Buddypress 1.2 was recently released this winter (2010), and I've spent the last couple weeks trying to use it. This post isn't a review or a list of features, but instead my thoughts about this update. I have been running buddypress on my main visual art website, http://visualartgifts.com. It is a small community and marketing site for visual artists of all kinds and people who love art are also welcome to join for commenting and feedback.
I was pretty happy with the progress in 1.1, but there are still quite a few issues for BuddyPress to fix before I want to run it on other sites.
Upgrading to BuddyPress 1.2.x
I followed the instructions on the BuddyPress website for upgrading from 1.1.
Essentially you have to:
- Deactivate BuddyPress and plugins that work with BuddyPress.
- Update BuddyPress in the plugins page using the upgrade link by the plugin list. (or manually do it by FTP)
- Delete old BuddyPress theme files from the server. (Previous themes don't work ) OR install a compatibility plugin.
- Activate the default theme or make a child theme of it and activate it instead (first in the site options then in appearance-themes)
I admit that having to yet again change themes bothered me since I use my own customized theme for Wordpress and for external pages and scripts linked to Wordpress. I live having my different website components blend as much as possible.
Site Wide Recent Posts broke
The sitewide recent posts widget was broken completely in this version and I did let them know in a trouble ticket. I don't use the "activity streams" component since I don't want my site to be like Facebook or Twitter. I want it for blogging, forums, and messaging. With activity streams off, the Sitewide Recent Posts widget disappears COMPLETELY.
When I turned that feature set back on, the Sitewide Recent Posts widget reappears, yet there are no recent posts displayed on site.
This really bothered me since that widget worked perfectly with BuddyPress 1.1 with Activity Streams off. I understand that sometimes things break while improving other areas, but I always considered Site wide Recent Posts to be essential to a multi-blog community site.
I'm hoping that this feature will be fixed and working properly with version 1.3 when it comes out.
BuddyPress Profile Syncing
I really don't remember if the BuddyPress profile and the Blog ID #1 profile data synced in earlier versions, but it doesn't seem to be working right now. It became important to be when I added extra fields to my profile info using the new feature in Wordpress 2.9.2.
Those fields don't appear in Buddypress's profile list nor profile page. I'm sure that this is complicated, but it is a sticking point for me. If a user is a guest author/blogger, they have to be told to edit their "other profile" in the main blog. There really should be a way to truly merge them or at least add the variables to the Buddypress profile and have them saved twice.
New Default Theme for BuddyPress
The new default theme for BuddyPress is another case of one step forward and two steps back. The default buddypress theme for 1.1 was quite attractive with separate widgets for the homepage and other main blog post sidebars. It was easy to get those sitewide posts in the main widget and everything just worked.
The new default theme for 1.2 really seems to be dumbed down. You have just one widgetized sidebar to work with so you can't say what should go there for the homepage vs. blog pages. There just isn't room there for multiple BuddyPress widgets and those look really strange on post pages!
What I did about the theme...
I knew that I had to "yet again" make another child theme of the default theme. I just don't believe in running plugins for compatibily. I figure that perhaps in version 1.5 there will be yet another make over and the compatibility plugin would just bloat more.
What I had to do was edit the functions.php and add new widgets and then edit the theme files to point to those widgets. I did that in a "child theme" basically you create another css file and save it in another directory in your theme folder while pointing to the theme it is based on. Next you just have to go in and edit each file in the default theme you want to modify and save each in the new folder. To use the child theme you have to activate it in Site Admin -- Themes then activate it in Appearance - Themes.
You need something like the following at the beginning of your child theme's style.css:
/*
Theme Name: BuddyPress Your Theme Name
Theme URI: http://yourwebsite.com/themes/yourtheme/Description: Your Theme Name theme for BuddyPress.Version: 1.0Author: Your Name
Author URI: http://yourwebsite.com/Template: bp-defaultTags: buddypress, number of columns, keyword, blah*/
If you want to use the CSS (style/layout settings) from the default theme, also add the following to the style.css file:/* Inherit the default theme styles */@import url( ../../plugins/buddypress/bp-themes/bp-default/_inc/css/default.css );/* Inherit the default theme adminbar styles */@import url( ../../plugins/buddypress/bp-themes/bp-default/_inc/css/adminbar.css );Adding my own special widget sidebars and widget areas to the sidebar was a little more complicated, but if anyone comments about it, I'll write a post with more information. It isn't any different from adding widgetized areas to any other Wordpress theme.
Final thoughts about BuddyPress 1.2.x
I see great promise in BuddyPress and it is still the best way to add social features to a Wordpress install. It is also free which is amazing. If you are thinking of going beyond comments on your Wordpress site, I'd suggest waiting a few more updates before giving it a try. The code base is still going through radical changes even though it is beyond 1.0. Any customizations you make to BuddyPress now will most likely need to be redesigned or fixed in later 1.x versions.
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