John James Jacoby
Andy P
Paul Gibbs
Boone B. Gorges
Andrew Nacin
Tammie Lister
Next dev chat is Wednesday 16 at 19:00 UTC.
Agenda:
- BP 1.7 beta review
- GSoC
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Paul Gibbs
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Paul Gibbs
Dev chat’s on Wednesday at 19:00 UTC on IRC — see the sidebar for time in your part of the world.
Agenda:
- BP 1.6.3
- BP 1.7
- GSoC
Notes:
- BP 1.6.3 this week
- BP 1.7 BETA this week
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John James Jacoby
- I’m going to package up 1.7 beta and post.
- Paul’s going to package up 1.6.3, and maybe teach r-a-y the ropes.
- I need to get on GSoC application.
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John James Jacoby
Spent some time today cleaning up the many international subdomains we have at BuddyPress.org. If you are an admin for one of these sites, take a look around and make sure things aren’t too broken. A few things:
- Cleaned up about 5k pending spam comments across all the sites. Yikes!
- It’s using some unified header magic right now. You don’t have control over the menus yet.
- If you want forums, just ask. I activated bbPress on a few of the recently active sites, though I didn’t make any forums for them.
- If you’re not an admin for any language, but want to be, post here and I’ll be in touch.
- If you’re an admin and don’t want to be anymore, speak up in case someone else wants to take it over.
- If you want to trick out your subdomain i18n site beyond what is immediately obvious, comment here so we can figure out how to make it happen.
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Diana
Hi there,
Don’t know what is supposed to see, but br.buddypres.org got messed
Thought menus would be great, I would like to keep some widgets areas by now so I can list links, rss from forum etc.
Also, there is no way to set a front page anymore?-
Remkus de Vries
I’m with Diana. Some control over the menu and frontpage would quite nice. And the option to turn off the bbPress installation on our Dutch site.
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John James Jacoby
If you don’t want forums, I can disable them. People ask for them, you’re the first to ask not to have them.
Regarding menus, it will happen soon. First step was getting off the old antiquated theme and making it match the new one. Next I’ll start building new functionality.
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Remkus de Vries
We’ve had people ask BuddyPress questions in our regular Dutch WordPress forum. Perhaps it’s time to revisit that decision, but for now let’s indeed turn it off. Thanks!
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Diana
ah I changed to another theme available and now I can’t change back to the one with red header?! Or the theme here is the general one? I’m quite confused now
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John James Jacoby
Fixed. I’ve disabled all themes so you can’t break that again.
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Diana
hah ok then
Also we don’t need forum, since we have few people supporting on regular foruns.
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chouf1
Hi John,
the french blog http://fr.buddypress.org/ is no more maintained by me or somebody else since over 2 years.
I’m daily on http://bp-fr.net providing help, tips and news to the french BP users, so i don’t want to do the same job twice.If no one want to take over this blog in the next days, it’s probably better to suspend it, considering that bp-fr.net after 4 years of daily service becames a reference for french users.
Thank you !
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Sergey
Hello John
I would like to have the link for a forum and to make comments here.
Thanks. Respectfully Sergey -
Levin
Hi jjj, I got some 404 on http://tw.buddypress.org/plugins/ , download, etc… I’ve no rights to manage the menu
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John James Jacoby
As mentioned a few times above, the menus aren’t working yet. Any place you get a 404 is because there’s no page there on your site. I’d recommend making one.
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Diana
Indeed! I would liketo keep our Codex in http://br.buddypress.org/codex/ (a page with suboages), that is enough for now.
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Diana
*Suggestion*
I think all pages in menu should be kept as pages within the site (as before), so e.g. in Plugins we can keep plugins translations, same with themes, this way we keep plugins and themes translations within the site. (Not sure how we can keep files there as we can’t upload things though)I would like to hear some of fellows abroad about this
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yasminshamsudin
Hi!
I’d love to help out, but I’m a bit unsure of what is required. If I want to work on a subdomain, is it just a matter of translating the english version of buddypress.com? Or is each subdomain supposed to be run individually displaying their own themes, plugins and so forth?
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Paul Gibbs
We’re postponing tomorrow’s dev chat (2nd January) due to holidays. Back as usual on 9th January.
