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My 2 Cents


  • alanchrishughes
    Participant

    @alanchrishughes

    13 years, 9 months ago

    1. Remove the top navigation bar from the wp_footer(); because if you don’t want that navigation bar you have to either hack the Buddypress plugin or remove the wp_footer(); and from what I understand both can lead to a lot of problems.

    2. Consolidate all the style sheets. I know the template pack is pretty cool, but it is still a jumbled mess of CSS and stuff going on outside of your actual style sheet which will require more hacking files programmers would probably freak out to hear people are editing. Plus I read somewhere once that it is out of date….?

    3. A notifications page. A notifications page and system that also notifies you when someone replies to a comment you have made.

    4. Others may like the page layout/system for activity, but I think it could be much more simplified. A profile page with your profile information, your activity, your @mentions, and a form to post directly on their wall, basically just like Facebook but including the Twitter @. Then a logged in home page with all the activity of your friends.

    I know some of this is possible already, but like with the CSS problem, all of the activity files are slurred together and I haven’t successfully been able to sort out what is what.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

  • Boone Gorges
    Keymaster

    @boonebgorges

    13 years, 9 months ago

    1. If you don’t want the nav bar, you can suppress it with the following line in your wp-config.php file:
    `define( ‘BP_DISABLE_ADMIN_BAR’, true );`
    or you can manually unhook it with the following lines in your theme’s functions.php:
    `remove_action( ‘wp_footer’, ‘bp_core_admin_bar’, 8 );
    remove_action( ‘admin_footer’, ‘bp_core_admin_bar’ );`
    No need to hack anything.

    2. A vanilla installation of BP, using the default theme, loads one stylesheet: style.css. That stylesheet includes two others: _inc/css/default.css and _inc/css/adminbar.css. There is also a stylesheet for the Dashboard view. If you are using the template pack and are finding too many stylesheets, it’s possible that your WP theme is to blame. In this respect, BP is being fairly austere in the number of CSS files it’s loading. If you want to override things, there’s no reason to “hack” – just put your own overriding styles after the import commands in style.css.

    3. This is a great idea, I think. Perhaps you could file a formal enhancement request at trac.buddypress.org (same username/pw as this site)

    4. The way that the default theme handles profile, activity, friends etc separately, provides a large amount of straightforward customization in child themes. If bp-default had them consolidated, child theme authors would have to rebuild the pages to make them separate. We are erring on the side of enhanceability. You are welcome to build a child theme that incorporates these parts of the profile into a single page – I bet a fair number of people would be interested in such a thing.


    modemlooper
    Moderator

    @modemlooper

    13 years, 9 months ago

    Problem with these types of suggestions is someone else will want a completely different set of requirements. It’s better for BP to have many functions you can pick from and change it up. Also, why is everyone so fixated on Facebook. I’d prefer something new and I guarantee your site visitors will to otherwise what’s the point just create a facbook fanpage.


    Hugo Ashmore
    Participant

    @hnla

    13 years, 9 months ago

    Echoing Modems point, why is everyone so fixated on Facebook or Twitter for that matter, BP shouldn’t try and be a clone but something more or at least unique in it’s self.


    alanchrishughes
    Participant

    @alanchrishughes

    13 years, 9 months ago

    Would either of those methods result in faster loading times? Or both probably equal? To me, something like this should obviously be built and only exist if a theme includes it, not something built directly into Buddypress and requiring a hack (or whatever you would consider that) just to not have it.

    I also think it would be great to have a tutorial/codex on how to Buddypress’ify a theme or inividual pages without having to use the template pack. Being able to build pages from scratch would be a giant step forward for Buddypress I would think. There is just so much going on behind the programming scene it is spilling over into the front end scene.

