{"id":117,"date":"2012-07-04T18:01:36","date_gmt":"2012-07-04T16:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wprealm.com\/?p=117"},"modified":"2012-07-04T18:01:36","modified_gmt":"2012-07-04T16:01:36","slug":"my-take-on-buddypress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wprealm.local\/my-take-on-buddypress\/","title":{"rendered":"My Take on BuddyPress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the last few years I have had the chance to work on a many <a title=\"What is BuddyPress\" href=\"http:\/\/buddypress.org\/about\/story\/\" target=\"_blank\">BuddyPress<\/a>\u00a0projects. This fantastic tool has an incredible potential, which is often only limited by your imagination. Even if you often meet clients who believe that the only way to create a\u00a0successful social network is to make a <a title=\"Facebook\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> clone, other times you are challenged by more original clients, who are open to \u00a0finding great and innovative ways of creating a strong community around their website.<\/p>\n<p>I have seen how BuddyPress has made huge advances to become what it is now: <strong>the best open source tool for creating a social network<\/strong>. Of course, there is still has a lot of work to be done, and I have my personal opinions about BuddyPress&#8217;s weak and strong points. This is my first post for WP Realm and, because I love to work with BuddyPress, I am eager to talk about its strengths and potential. But I also want to see it getting better and evolve, and so I will begin by presenting some weaker areas that I&#8217;ve encountered and areas to be improved.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>Weak points<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Privacy<\/strong> \u2014 It should be possible to <strong>easily manage privacy for different pages<\/strong>, such has Activity, Members, Groups and so on, without a plugin. In the context of a complex social network, I think it is essential for a BuddyPress administrator to decide who can see what, to the lowest possible level.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Users&#8217; profile fields and group management<\/strong> \u2014 It would be great to be able to manage the users&#8217; profile fields and groups from the dashboard with <strong>bulk actions<\/strong>, much in the same way you can manage the activity stream since version 1.6. With this functionality it would be easier for administrators to manage the network and without it the process seems less efficient and streamlined than it could be.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Roles<\/strong> \u2014 <strong>There are problems with capabilities<\/strong>, even though some of them have been fixed in version 1.6 with the <code>bp-moderator<\/code> capability. I understand that you have to have a super-admin profile to configure the BuddyPress&#8217;s options, but it would be very useful to have the option of selecting some users as moderators (or similar) who could be allowed to manage things like \u00a0users and activity in the main site. As example, right now you have to be super-admin to be able manage the Activity in the network dashboard! :S<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I know what you are going to say: &#8220;All of that is plugin territory&#8221;. And yet, I still think that areas such as Privacy are basic when you are developing a social network, despite the fact that version 1.6 is doing a very good job there. I&#8217;m looking forward to see more features in this area \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<h3>Strong points<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Components<\/strong> \u2014 Each\u00a0community is different and may not need everything; <strong>you can easily select only the components that you will need<\/strong>, from Extended Profiles, Account Settings, Friend Connections, Private Messaging, Activity Streams, User Groups, Discussion Forums and Site Tracking (and no, you cannot unselect what makes <del><span style=\"color: #000000;\">time travel<\/span><\/del> BuddyPress possible, i.e the core of BuddyPress! :P)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Specific plugins<\/strong> \u2014 BuddyPress has more than <strong><a title=\"BuddyPress plugins\" href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\/extend\/plugins\/search.php?q=buddypress\" target=\"_blank\">500 plugins<\/a> specifically developed for it<\/strong>, not to mention the fact that there are over <a title=\"WordPress plugins\" href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\/extend\/plugins\/\" target=\"_blank\">20.000 WordPress plugins<\/a> that can be used in conjunction with it, and so, you can imagine the possibilities at your disposal, when you are developing a new community&#8217;s website.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>BuddyPress Template Pack<\/strong> \u2014 <a title=\"BuddyPress Template Pack Plugin\" href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\/extend\/plugins\/bp-template-pack\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Template Pack plugin<\/a> deserves special attention. Before this plugin, many people were afraid to take the leap from moving a standard WordPress site to a BuddyPress one, mostly because they didn&#8217;t want to change the theme and didn&#8217;t know enough to transform their current theme to a BuddyPress-compatible theme. This great plugin <em>&#8220;will guide you through the process step by step. Once you are finished, <strong>your existing WordPress theme will be able to manage and display all BuddyPress pages and content<\/strong>&#8220;.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Community\u00a0\u2014 Over 4 million users<\/strong> are currently active in <a title=\"buddypress.org Social networking, in a box\" href=\"http:\/\/buddypress.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">buddypress.org<\/a>. This is the meeting place where developers, designers and users collaborate with each other and use BuddyPress to improve BuddyPress. Yes, you read that right, <a title=\"buddypress.org Social networking, in a box\" href=\"http:\/\/buddypress.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">buddypress.org<\/a>\u00a0is a BuddyPress-powered community dedicated to helping others support their own communities.\u00a0It is also one of the more active ones in the WordPress and open source ecosystem. If you have a problem about anything BuddyPress-related, you can bet that somebody else has had the same question before and that the community has answered it already. If not, the fantastic core team (<a title=\"John James Jacoby\" href=\"http:\/\/buddypress.org\/community\/members\/johnjamesjacoby\/\" target=\"_blank\">John James Jacoby<\/a>, <a title=\"Boone Gorges\" href=\"http:\/\/buddypress.org\/community\/members\/boonebgorges\/\" target=\"_blank\">Boone Gorges<\/a> and <a title=\"Paul Gibbs\" href=\"http:\/\/buddypress.org\/community\/members\/djpaul\/\" target=\"_blank\">Paul Gibbs<\/a>) and other great developers, will help you find a solution.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And this is what I love about Open Source: you&#8217;re never alone. Here, you are always working with the immense and supportive family behind WordPress and BuddyPress \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the last few years I have had the chance to work on a many BuddyPress\u00a0projects. This fantastic tool has an incredible potential, which is often only limited by your imagination. Even if you often meet clients who believe that the only way to create a\u00a0successful social network is to make a Facebook clone, other [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30,38,100],"people":[],"company":[],"events":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.4 (Yoast SEO v21.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>My Take on BuddyPress - WP Realm<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is my first post for WP Realm and, because I love to work with BuddyPress, I am eager to talk about its strengths and potential.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wprealm.com\/my-take-on-buddypress\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Take on BuddyPress\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is my first post for WP Realm and, because I love to work with BuddyPress, I am eager to talk about its strengths and potential.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/wprealm.com\/my-take-on-buddypress\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"WP Realm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wprealm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-07-04T16:01:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Roc\u00edo Valdivia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@wprealm\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@wprealm\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Roc\u00edo Valdivia\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wprealm.com\/my-take-on-buddypress\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wprealm.com\/my-take-on-buddypress\/\",\"name\":\"My Take on BuddyPress - 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