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Timothy Carey
How do you get on the Dev chat
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Mercime
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Jane Wells
Hi BuddyPress team! Though it seems far away, GSoC is coming up sooner than you think! WordPress is going to put together a strong application as a mentoring organization this year, but you never know what will happen. In the past, we’ve lumped BuddyPress projects under WordPress’s GSoC acceptance, which we are more than happy to do again if you’d like. If so, time to start thinking about who you want to offer up as mentors, what student projects you want to suggest, etc.
That said, BuddyPress is big enough now that you could apply as a separate project, and be accepted or rejected as a mentoring organization on your own merits (meaning, if WordPress got rejected again, you wouldn’t automatically be rejected, too).
Talk amongst yourselves, and let me know what you’d like to do. Either way is fine, and I’m happy to help you get the application going.
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John James Jacoby
I like the idea of applying on our own, but I wonder if we’ll be overshadowed by larger orgs. I would love to mentor again, it’s a really fun experience! Or, I’m happy to be a backup if someone else wants to give it a try too.
With BuddyPress 1.7 on the cusp, and buddypress.org still needing some love, there’s no shortage of things to wrangle/do/test/build/design/etc…
Let’s talk about how to best proceed on the Skypes or IRC’s.
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Jane Wells
Being a smaller and new (to GSoC) project would work in your favor. One of the reasons WP got bumped last year was to make room for newer orgs.
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John James Jacoby
Updated BuddyPress.org to use the latest bbPress trunk, which enables forum wide search.
Finally.
We’ll keep iterating on the templates, sidebar, and layout. Right now it’s a little wonky.
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John James Jacoby
In BuddyPress 1.7, we’re concentrating on simplifying as much of the experience of using BuddyPress as we can. Part of this involves removing the update/installation wizard and replacing it with simple automation; because making out-of-context decisions immediately after activating BuddyPress didn’t really make anyone happy.
We’ll take care of the complexities and decision making, and redirect to a “What’s New” page similar to WordPress and bbPress.
Developers: if you somehow managed to write a plugin that used the old wizard (we purposefully did not make it very extensible) consider this your warning that it is already gone in BuddyPress trunk.
Those of you that really liked it, we think you’ll like the new experience even more. If not, be sure to let us know what you think and why when 1.7 is released.
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Derek Perkins
Is there an expected release date?
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John James Jacoby
Likely to beta before the end of the year or beginning of 2013 at our current pace.
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peterpragmatist
Should the simple install just start with Activities/Messages + Profiles?
I am just starting to look at social networking software and BuddyPress seems to be a long way ahead of the pack. There are obviously a lot of wonderful contributors.
From someone coming in with fresh eyes I would agree with ‘start small and add features as the community grows’. Starting with profiles and activity streams is a good idea. The other function that could be easily and usefully included with ‘activity streams’ is the ‘messages’. I would expect many people would love to see a screen where they can choose to write a short message and then just tick a box as to whether it goes as: (1) a status update (2) a group message; or (3) and individual message.
(Messaging is the core function of a social communication tool. If the user can easily choose to go either ‘to the world’, ‘to the group’, or to an individual then this gives the right level of control to the user under the ‘networked individualism’ concept of social communities -see http://placeofsocialmedia.com/blog/2005/05/20/networked-individualism/ )
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Saun Torby Kamagra
what about breaking the menu apart format he picture and putting them on opposite sides of the top box which is sorta empty on the right hand side as it is the end result would like what happens in a twitter profile.
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AXJ
Hello guys, love to be part of it!
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peterpragmatist
I’m thinking most of the future members of BuddyPress groups will typically be the person checking what the group is up to on the smartphone (and to a lesser extent a tablet).
The key thing they will want is to see a list of all messages and activity since they last opened up the site. If the basic setup for BP 1.7 provides a good experience for this smartphone user then that would be such a strong foundation to start off with.
I have just checked the smartphone app’s for twitter and facebook – very simple and straightfoward. Twitter has everything right there. Facebook has its news feed and messages on separate screens but would probably benefit from having both of these on the first screen you open (ideally with everything listed in time order + an icon to show if it is a Message v’s a Status Update).