    I’ve tried to follow this a bit https://codex.buddypress.org/developer-docs/custom-buddypress-loops/the-activity-stream-loop/ to produce something like I described in my previous post, but I don’t see the connection between bp_has_activities() and the “accepted arguments.”

    bp_has_activities(friends)

    …seemed like the only logical way it could work, but no luck. And like I already mentioned, all the files for each activity page are all slurred together and editing them individually, is that even possible? I can’t even find the file for the @mentions page.

    @modemlooper I’m not sure how you took what I said that way, I am suggesting for more options and forcing less built in stuff that not everybody wants, but still can be created, like the navigation bar.

    I don’t see why any one would not enjoy a notification page, but that is something you could simply not link to if you don’t want it and wouldn’t require any special programming knowledge.

    If more people than me have been suggesting a more Facebook like flow, I would guess it is because both do the same thing, but Facebook isn’t as confusing, Buddypress is too anal about things trying to divide everything up and categorize too much. Does anybody really need 5 tabs under the activity tab?


    Paul Wong-Gibbs
    Keymaster

    @djpaul

    13 years, 9 months ago

    I’m all for better notifications; it’s something I’m keen to look at either in core, or in a separate theme, in due course.


    alanchrishughes
    Participant

    @alanchrishughes

    13 years, 9 months ago

    I guess all I am saying is I would like to see things more customizable and easy to follow. I’m sure it makes sense to programmers like you guys, but to designers like me, I just spent all afternoon messing with all the members/single/ php files trying to figure out how each /activity, /activity/just-me/, /activity/friends/, etc page works and pulls in that particular feed and I just realized all five of these pages some how come from the /activity/activity-loop.php file, and that file doesn’t seem very clear cut either.


    Anonymous User 96400
    Inactive

    @anonymized-96400

    13 years, 9 months ago

    @alanchrishughes
    I guess I understand where you’re coming from, but from a programmers point of view, BP is a great programme to work with cause it’s so customizable (of course there’s always room for improvement). Maybe not so much from a designers point of view. Not so sure it should be either. Too many options tend to make programmes too clunky. Just means that maybe you should look into working together with someone who knows his way round php (WP) code well.

    And to be honest, it’s not that bad once you got your head round it. Just give it another go. Ask questions here and people will help you…


    modemlooper
    Moderator

    @modemlooper

    13 years, 9 months ago

    It’s less work for developing the default theme to call one file activity-loop.php from different pages. You can create your own activity loops and call them where ever you want. Maybe you only want to show activity updates that have comments. Create your own loop to just show that.


    alanchrishughes
    Participant

    @alanchrishughes

    13 years, 9 months ago

    I can’t even locate the file that tells each page what activity it is calling. Would it really make it more clunky? WordPress itself is really straight forward and doesn’t seem clunky.


    modemlooper
    Moderator

    @modemlooper

    13 years, 9 months ago

    Most of the code is in functions in the BP core. So in the activity loop.php it will call one function but in the function it will go through and filter content depending on the URL or what ever else the function states. That’s great for covering everything. Think of it like the WP the_content.


    alanchrishughes
    Participant

    @alanchrishughes

    13 years, 9 months ago

    Well with WordPress though you have one file, for one page, one the_content, one category or post type query. The way Buddypress works though, to me it is as if it is magically generating pages out of thin air haha.


    @mercime
    Participant

    @mercime

    13 years, 9 months ago

    Simply put, different loops and template tags for index, category, single pages etc. in WP. Then you have different loops and additional template tags for various components – activity, members, groups etc – in BP.
    https://codex.buddypress.org/developer-docs/custom-buddypress-loops/


    alanchrishughes
    Participant

    @alanchrishughes

    13 years, 9 months ago

    And all these loops are all written in the function file somewhere like modemlooper said? And they some how generate the different pages? Is it the functions.php file that is in the buddypress theme folder?

    I also just noticed another quark. If you reply to something you posted on your own wall/activity/whatever it will show up again on your wall just above it. It makes sense for your comments on other people’s stuff to show up on your wall, but when it is on your own stuff it seems redundant.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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