BuddyPress.org

The early versions of the P2 theme had messy JS backend making it tricky to move (IMO).

Erich above wrote “An average user probably only wants to write some text and post an image or a video” – this is a different task than what the WP

posting backend was built to do. That’s why P2 was so popular because it encouraged microblogging using the WordPress platform.

BuddyPress is still very much a WP(MU) plugin. What it does best is create an instant social network around a community of bloggers … I don’t think this is a negative, but a positive.

I agree. That’s why I believe Buddypress has a lot of potential. It’s a social network, but with a strong content publishing angle.

I just wish that shift in focus from blog posts to “member management” would get more attention. Personally I don’t need any more new features. Adding forums for example only adds to the structural confusion. I’m still struggling with the basics, creating a user-friendly registration and profile settings interface.

The Dashboard of WordPress has gotten two complete overhauls within about the last year. The current version is awesome.

The WordPress admin interface is pretty good for what it has to do, but it is not what people expect when they sign up with a social network and it clashes with the front end interface.

Edit in response to Andrea_r:

P2 looks interesting. It’s an example of responding to user expectations and evolving interface “standards” on the web.

The Dashboard of WordPress has gotten two complete overhauls within about the last year. The current version is awesome. Extremely user-friendly and easy to use. It’s just jarring to go from BuddyPress to WordPress’ Dashboard. But there are no usability issues with it as far as I’m concerned. Would be nice if you could turn off most of the screen options by default though.

yeah, the Admin-Dashboard of WP / WPMU looks very complicated to people who have never used WordPress or really are not some sort of Publishers.

So an average person “writing his blog” will surely need a few days to understand the Dashboard and most likely would not need all the features it is offering.

An average user probably only wants to write some text and post an image or a video.

I am thinking of the Community I am trying to target which are people at the age of 50 and above. So I decided to de-activate “User-Blogs” from my installation, because I am sure my users will be confused with the backend-Dashboard.

I do hope that the Dashboard of WP will get a design-overhaul to make it easier to understand.

Gonna see how the “quick blog post form via the theme” from the “BP-Roadmap” will work out ? If this will be easy to use (without going into the Dashboard), then I might integrate the Blog-functionality back-in into my installation.

@PH (webguy),

Look into this one built on simplelife…

Features

All the features provided with version 1.1 of Simplelife (the point of the fork) and I will also attempt to merge any new future changes as well

Support for as many and as obscure services as possible. I have already included stuff that no one else does like PMOG, Atheist Nexus, Cocomments, Getboo etc.

Longer history via utilizing google reader.

Comment tracking from everywhere. That is, each time you leave a comment in the blogosphere or in a forum, it will show in your lifestream (AFAIK, no other lifestreaming service does this)

Pie Charts.

FYI: https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/complexlife

I agree. Buddypress is of course built on blog software WordPress, which has a totally different focus; managing blog posts instead of people/members. So BP is still a bit schizophrenic at the moment.

People do sign up on my network (aimed at web entrepreneurs…), because I’ve integrated event registration. They also sign up for groups and sometime leave messages. Nobody creates blogs or groups unless I ask them with detailed instructions.

Imho the WordPress backend should be entirely closed to regular end users. Any admin settings that they need should be integrated in the front end user interface, under Settings on the profile page etc.

My pet peeve is related to this; Buddypress has no build-in way to store full, real name, location and other regular personal profile data you’d expect from a social network. It’s still too close to the blog software base, with the focus on username/password and managing blog posts.

As for locate_template() – you’re best suited to go read about the function yourself than ask it here. It’s a WP function. I founded via Google, the search engine @ https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/locate_template

It’s a better function to use than an include because the array of template files gives the function something to fall back on if it can’t find the sought after function.

You could try our Buddypress Ads Plugin available at https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-ads/

This plugin will allow you to publish ads through your buddypress site(with wordpress mu) Supports multiple ad networks including adsense , adbrite and many more. Just replace the ad code in the file bp-custom.php with your own ad code.

More details at http://www.pingsense.com/2009/11/buddypress-ads-plugin/

You can tryout Buddypress Analytics Plugin at https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-analytics/

This plugin will allow you to use your analytics script with your buddypress site (with wordpress mu) Supports any analytics script including but not limited to Google Analytics.