So my suggestion for a simple install suitable for the average buddypress user who checks on the group every day or two is:
1. functions of Profile, Activity, Messaging;
2. First screen listing all Activity + Messaging (with box for short text message to be either (a) posted as Activity, sent as group message, or sent as individual message);
3. Second screen having a list of Profiles (with options to (a) make friends or (b) update your own profile.
4. Third screen just listing some ideas of what you could add as the third screen (perhaps pictures of what a groups screen would look like, or a forum, or an events plugin etc).You guys know a lot more about this than me but I really believe the smartphone is where the more personalised online community is going to take off. The average user will use a desktop or laptop to initially set up their profile, list the initial contacts etc. But if you want people to come back and back to use one of these community sites every day or two then you need to make it easy for them to participate by smartphone.
I can see how BuddyPress will allow me to do this for people with a bit of customization. But if you are doing the setup differently for BuddyPress 1.7 then I think the basic install setup should be targeted to get you a site that is immediately functional and attractive for the average smartphone user.
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John James Jacoby
An agenda item for this coming weeks BuddyPress core dev chat, is determining what components we’d like to have on by default. From #4671:
In Vancouver, the core team (minus Paul) discussed the idea of switching up the default components that BuddyPress comes activated with. I think the “all-on” approach is overwhelming for new users, can be confusing, and isn’t a very rewarding experience.
Since every component is pretty awesome, and they all rely on each other in some way, the idea of turning components off at all is a little weird at first. Each component has strengths, weaknesses, and potential to be extended into something more than it starts as.
I’m mostly agnostic about which components make the most sense as the default ones, but if I had to pick a favorite, I think having activity streams and profiles turned on, with everything else turned off, would make the best starter experience, and here’s why:
- Profiles are completely missing from WordPress.
- Friends don’t make sense without profiles.
- Groups don’t make sense without users and profiles.
- Settings doesn’t make sense without profiles.
- Private messaging is useless without a profile to connect it to.
- Forums come with bbPress now, and don’t need profiles to function at all.
- Activity streams don’t make sense without profiles, but they can run pretty silently in the background and aggregate activity.
It’s true that even with the XProfile component off, BuddyPress still fakes the profile experience pretty well. I’m imagining an activation experience without a setup wizard. One where when BuddyPress is activated on a new installation, the admin is greeted with a message like:
Welcome to your new community! Check out your new profile to get started
With a tabbed What’s New/Credits page like WordPress core has, we could easily explain what the components are, and why they might want to roll them out over time. Opening this up for discussion here, with the intention of getting this decided shortly after this weeks dev chat, and into trunk soon after.
Join in on Wednesday (time/location in the sidebar) and help us shape the new user experience in BuddyPress 1.7.
Like this:
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ubernaut
that all sounds pretty logical i just wonder if we bury the features how many people would discover them on their own.
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John James Jacoby
We wouldn’t be burying them any more than they already are. The goal is to be less intrusive about the way we interact with existing and established sites.
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Tammie Lister
I really like this idea. I think just activity and profiles is a good starting point. I don’t see this at all as burying more focusing the noise.
I also love the idea of a new / credits screen. I love the one for BBPress and WordPress.
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Guest
Very awesome work everyone. I see some common solutions, and some unique approaches. The left-column navigation is something it looks like we all agree on so far.
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raminjan
but tammie don’t you think a lots of sites today using buddypress plugin are already have forums and using all of the features that is available in previous release and the update on buddypress would really make users and their clients very un-happy?
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ubernaut
i don’t think anyone is suggesting this would deactivate any active features on existing BP installs. This is for new installs, which is in fact the primary goal with this release. The hope is to lower the bar of entry both in terms of theme restriction but also in terms of learning.
It is always better to add more services/features to you user base then to turn them off both in terms of UX and customer/user service.
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Stefan Sander
other topic:
Is there any hope for an useful wiki for groups?-
Anton
BuddyPress Docs just got a nice update, checked that out?
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Stefan Sander
haven’t noticed it yet, thanks a lot =)
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James Disesso
I think we should stop classifying forums as a component, it should be a plugin with built in support. Just like that plugin that just got added to the Wp repo is a plugin without built in support.
