Hey, anyone else out there using this setup on a site? BuddyPress themes are a bit of a pain to figure out... None of the ones I download can install easily or by following their instructions without other issues. Then with my server admin's help we figured out FrontPage extensions weren't installed and we need them. hah. So after you install BuddyPress, it needs bbPress... and it has a link to click to automatically set it up it says... but it seems like it hasn't setup a forum system at all... I mean I've been to bbpress.org and checked out how great their forum system is... But on my buddypress site all I have is groups which have like a facebook groups wall and nothing else. No forum categories, no rating system etc... So do I need to manually setup bbpress, and then what about integrating it now that everything else is already installed and going? Has anyone out there figured out how to integrate MU into WHM/WHMCS to make it possible to setup blogs across multiple TLD's under the same databases and network/system? Anyone doing anything else new and exciting? Integrating vbulletin would be wicked....
I have never integrated bbpress into buddypress and there is no such forced thing to enforce bbpress. If you want a forum, then you might be able to integrate one I suppose but I dont have time to research or guide you in that right now. Personally speaking I hardly see many people here having a great deal of knowledge about these things as very few people here would have a community site like WPMU/Buddypress. I would advise you to go to wpmudev.org forum as that is a dedicated wpmu forum and you might be able to find a lot of wpmu experts there. I also remember having a pain creating/customizing my first WPMU site. It took several days to understand everything regarding WPMU properly. I had been using Wordpress and knew most things and so it helped a bit. But soon I realized the drawback of a WPMU site which is that you get a lot of splogs (spam blogs). That was becoming a big headache and so I also ended new registration in a few of my WPMU sites soon. So, plan properly before launching a WPMU site because spam blogs will be a big problem you will face later. Anyways, regarding customizing buddypress/WPMU you can find a lot of plugins etc. in the wpmudev.org website both free and paid and you can check those out.
Thanks for the good intentions. There are a handful of plugins that weed out all of this spam. I have been browsing wpmudev.org, but they are not a free site. They are a premium membership site and I'm trying to go the opensource route, and rather put the money into the pockets of the people doing the work on my site... But I will continue to hmmm and haww about it and eventually buy a membership there like I do with everything else you have to pay for. Never jump to pay for something that can be found for free, and make sure if you're sending your money somewhere, it's going to a good cause etc... Looks like so far, wpmudev.org will be worth it, but at the same time I've seen what they have, and if I spent a few thousand paying a good php developer I'd have just as much or more, and full rights to it. Buddypress requires bbPress to work, it says that in the install instructions. There is a page on the buddypress admin tab that has a link to 'automatically install bbpress' which I have clicked and it allows the group discussion to work. I'm simply trying to figure out how you get to use bbpress in it's entirety and setup a proper nested forum system and be able to install bbpress plugins.
I have personally NEVER had any luck with bbpress. It is a serious pain to get going properly, and even if you do get it going, it is full of bugs. I have been a big fan of simpleress myself. It integrates much better than bbpress, and its support forum is more than excellent.
Problem is, BuddyPress is built to use bbPress... I'll have to write a custom setup/API integration to use something else... so if I'm going to do that it's probably going to be vbulletin, which I know is a feat and a half to do.
I almost never advocate paying for something when you can simply code it yourself, but I 100% am happy that I subscribed to WPMUdev Premium. The forums alone make it worth it. As far as installation, here's the order that I put everything together: 1st WPMU, 2nd BBPress, 3rd Buddy Press. When you install BBPress make sure you're using the same database as your WPMU installation. The thing with the Buddy Press themes is that BP 1.2 just came out, and there were SO many changes from 1.1, so a good deal of the themes developed under 1.1 don't work. *Cry*! Make sure you theme is 1.2 compatible, or simply develop your own theme on the buddypress platform; in essence, there are only a few more files that have to be created if you were to take an existing wordpress theme and turn it into a buddy press theme. There are tons of plugins available on premium but also probably for free elsewhere on the net that will allow you to post sitewide activity, stats, combat spam bloggers, etc. I hope this helps!
Yeah it does, I've been thinking more and more about getting the premium membership, but I have the same thoughts about it as you, and if I wanted to pay for something why wouldn't I just enlist more help and have it custom coded belonging to me myself and I. Unique and customized has it's advantages, clearly as the opensource community figured out way back when they started building platforms based around plugins like wordpress. I'll still keep my eye out for somebody that wants to join our team and reap the benefits it will entail, that has already mastered buddypress, themes, etc, and can provide the fixes and themes we need... *edit* hmm.... makes me think.... should find somebody with a membership to join our team.... hmmm...
Still trying to fix these problems, and get this awesome community going, while looking for more people that want to get involved and help at the groundbreaking. We will be including premium services, such as all of the things all us members here go around spending money on, for our premium members. Anyone who gets involved now and helps make this really work, will be granted free premium memberships. Hoping to find some more help on this, so if you have experience with buddypress and are keeping on top of it, please contact me right away!