BuddyPress.org

Hello guys.

I’ve just started developing a child theme for a theme I’m almost finishing developing and I got frustrated with this same behavior.

I will try to explain it better. As I’ve noted, WordPress doesn’t see the child theme as the actual theme, so bloginfo('template_directory') will return the parent theme.

BUT, if you faced this situation you already know that the sole unique parent theme’s file that is not inherited by child themes is style.css, which is the only file a child theme is needed to have. If we want to use parent theme’s style.css we must import it using @import url(../parent-theme-folder/style.css);

That’s why bloginfo('stylesheet_directory') returns the child theme path. As a record, template_url also refers to the parent theme.

I’m not sure of that, but I believe we can nest themes on a list, having THEME-1 as the root, THEME-2 as its child implementing some new extra stuff and THEME-3 having THEME-2 as its parent and adding a few more features. That’s not as impossible to happen as some may thing, I’ve already seen a few Thematic’s child themes, and if you wanna use any of them and do a few changes to their CSS, having 2 nested child themes is really possible, if WordPress supports it of course.

And with that we may end up with a now real problem: template_directory points to top parent theme, and stylesheet_directory points to the bottom child theme… Probably middle child themes will break when they try to access their files using stylesheet_directory and they are not found…

WordPress really needs to solve this, they should implement something like templatedir('theme-name'), where we can access any theme we want, even classic and basic…

For now what I’m gonna do is use PHP constants. My parent theme already has its:

define('THEME_PREFIX_PATH',bloginfo('template_directory'));

And for my child themes I’ll do the same using stylesheet_directory. Doing so, if someday WordPress gives a final solution for this mess, we’ll just have to use it on this constant and all our child themes will be fixed.

It’s sad but seems to be the most maintainable solution I’ve found.

@ pcwriter: Did you remove the kubrick theme from your theme folder (standard wordpress theme). I had the same problem a while back, solved it by placing the kubrick theme back in the themes folder.

Replying to six month old threads that have been marked as ‘resolved’ (Green traffic light) will mean most people will skip the thread.

But, https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-profile-filters-for-buddypress/

Just a note to say that I tried looking at Atahualpa to modify it for use with Buddypress, and the code is an absolute nightmare to work with. And it’s a table-based layout.

Yes, it has a lots of options. But if you want to mod it, ugh… There’s loads of other themes out there with options pages.

edit: to answer your original question, in taking the navigation on the right, just move the code in the theme into a nav spot where you want in the header, and style it to go horizontally.

It’s not really BP specific, or even MU-specific. It’s all a matter of styling.

https://codex.wordpress.org/Creating_Horizontal_Menus

I’ve added the WP abstraction code that will allow BuddyPress to run on all WordPress versions to the trunk. This code will more than likely be needed even after the merge, so I want to get it in there and up and running for 1.2.

I’ve had it going for a while locally, so it seems silly to sit on this until 1.3. After the merge I will tweak where needed, but I don’t anticipate much change since the multiblog features of 3.0 will simply be an on/off setting.

@David – downloads plugin at https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-group-documents/. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks good.

@David – fair point. fyi, group notifications: https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/group-forum-subscription-for-buddypress/

About how member/profile data is stored in the database, Andy Peatling wrote:

I’ll be reworking the schema in 1.2, interested to hear your ideas.

I sent you a lengthy mail through the system, again describing the problem as I see it, but probably not enough solutions. I came across this in another thread:

I’m now using another 3rd party plugin for membership to the site (WP eMember). While it has its own table, it also creates a matching WP user for each of the members it creates.

I haven’t tested the various commercial membership plugins yet (Memberwing, Wishlist, …), but they must all have their own solutions for the problem. I’m curious what their database tables look like…

hi,

i have a similar problem. when i access the registration page at http://<somehostname>/register i get a HTTP 302 response code and a redirect to the start page.

i’m usingthe following setup:

– buddypress 1.1.2

– wordpress mu 2.8.6

i’m sure, that i followed the installation instructions correctly step by step. i double checked it. the only thing i changed is the theme. however, also with the default theme activated (which i haven’t touched) the issue remains.

does anybody have an idea, why this is?

Hi Jean,

h-mag.com was initially setup as a wordpress template. After setting up and installing BuddyPress, I imported each of the components one by one and began modifying the parent theme’s CSS and restructuring the HTML to match the functionality of the original wordpress theme. There are not shortcuts, just a lot of tedious work and trial and error.

Please this is my first experience with WordPress and buddypress. I have installed wordpress Mu/buddypress successfully, I want to have a site where the main page will be used as an introduction to my social networking site, as well as the platform for login, and the second page to be the main social networking page… i have installed some customed made theme for the purpose of the Social.n/w.. but the whole thing is confusing me. PLEASE… i will be grateful if any one can give me step by step hint on how to go about this…….

