. 30 minutes with no reply and you’re already bumping the thread?

wp_create_user ($username, $password, $email) is the right direction. Take a look at the wp-fb-autoconnect to see the calls to create new users. Then, do a search for having the BP top bar appear on external sites. I’m not 100% sure, but it seems like the same way you can get the BP bar to appear on other pages you could tie into other WP functions like the wp_create_user () function. Basically requires you to include/require some WordPress files on your external page that’s making the calls. I can’t remember which.

@bobs12 – The BuddyPress Backward Compatibility plugin https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-backwards-compatibility/ contains the old theme as well as the old wire code. You could install that plugin and have pretty much everything back the way it was.

Slowly I am beginning to realize that Buddy press is not a straight-out-of-the-box solution. It is not like wordpress. In order to create a proper Buddypress community you really have to *develop* your community.

The negative with this is that the default install is confusing. Comments/updates in the activity stream, forum posts, comments on forum posts, comments on blog posts. Not only do you have different types of comments but you also have meta comments. No wonder things are confusing!

I am tempted to use an analogy of Linux vs Apple. You can do a lot with linux, but all the choices may lead to confusion and an unproductive environment. Apple on the other hand knows the importance of keeping things simple. The iPad is an example of this. It has less features than regular computers, and this makes it easier to use and less confusing. It does fewer things but it does them well.

So what has Apple and Linux got to do with Buddypress? I believe that Buddypress should have several options. (as it has today), but it should be easier to customize Buddypress in order to suit every individual communities` needs. You develop the site to suit you needs. Use what your community needs and remove everything else. Less noise and less confusion and more Apple like

As it is right now, in order to really customize the default install, you have to know PHP etc. This is good if you are a programmer, but unfortunately not all of us are. It seems to me like a lot of the BPusers are non-programmers who just want to add a social layer to their WP site. If Automattic wants to cater to these people, it will be necessary to make it easy to customize BP without having to dive into the code.

I suggest expanding on the options (toggles) in the Admin panel in order to customize the BP install more. That way you can really streamline your community experience.

Example:
– disable commenting for ALL activity-items at the homepage, or choose which one you want to disable. (forum/blogs etc)
– disable activity streams on groups (if admin wants to use forums instead.)
-Choose what is displayed in the activity feed. (Friend connections, blog posts etc)

What is apparent, just by reading the previous posts are that we all have different needs:

“Built-in forums are increasingly clashing with commenting on blogs and wires and the social networking structure. There is no reason to have old-fashioned forums in a next generation social network.”

vs

“I think it’s best to strip out sitewide activity stream as well as the groups activity stream. Force users to post content in forums and use their own profile activity stream to post a message to a specific user.”

People want different things, so why not let them have a choice. The new Bp.org is proof that all these different features are useful. They all have their advantages.(although it could use some more improvements to streamline the experience)

I agree with RAYs view:
“For groups, you can either go one way – embrace the activity stream or embrace the forums. It’s not the best thing to try and have it both ways. But this is a decision the BP admin should make (which it is right now). At the end of the day, BP gives you free reign to customize your community all you want.”

SUMMARY: My thoughts are that Buddypress needs an easier and more complete way of designing the community through the admin panel.

Install wordpress and deep intergrate bbPress into it, then install buddypress on your wordpress and presto.
Make sure that your deep intergration with bbPress works before you install buddypress though.

THIS WILL NOT intergrate your bbpress into buddypress. So topics/posts in bbpress won’t show up in your activity stream for example.

hi Mike
The problem with the author url is, it is generated by wordpress. Let me take a look at it, there must be someway to get over that too.
The problem with the unified url is a trouble as wordpress uses 3/4 options settings for that (home,wpurl,siteurl,url), an interesting thing will be if we just cap all of them.

Let me take a look at the author url, will be posting again soon

Hi Shanni,
I’m also a fan of Simple Facebook Connect, and the author of this plugin seems pretty active to implement the new features by Facebook. So I would not worry that much about the future of this plugin: it seems to me the best plugin to connect a WordPress blog with Facebook.
But I wonder: does he work smoothly with BuddyPress? I mean: can users register on BuddyPress using Facebook Connect?
Thanks,
Nicolas

“Would it be easier to bite the bullet now and set up WPMU now so that later I can offer blog functionality? “

WPMU is being merged in with the next version of WordPress. You’ll be able to enable it fairly easily. So, start with WordPress.

“I’ve had a BIG respon$e to my first tweets about the idea and people want in on my project, but alas, I’m no tech geek!!! So I have customers but no website, lol!”

Then my best advice would be to hire someone to build it for you.

The only difference between WP and WPMU is on WPMU each user on the site will have their own blog with an admin. It’s like having your own wordpress.com. If you want just a social network type site then I’d go with WP + BP. Functionality wise there really is no difference between BP on WP or WPMU.

As for hosting. Thats a personal choice. I use shared hosting with some cacheing and I off set with hosting static files on Amazon S3. If you make your themes slim and compress files you should be ok unless you get linked to by a major site and a million people are hitting your site.