BuddyPress.org

I’ve been posting some of the picts as I go along here… currently using Faststone capture… jing is very cool though…

Another very good SC plugin(free) is Fireshot for Firefox.

@erich73

The intelligent coders are all here, waiting and willing, posts such as this are the clarion calls to stir everyone to action, and after the recent posts discussing the state of play the core dev team and mods are attempting to ensure the project is put on an even firmer footing.

In terms of BP as a project and production application I think it’s worth remembering ( I certainly have to remind myself ) that BP is a relatively young project – WP took quite a few years before it settled into a mature app – As for looking to the long term I think that this is addressed in the NextGenAPI which is a necessary next step and one that looks to take BP forward.

@erich73 very true, it’s been requested before and again now for all and any willing and capable members to start to run through that body of Trac tickets for 1.3, the more experienced might be able to provide fixes or even just set things off on the right track anything like that helps the core team, after that testing is one of the huge burdens that falls on any developer, the more we help in testing fixes the more time the core devs will have. I think that time is the biggest enemy for many of us which is why the more that can muck in the better. Ultimately the speed at which versions are released and the quality of those releases will be down to the wider community, if no one helps out then things will come together but a heck of a lot slower.

This next point is purely a personal feeling but I think it wouldn’t hurt to see a general slow down on plugin writing or feature extending in favour of a little more focus on the core app, but I realise it’s not really practical to expect plugin development to take a back seat and that there are plugins in development that people are crying out for

@boonebgorges Your point about plugin development is exactly why I felt a little reticent in expressing my feelings. Plugin development is part of the intrinsic nature of WP and it’s sibling/child modules (I still have a problem refering to BP as a plugin , it’s nearly a standalone app?) and to ask any developers to shift focus from that to the core app is a difficult one. Obviously billing for core development is next to impossible and we all know that – if we’re honest developers – we don’t bill clients for the testing of work or for cross browser conformance or for implementing 17 different image galleries because we want to find a new cool one for clients site etc.

All that none withstanding I do have this impression that there is a lot of plugin development and that this development slightly fractures the strong focus that BP might need?

I also still feel that many plugins – your ‘Invite Anyone’ is a prime example – should really be core modules or extensions much as we have BP ‘Components Setup’ as these plugins enhance and improve part of the core that already exists or add components that one might expect to be core in a social network app.

I would like to see, perhaps?, something along the lines of a Trac milestone when a pretty stable BP is reached (1.4?) that sets out a process for identifying and bringing in certain plugins to the core , but this is probably something better discussed in a dev chat and is looking quite far forward; I also see an issue where the author has put substantial time and effort into development of the plugin and would hope there was some means of recompense given that the plugin would effectively cease to exist as downloadable and donateable

@nuprn1 @boonebgorges Btw, thanks for releasing your client plugins back to the community. The 2 of you combined probably account for 30% of the most recently updated plugins. Thanks.

Trunk not being merged with 1.2 branch is holding back a few patches from me