Other than that, I love this idea. But I’d go as far as suggesting we only have basic profiles (without xprofile support). What if a site doesn’t need activity? Profiles make a community, well a community, activity streams don’t. I can provide numerous examples of sites that don’t need activity streams if nessesary?
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John James Jacoby
There’s no shortage of examples for or against any of the components, and we can change the defaults, but user profiles is one of the main things WordPress totally lacks, and I have a hunch it’s a good idea to emphasize profiles over anything else.
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James Disesso
John, I think profiles on by default is a good idea – WordPress doesn’t have them because its not (as Matt would say a) ‘social layer’. There’s No examples I can think of, of a social site without profiles. But activity streams are more of a case by case example. (Thus, proburbly shouldnt be on by default)
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John James Jacoby
Just converted our BuddyPress test site (testbp.org) over to using bbPress 2.x for group forums.
- 328 group forums
- 848 topics
- 1204 replies
Because of the way we configured that site originally, it’s an odd setup. Suffice it to say, it works pretty well, but having hierarchically nested forums several layers deep tends to be a performance burden. This is something that the old forums suffered from too, and will be addressed in future versions of bbPress.
That said, what’s in bbPress now should be considered final for a 2.2 release, barring any obvious bugs uncovered in the next few days.
Once bbPress 2.2 is out, I’ll be converting the support forums at BuddyPress.org over. This will come with some significant updates to the site as a whole, as we work towards unifying some of the BuddyPress/bbPress/WordPress .org experience.
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ubernaut
That sounds awesome thanks for all your hard work!
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Paul Gibbs
We’ve been working hard on building template parts from the wireframes. It’s still very early, and the templates that might be distributed with BuddyPress might end up very different, but with that disclaimer here’s some screenshots.
The screenshots were taken from a site running the twentytwelve theme. The templates are not complete and continue to change daily.
For those who want to get involved with building or testing the templates, you can find the project on Github; please try to make it to a BuddyPress dev meeting on a Wednesday and introduce yourself. If you’re keen to contribute further wireframe designs or give feedback, keep coming back to this site, and we’ll link out to relevant discussions on the forum.
We currently need wireframe ideas and suggestions for the following screens:
- Activity comments (current wireframe, discussion)
- Member > Settings (discussion)
- Member > Profile (discussion)
- Group > Admin screens (discussion)
- Private messages (current wireframe, discussion)
Discussion for other existing templates/wireframes:
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Paul Gibbs
Please excuse the lack of gravatars (these were taken from a private dev environment), and the placeholder “profile.php” text.
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Mercime
Test these all against WP 3.5 beta 2 or 3.5 trunk?
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Paul Gibbs
I always use both projects’ trunks, especially at this stage of the dev cycle.
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Paul Hockley
Hello there! Thanks for your amazing work. I have tested the latest version of the template from github, and am just wondering: Will the final version be responsive? If not it seems a bit like a waste of time, since the whole web is going in that direction?
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Paul Gibbs
So, these templates have to live inside a theme. Literally nested inside the theme template’s HTML. Last time @karmatosed and I spoke about this, we weren’t sure whether having responsive templates inside a potentially un-responsive theme would be a good idea; would it even work reliably? Would it bloat the amount of CSS? Shouldn’t we let themes decide about responsiveness?
This also assumes that the individual template parts have enough content to make them usefully responsive.
The BuddyPress team recently decided that these templates (or something like it) will go into BuddyPress 1.8. This gives us a few more months to finish and iterate on these templates, and I’m sure we’ll revisit the responsiveness question.
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Revonorway
Thanks for the answer
I tested it within a responsive theme, but it’s not adapting to the screen size right now. IMHO this would be a future proof feature, so I hope you will consider it in your decision Thanks again for everything! -
Paul Gibbs
We’re releasing BP 1.7 Beta 1 soon, and if you could try that once it’s out and feedback and suggestions what we can do to increase compatibility with responsive themes, that’d be awesome.
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yasminshamsudin, 
Diana, 
Mercime and 
Timothy Carey are discussing. 
James Disesso, 
Stefan Sander, and 5 others are discussing. 
Paul Hockley, 
