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Harold Mansfield
06-02-2010, 12:37 PM
Just a few cool examples of what you can do with Buddypress/Wordpress MU

Notice the first one (ahem :))
BuddyPress Showcase: 12 New Stellar Customizations - WordPress MU and BuddyPress plugins, themes, support, tips and how to's (http://wpmu.org/buddypress-showcase-12-new-stellar-customizations/)

vangogh
06-02-2010, 01:31 PM
You know that first site looks familiar. Now where have I seen it before? :) Nice job.

A few days ago I bookmarked a thread with different BuddyPress themes (http://www.wpin.me/59-excellent-buddypress-powered-websites/). Sorry, you're not on this list, but there are still a wide variety of themes showing off what you can do with BuddyPress.

Harold Mansfield
06-02-2010, 01:49 PM
You know that first site looks familiar. Now where have I seen it before? :) Nice job.

A few days ago I bookmarked a thread with different BuddyPress themes (http://www.wpin.me/59-excellent-buddypress-powered-websites/). Sorry, you're not on this list, but there are still a wide variety of themes showing off what you can do with BuddyPress.

The age old question is still, where are people getting themes? As far as I can see, the only place to get Buddypress themes is to join a membership site ( and there is only really one), or have them custom designed.

The amount of free themes ( stable and coded well) still only amount to a handful. And there really aren't many premium themes on the market...actually most that I see are from WPMUDEV affiliates.

vangogh
06-02-2010, 02:27 PM
You can always develop them yourself too. I think that's where most BuddyPress themes are coming from at the moment, but it won't be long before you see similar things with BuddyPress themes as you currently see with WordPress themes.

After all they aren't all that different. BuddyPress basically adds a few extra files to the standard WordPress theme files. it won't take WP theme developers long to make their themes work for BuddyPress too. Right not it's likely more about waiting for more people to being using BuddyPress than anything else. Once more BuddyPress sites are out there themes and plugins will follow. A commercial market for both will be created so designers and developers can focus on making both better.

Assuming, of course, that adoption of BuddyPress reaches some critical mass point, which I think it will.

Spider
06-02-2010, 02:49 PM
Good job, Harold!

KristineS
06-02-2010, 04:20 PM
Very cool Harold. It's always nice to be spotlighted.

I know absolutely nothing about BuddyPress yet. I'm assuming if it is something I need to know about, Vangogh will tell me. He my blog and techie guru. :D

vangogh
06-02-2010, 05:59 PM
Kristine think of BuddyPress as a way to add more social networking features to WordPress. People who register get profiles, they can form groups, send messages to each other, etc.

jamestl2
06-02-2010, 06:11 PM
Wordpress MU that is.

Buddypress basically does what Steve said. It allows your WPMU installation to have social networking features like a forum, members pages, etc.

vangogh
06-02-2010, 07:22 PM
BuddyPress now works with regular old WordPress too. And in a few weeks it won't make a difference anyway since WordPress and WordPressMu are becoming the same thing.

jamestl2
06-02-2010, 07:33 PM
It does? That must be fairly recent. I assumed it would start being compatible once WP 3.0 is released, didn't know it already works with WP currently. Just late last year I had tried testing out BP with regular WP and it was a no go.

But yeah, once 3.0 is released, the differences will blur.

Harold Mansfield
06-02-2010, 07:44 PM
Yeah, you can use Buddypress with Single user WP, minus the muliti blog function of course.

vangogh
06-02-2010, 08:24 PM
James, BuddyPress updated a month or two ago so it could work on WordPress. I've been running it locally since.

Also WP 3.0 beta is now out. I have that installed locally too and it seems to be working fine. The official version of 3.0 should hopefully be out sometime this month.

Business Attorney
06-03-2010, 12:10 AM
Also WP 3.0 beta is now out. I have that installed locally too and it seems to be working fine. The official version of 3.0 should hopefully be out sometime this month.

I installed a few days ago a new WordPress site using SimpleScripts (which replaced Fantasico in Hostmonster's cPanel) and it installed WordPress 3.0 RC 1.

vangogh
06-03-2010, 12:36 AM
David that's kind of surprising. Nothing wrong with it, but I would think auto installers would wait for the official release instead of the release candidate. I forgot that it was RC1 and not beta that was out. RC1 is what I have installed here and it seems to be working fine.

I'm sure it's ready, just a little surprising that it's already included in something like SimpleScripts.

Business Attorney
06-03-2010, 11:20 AM
I was surprised, too, but when I get a chance I'll play around with it.