More info at http://www.pingsense.com/2009/11/buddypress-analytics-plugin/

1: Yes that’s right.. you can easily show recent blogs from your entire network by placing a widget on your homepage:

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bp-paginated-posts/

If you want to have one blog which collects and displays all blogs in a single blog form you can use this plugin:

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mu-sitewide-tags/

2: This is also possible.. just make a blog and make it only viewable for subscribers (members) of your site!

Good luck

You could try our Buddypress Ads Plugin available at https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-ads/

This plugin will allow you to publish ads through your buddypress site(with wordpress mu) Supports multiple ad networks including adsense , adbrite and many more. Just replace the ad code in the file bp-custom.php with your own ad code.

http://www.pingsense.com/2009/11/buddypress-ads-plugin/

Thanks for your support r-a-y, Andrea_r and netstay

I have updated the plugin code at

https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-analytics/

http://www.pingsense.com/2009/11/buddypress-analytics-plugin/

Thts the same issue I get, no pages, it just takes me to the front page. My post is here https://wordpress.org/support/topic/342962?replies=2#post-1320596

We have installed wordpress and buddypress in our site.

After the last buddypress update we discovered that USERS can´t upload avatars.

Once they select the file and click UPLOAD they receive “(Error when uploading! The error was The file type does not meet security policies. Try another)”

BUT admin user can upload avatar without problems!!

We are using WordPress MU 2.8.6 and BuddyPress 1.1.3

Thanks!

Francisco

Parent / Child is pretty simple. A child theme can be as simple as a single style.css file with a link to another theme (it’s parent) in the comment section at the top of the file. i.e.:

Template: bp-sn-parent

Done. Now you can make your own styles to override the parent styles. And additionally… as you probably know… you can override any parent template file by placing a template file of the same name (and location) in the child theme. That’s about it.

And I would assume that any wordpress functions / constants / etc. that refer to template locations (other than the blog_info(‘stylesheet_directory’) will refer to the parent.

I think a directory page might make more sense than a sidebar list. What happens once you have 100 documents? Also, it would really make sense with the rest of the BuddyPress world. You could have tabs for “all documents” and “my documents”. You could have sorting by “active”, “recent”, “popular”. etc. And you could have “search” of course. Maybe not to start… but you know… Phase 2.

And how could anyone hate the WordPress backend?! It’s awesome!!! Show them Joomla… then their heads would truly explode. But I understand how being taken into a completely different interface would be jarring. And I think it’s a huge bonus that this will all work on the front end. Nice.

I answered this above. No. There is no parameter for the template tag bloginfo() called “child_theme_directory” or anything similar. To write in the child theme directory, use “stylesheet_directory”. That works. For a full list of parameters that this tag will accept, please read the manual. They’re all listed under the header “Parameters”:

https://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/bloginfo

p.s. Looking at the codex page above, I see there is a parameter call template_url. No idea of that will write in the parent or child dir. But it’s one you haven’t tried I think.

I’m basically one-week new to BuddyPress and but I agree, right now, it’s a bit difficult to be theme agnostic since you have to provide the page templates yourself. We’re going to have to work with Andy and the other devs to find a way to start moving more toward the way WordPress does it:

https://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy

This way your plug-in’s action, i.e. create new link, just uses the template framework’s create.php page and you don’t have to provide your own. Same with directories. There should be one directory.php file in a theme and every directory uses it.

Granted this is a huge task But maybe we can spur it via Links since Links is kind of the poster child for BP component plug-ins. I’m available to help hammer that out if any devs catch this thread.

This is BuddyPress centric forum, so if you are having wpmu problem, you should visit he forum at mu.wordpress.org as there’re more users than we have here on buddypress.org

Also please read and follow the step by step guide on asking question on forum.

https://buddypress.org/forums/topic/help-us-help-you

We are happy to help, but without enough information we can’t.

holy crap, so what happens when i want to add a page like http://www.trination.co.cc/store like that and the page is made in wordpress?

I’d be fine with an index / directory page. That page could perhaps even use sorting / filtering (at some point) similar to the BuddyPress directory pages in the latest default theme… i.e. most active, most recent… my wikis, all wikis… etc. And if you’re leveraging WordPress functionality… another way to organize the wikis would be by tags and categories… perhaps with a sidebar widget and a dynamic directory page depending on which tag / category you click on. Lots of ideas