One thing I am wandering is, are there short codes I can use to display on one page the users activity feed and extended profile information, so I could create a basic “My Profile” page, within the members menu area so that is displays a members page specific template that will include more personalised widgets such as a media player which picks up its playlist from a url set in the extended profile?
i’m with you. SOund like we are looking for the same thing. Probably why people end up spending a fortune. I have made a word press/ buddypress site and trying to see how to make the members area more cusomisable visual . THink I will have ot go back to the begginging. If you get any advice on this let me know.
So for I’ve found a short code for the activity feed and this is giving me some ideas. I’ve found lots of widgets that let me customise the members profile page so overall I think I’m getting there.
One of the issues with running Buddypress as a social network is the volume of plugins you need to use in order to get the right level of features and customisations, I’m running more than 80 in total. Inevitably this leads compatibility issues.
Key features that are lacking – user profile page self-customisation options, Friends and memberships activity feeds, custom page views, image sharing options and site “fanfare options such as featured users, groups, posts and images on one page.
But a big thanks to all those developers out there that are providing generally high quality plugins that fill a lot of these gaps.
Your clearly ahead of me with plugins and short codes. I’ve returned to start to look at learning the basics rather than running ahead into walls.
Second you on the great work so many people are doing providing an almost free service.
Are you using a theme to start of with? if so which one? A free one I’m presuming?
I’m trying different ones out and not sure which is best for compatability.
Be interested to see the site your building.
mine is SWanimationnetwork
I’m Keeping it Really basic untill I understnd how to make the members page right. Then might get a bit more ambitious!
I ended opting for Graphene, there are some compatibility issues, but it is so flexible, I must have tried about 30 different themes before settling on it.
I reckon all in all I’ve assessed about 500 plugins to arrive at what I have got. Comparing to other social networking sites I think I’m pretty comparable to pay for options such as Ning, some aspects are seriously lacking though. User profile customisation and on site social networking options being the biggies.
I wired my landing page to be the activity feed, with a blog summary slider, and then used a right sidebar to do a lot of the customisation with widgets. For the members profile pages I added a second left sidebar with more personal widgets like friend and group recommendations.
Image and video sharing was another issue, I think I’ve just solved that though. I figured it was ket not to have basic users having to access the admin bar to add images to galleries etc but they also needed to be able to create galleries that the whole site could see.
Currently I’m at the stage where I keep finding features I never knew I had lol.
What I would really like, is a USP, a feature that other social sites do not have. Not sure what that is exactly and it may be that the total collection equates to that but I still feel it needs something. Maybe insertion of slide shows into blogs without the short codes etc, so normal users can do it.
The site is called Truth of Self http://www.truthofself.com
I think I’ve nearly done it! It’s taken hours of searching and a lot of lateral thinking but I’ve sorted on of my asks, and that is for a home page that summarises the various activity streams. I’ve got a test system up at http://www.sacredvale.org and I’ve been able to set it up with a posts feed, and activity feed, and forum feed and also a popular groups list.
I’m not happy with the forum feed though it will do, and the groups feed is just weird and won’t.
I’ve also found an app that allows me to say exactly where a widget will display, so I can customise the sidebars for every page view I care to.
There’s a lot of bugs here and there, mainly to do with the look and feel of the overall system and I’m still working on the members profile pages but an awful lot of what I’ve been looking for I’ve been able to deliver, for very little money.
Now, if only we can get wordpress turbocharged lol
Plugin count so far? a cool 100….but my feature list beats any off the shelf social network site I know.