I actually installed it on three separate urls all hosted in the same account, which I assume is unnecessary since it is a multiuser version. I was not expecting 3.0 and didn't feel like taking time to figure it out right then. That meant I installed the plugins like Askimet and All-in-One SEO on all three sites, which I take it I would not have needed to do if I really understood the multiuser aspect.

Harold Mansfield
06-03-2010, 12:09 PM
I was surprised, too, but when I get a chance I'll play around with it.

I actually installed it on three separate urls all hosted in the same account, which I assume is unnecessary since it is a multiuser version. I was not expecting 3.0 and didn't feel like taking time to figure it out right then. That meant I installed the plugins like Askimet and All-in-One SEO on all three sites, which I take it I would not have needed to do if I really understood the multiuser aspect.

Just because it's capable (of multi user), doesn't mean it's necessary or practical.

If you aren't running blog hosting or a large network, but just a few individual sites...you don't have to use it. I'm sure it functions just fine as regular old Wordpress.

vangogh
06-03-2010, 08:05 PM
David a few sites probably isn't a big deal. It's not that much harder to update three blogs than one. However even three blogs would be easier to run from the one multi-user install.

WordPress 3.0 will function perfectly fine as a single user install. In fact if you currently have WP installed and upgrade to 3.0 you won't even notice the multi-user stuff since it won't be there. It's not too hard to turn on, but by default WP will honor your previous set up. New installs will have the multi-user capability by default.

So far I'm only using it locally. It makes for a nice development platform for me since I can create a new blog for every client. Previously I would have to change themes and turn specific posts on and off. Now I ca leave them all running at the same time.

If you do decide to move all the blogs to one multi-user install let me know. It's not too hard to set up. You end up with the option of installing plugins network-wide or per site I think. It will make things easier for you to manage, though if you're already set up it's not something you need to do.

Business Attorney
06-03-2010, 09:44 PM
Vangogh, at some point I'll want to switch. I have more than three blogs already. Every time I add a new one I have to add all the plug-ins, themes, etc... Plus, when there is an update to a plug-in or to WP, I need to update each site individually. It's all pretty automated by WP so it's not that bad but if I could do it once for all of the sites, it would certainly be easier.

vangogh
06-03-2010, 10:58 PM
If you have more than 3 blogs then you probably are past the point where moving to multi-user makes sense. Think about which blog you want to be the main one. Not that it really matters, but it will be hardest to remove that blog at a future point. It will be easier to only have one install to update and manage. I also like how I can login to one place an quickly jump back and forth between the admin areas of all the blogs.

Also consider that you would be hosting everything under one account. You might do that now anyway, but it's something to consider. You'd probably want more than shared hosting as the number of blogs grow.

Moving the sites shouldn't be too hard. It's a couple of clicks from the main admin interface to set up the new blog and then it's a matter of exporting/importing the database and moving theme and plugin files.

Harold Mansfield
06-04-2010, 12:04 AM
You would need Domain Mapping as well, so that you can run each blog on it's own domain, instead of the default sub domain that MU creates.

I definitely recommend upgrading from shared hosting to at least VPS.

vangogh
06-04-2010, 01:59 AM
I'd recommend VPS too, but even with shared hosting you should be able to set up the domains. Many hosts offer add on domains that can be pointed to any folder under the main account. I have quite a few clients set up that way on a shared hosting account. They have multiple sites, each within a folder of the main site and by setting up the add on domains you can navigate to any of the sites without knowing what the directory structure is behind the scenes.

Business Attorney
06-04-2010, 10:07 AM
Many hosts offer add on domains that can be pointed to any folder under the main account. I have quite a few clients set up that way on a shared hosting account. They have multiple sites, each within a folder of the main site and by setting up the add on domains you can navigate to any of the sites without knowing what the directory structure is behind the scenes.

That's what I have now. Actually, I have two shared accounts, one for the two sites in my signature, and another with a different hosting company for a bunch of little sites that I play around with, some of which are WP blogs and some of which are html/php sites.

Because of the hassle of adding a new page to the html/php sites, I am thinking about changing some of those sites to WP to more easily manage the content. One of the reasons I have the sites is because I like to write, and when adding a new page to the site is so tedious, it takes a lot of the fun out of writing.

vangogh
06-04-2010, 10:38 AM
I hear you about the static sites. I haven't built a new site as static html pages in a long long time. The only ones I work on are existing sites.

It might make a good test to take one of those static sits and move it under a WP site, which uses multi-user. It would give you a good idea of whether or not you like it. The hard part would be coding a theme if you want to keep the same design, which you may or may not care about.