….placing one theme as main page in subdomain and the other in main domain is…? Please Help…

@ Mike:

As an example, a place to tweet from my site won’t turn many on. Not because they aren’t on Twitter, but they don’t come to the site to do it, don’t usually want to tweet about what they are doing on the site and the added convenience of tweeting from within the site isn’t worth the real estate. Still – it’s a great idea for other sites.”

This is exactly what makes these kind of decisions so hard to make for the development team. Basically there are so many different needs for different usergroups, that decisions about core functionality are always very hard to make. I apreciate the amount of interaction between us (end users) and the developers (core + plugin developer) on the forum and the trac, and I do think we’ll get there in the end. Since I am not a programmer I can’t say what is technically the best way to do something, but I do know a thing or two about social networking and online communities in general.

The thing which makes BuddyPress really stand out is, is that it actually crosses a bridge between blogging/publishing of content and micro-blogging/meaningles social networking. There has always been a clash between those two types of users and some usersgroups are way more focused on quality (and somewhat lenghy!) content then others. Your example about real estates agents looking for totally different ways to interact then a typical social networks user is spot on. You do not need twitter integration on your site, and you do not want to have those functions overcomplicating your site. My users on the other hand are EXTREMELY mixed on so many levels. The only thing they have in common is the fact that they all have the same disease. This makes creating my network a really big challenge and it means that there are many factors I need to think about. Many of my users are used to blogging and discussions forums, and a younger generation is used to facebook and twitter. Currently the more traditional users have more then enough to do on my site with the amazing Blog + Group functionality. These components can be tweaked to my liking by WordPress (user blogs) and the Group API.

Since the introduction of the Group API you have seen that there are plugins coming out which let us (the site owners) decide what we want to add to our social network. Plugin developers can easily hook into the Group API and add functionality to it, which might be specifically written for a specific usergroup. We’ve seen Groupblogs, External Blogs but also Twitter integration plugins, and it made the Group component by far the most powerful and promising BP component as of yet.

The mock-up I’ve made is basically saying that this kind of functionality should also be extended to regular profiles, so we get much more flexibility to create the social network we see fit. This does not only mean adding new functions but also disabling unneeded ones.

If the Friends functionality was extensible trough the Profile API it would mean that it could be customized into something that would fit different needs for different sites. Maybe some sites would like to allow individual users to add Twitter Widgets to their profile page, and allow groups of Friends to discuss on a seperate forum. I could imagine that a “family oriented” community could greatly benefit from such a feature, but your real estate community would not! With a Profile API it would mean that it could be added as a plugin on top of the basic friend functionality which everyone could use as a base to work from.

So basically I’m saying that it might be smart to work on making all the components as flexible and easy to extend as the Groups component, then it won’t take long before before there are so many options available to do thing they way you want, we will all be happy! There are more and more people discovering BuddyPress as a “general” Social Network solution instead of a “social network for bloggers” and there are even a lot of users who want to get rid of the blogging functionality and make it a normal social network. If WPMU and WP merge there will be even more need for individual/profile related functionality and a good API is the first step to achieve this!

Wow!! I wish this post had a different title because it hits on some really core issues that I hope everyone chimes in on. I was searching on how to let users “post” without giving them a full-blown blog/website and all the hassles that comes with. Mr. Maz crystallized it for me:

Hammer meet nail!!! I’m one of those people.

However, with the merge coming, BP will be exposed to greater millions who have NO interest in creating a community of bloggers, but just a community for a new or pre-existing site. The pre-existing site is primary and the community is secondary. As software officially “adopted” by Automattic and arguably best of breed, Automattic will have to deal with this.

I chose WP/BP for a niche site where I want to build significant user interaction functionality because:

• I believe WP is growing and development in core and plugins will surpass others for some time
• Its ease of use for the developer with some php/mysql background (me)
• I found BP later, but it is still has a brighter future than the competitors I’ve seen and the merge will only multiply that (but, there are alternatives https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mingle/ , https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/alkivia/)
• There are so many people trying to solve the same problems, I trust they’ll get it fixed – eventually

All that said, I think I’ll start another post on how to make BP work for sites that just want to use BP as a foundation for social interaction and not as a blogging network.

Same problem here. No notifications are being sent, no new users are being listed in the backend. In the database table “wp_signups” I can see the registrations, in wp_users I can not.

The only plugin installed is bp-events at the moment.

