BuddyPress.org

WPMU is only needed if you want individual user blogs à la wordpress.com.

If you don’t need this functionality, get standard WP.

Buddypress is only a WP plugin. So if you know how to install wordpress and manage plugins you know how to install Buddypress. In your WP admin search buddypress in the new plugins dialog, install it. Then go into your themes and choose the buddpress theme. Thats it. Buddypress must have a buddypress theme. Click extend above and then themes for some theme options.

hnla said: “quick question, regarding the aspect of group blogs and group forums is there really a difference?”

No, there isn’t. That’s why I would consolidate everything on blog posts (no forum topics, status updates, etc.) and threaded comments (no wire etc.), the native WordPress way of structuring conversation. And then you can use Category and other built-in post options to differentiate between types of posts+threads and do different things with them.

“Defining a Social Network / Community”

At the core is a relational database with member data and content that is then presented and connected in different ways on the user interface.

Online community is an older term that usually referred to forums. Organization of the data is mainly by topic/content.

Social networking evolved from forums. Profile pages of the users came to the fore. Central point of organization became individual members.

Wordpress’ strength is still content management. Member management in WP is underdeveloped for social networking.

The plugin is BuddyPress Badge:
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-badge/

Have you upgraded your wordpress Mu to wpmu 2.9.2 or you are using the old version of wpmu below 2.9.

For now, you can simply rename wp-content/buddypress and you will be able to access the wp-admin. Let us know about your current configuration in details as mentioned here
https://buddypress.org/community/groups/how-to-and-troubleshooting/forum/topic/when-asking-for-support

My 2 cents: In my custom theme I try to consolidate everything around blogs and groups. I’m still on 1.1.3.

Blogs are of course WordPress strength. I’m trying to get to a social network with a greater emphasis on content, where possible via RSS and with front-end posting on blogs and groups to lower the threshold.

For the social networking aspect I need profile pages for members and some ways for members to interact with eachother, via internal mail, friending/following, joining eachothers groups and blogs.

Groups are Buddypress’ killer app imho. Buddypress has the potential to become a real collaboration platform around content, with endless real world applications in businesses, organizations and associations.

Buddypress has all the basic elements to achieve this, but the following are still huge annoyances and don’t look like they will be fixed any time soon:

– Member management is all over the place, in different pages under wp-admin, different database tables and different places on the front-end. Adding custom member data fields and integrating them with outside applications is complicated and inflexible. By design (!) there is no built-in way to reliably store separate firstname and lastname, which makes out-of-the-box BP useless for most businesses and organizations. There is little validation on sign-up form fields.

– No built-in privacy/security.

– 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. You might as well integrate a WELL-style bulletin board system. Having a single sign-in option for people who want to use a forum on the side is great, but please stop weaving forums into Buddypress.

What Buddypress needs imho:

1. Consolidated member management; all member data stored in one place in the database, one page in wp-admin, one member profile page with “edit account settings” on the front end.

2. Content-focused member profile pages. Members should be able to use their profiles to introduce themselves and showcase their blogs and groups.

3. Conversation around blog posts and (threaded) blog comments, ideally with front-end posting like P2. There is no reason to have blog posts AND forum topics AND wire or whatever it’s called. Group blog should be a built-in feature.

4. End-user-friendly control over their groups and blogs, including privacy/security and front-end admin.

Summary:

– Members
– Blog posts
– Threaded comments

Presented in:

– Profile pages
– Blogs
– Groups

It’s just pulling the data from https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Just had this problem myself.

https://trac.buddypress.org/ticket/2361

Normally BP fails silently if this table is missing. However if a WordPress plugin calls $wpdb->show_errors() it reports the error above.

Workaround – find the plugin with $wpdb->show_errors() and comment it out.

Ian

@ferhat – for your reference check out https://wordpress.org/extend/themes/commercial/
at the bottom, you’ll find how you can be listed there.

@jeffsayre that was a well-written post, thank you.

I’m having the same problem. “Edit Page” and “Create Group” are returning 404 pages.
I’ve already tested @cce solution and it didn’t work, instead gave me a php error and my site wouldn’t even load.

My config is:

URL:http://www.viladigital.com.br
WP 2.9.2
BP 1.2.3
Server: Locaweb (a brazilian host company) working with Windows 2003 – Enterprise
PHP5
Root instalation, no subdomain
Wordpress + BuddyPress (with BBpress installed via BP)
Custom BP Theme based on Default Theme
I’ve changed my slugs inside of wp-config.php, but even when I delete this lines, the 404 pages keep occuring.

Thanks a lot, guys!
//

Edit: nevermind, already saw what I did wrong. @cce solution is perfect!

will that bring my topics over when i go to import it through buddypress?

No it won’t.

The integration guide above has nothing to do with BuddyPress. It allows you to integrate WordPress with an external install of bbPress (users, single sign-on).

If you want to integrate your external bbPress install with BuddyPress. Login to the WP backend, under “BuddyPress > Forum Setup”, choose existing install.
Then, you’d have to create a group and enable a forum for that group. Next, you’d have to manually bring in those topics via PHPMyAdmin.

Read the beginning and end of this post for more details:
http://dev.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2009/12/06/upgrading-from-buddypress-1-0-to-1-1/

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i kinda want it working like this site does, i want to integrate my external bbpress into my wp blog, and make them work together

This site doesn’t use an external bbPress install anymore.

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If i have to convert to wpmu, i will, if that’s the only way to get this working, and have all my categories/sub-forums, integrated into wp, through bp…..

Like I said above, it doesn’t make a difference what version of WordPress you are using.

All of BuddyPress and WordPress is under the GPL license. You can sell your themes without issue, as long as you comply with the terms of the GPL license. There are plenty of resources around the web which will help you understand.

Currently there is no facility to sell themes from this website, so you will need to find somewhere to do that, perhaps on your website.

@Paul Gibbs, the problem is beyond UI. Buddypress/Automattic needs to make some real architectural choices, stop piling on functionality on existing functionality that partly overlaps, looks all very similar to the end user, but isn’t synchronized/streamlined. Your explanation of the differences between groups, forums, comments etc. in #post-51655 is irrelevant to the end user.

Mixing old-fashioned forums + WordPress classic blogs/comments + newer forms of social networking/activity wires is a recipe for disaster imho. Unless perhaps if you rethink and restructure the whole thing from the bottom up, but if Automattic is not doing that it is not going to happen and will only get worse.

Mr Maz (?) API discussion was a definite step in the right direction!

Exactly. As an example, say you wanted the SVN for “Welcome Pack” —

The WordPress plugin page is https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/welcome-pack/
and the SVN path is http://svn.wp-plugins.org/welcome-pack/

Do non-BuddyPress specific emails get sent OK from your WordPress install? i.e. disable BuddyPress and get WordPress to send you a password reset email, or something.