(BP 1.1.3, WordPress mu 2.8.6)

It doesn’t look like Buddypress would be the most suitable script to develop a site like that. Zillow is an interface on a bunch of databases for homes, agents, lenders, etc. You’d have to adapt the users and post tables in WordPress, which aren’t very flexible…, or develop something around it.

Are there any open source PHP scripts more suitable for this kind of site? Can’t think of any.

So every time i add a sidebar to my custom theme the id of the bp-default sidebar is count up by 1? That would mean i have to dive back into child-themes function.php and higher the unregister_sideabar(‘sidebar-x’) by one?

Edit: I checked it in my child-theme and the procedure above is unfortunately true. WordPress Codex also says it only goeas by ID: https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/unregister_sidebar

I have a network of web entrepreneurs. It’s hard enough to get them to create blogs and actually use them. OK, that’s not only BP’s fault of course, but “full invested writer/bloggers” will set up their own blogs – I’m also a journalist, I would never write/blog in someone else’s network.

I think more advances are necessary to take it beyond this where users can contribute more content without having to be a full invested writer/blogger.

That’s why I need to come up with an external blog feed-in solution. Currently stuck in upgrading my theme… I also like the microblogging suggestions.

And Groups has limitless and unique opportunities; dynamic groups with lots of content within a private social network/community.

My worry:

Will Buddypress eventually target schools, companies, trade associations, sports clubs, etc.? Or even become enterprise ready? Or will it stay a more limited play thing for insider groups of dedicated blogging geeks with a lot of free time on their hands?

I HOPE that BuddyPress does not become a member aggregation site where, the more people, the more successful a site is “perceived” to be. That to me is the game that Ning is playing. Why in the world woulu Buddypress want to be another Ning?

I agree. That model is dead. I believe the concept of “private social networks” is different. Jeff’s privacy component is essential – haven’t had the chance to test it yet.

But there should be opportunities for low threshold content creation and communication and I would develop them around (micro)blogging. Again, I have mixed feelings about the addition of old-fashioned forums.

Without being able to look and see multiple files both within the wordpress part and the server, the most we can do is guess.

Some things I have seen crank the CPU:

– a bad plugin with an off query

– bad code in the theme (make the theme more efficient, revert to default theme to see if that’s the issue)

– inappropriate server settings. Did you really put in a wildcard subdomain (if you use them) or do you have, say 20, listed. (Seen it. Wasn’t pretty.)

– default server settings on high traffic sites. Preforks, child processes – all these can be streamlined.

– an obscure bug with cPanel on CentOS boxes that create a memory leak

– in rare cases a hardware failure

and finally – being hit with spammers constantly. I have a couple older domains, and no matter where I host them, the simple fact they are “out there” mean they get hit with an INSANE amount of spam. Email, comments, splogs – all of it.

Basically, you have to eliminate what it isn’t.

how much traffic do you get? How big is the database?

You may try zlib compression. I gave a tutorial about it here: http://wpmu.org/dramatically-speed-up-wordpress-and-wpmu-load-times-with-this-simple-tip/

It improved my transfer speed by 3.5 times on my BuddyPress test installation.

http://www.rackspace.nl/content/images_za/ppc_landing_pages/virtualisation.gif

VPS is not the same as dedicated even though it’s close.

Not sure how many visitors you get per day, but on my home install (this pc) I got 100 visitors at a certain moment on my buddypress driven site and it didn’t even went over 10% (that while running a lot of other crap, like firefox and photoshop).

Setup: 3.07 GHz (i7 950) and 6 GB Ram.

Why not try running a simple script (maybe GD or something) outside of wordpress and see if you get 100% CPU, if it doesn’t, then accuse wordpress.

In ur themes function.php (create one if it doesn’t exist in ur theme folder) add

<br />

/* Register an additional fourth widget column */<br />

register_sidebars( 1,<br />

array(<br />

'name' => 'fourth-section',<br />

'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',<br />

'after_widget' => '</div>',<br />

'before_title' => '<h2 class="widgettitle">',<br />

'after_title' => '</h2>'<br />

)<br />

);<br />

and alter the code in ur post above to

<div id="fourth-section" class="widget-section"><br />

<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar')<br />

|| !dynamic_sidebar('fourth-section') ) : ?></p>

<p>    <div class="widget-error"><br />

<?php _e( 'Please log in and add widgets to this section.', 'buddypress' ) ?> /wp-admin/widgets.php?s=&show=&sidebar=first-section"><?php _e( 'Add Widgets', 'buddypress' ) ?><br />

</div></p>

<p>    <?php endif; ?></p>

<p>    </div>

This should bring u a functional fourth-section sidebar in the wordpress backend. Valid for BP 1.1.3 Theme.