buddypress

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BuddyPress installation somewhat simplified

May 4, 2009 in Social Networking, buddypress, open source | 1 comment

In honor of the release of BuddyPress 1.0, I trashed my previous installation and created a new one from scratch. The new version of BuddyPress requires WordPressMu 2.7.1 and bbPress 1.0 alpha. The process, while simplified, is still out of the reach of many who are accustomed to the standard, upload, create database, and browser based installation.

It process begins with a standard installation of WPMu. Once that is done, you can install the BuddyPress plugins through the backend: Plugins–>Install New. then activate the plugin. That’s not it though as the web based installer cannot place the BuddyPress themes in the correct directory. To do that, one needs to manually move the themes from the plugin directory to theme directory using ftp or a file manager, then activate the themes.

Integrating bbPress remains the hardest part although it too has been simplified to a 13 step process. You can ignore the warnings about salt this and that failing. Just follow the steps. Unlike my previous experiences trying to integrate bbPress, this all worked the first time through. It involves pasting a line of code into the config and moving a file from BuddyPress into bbpress.

Overall, this is a big step in the right direction. Now that the WPMu framework has been updated, I hope to see more progress with the project. There are a lot a capabilities under the hood that are not yet wired up, much as we saw with the initial release of Elgg. A real concern remains in that bbPress is still alpha. BuddyPress needs a solid stable forum.

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WPMu & BuddyPress updates

April 30, 2009 in Elgg, buddypress, wordpress | No comments

WPMu was just updated to a long awaited Version 2.7.1 which has, in turn, triggered events in the BuddyPress realm. The new WPMu version offers a number of important improvements making it a significant improvement. As a consequence, BuddyPress has finally been able to release Version 1.o.

Upgrading from WPMu 2.7 to 2.7.1 was a cinch. First make up your files and database , then simply click the upgrade notification and the new files load. Upon upgrading , the first thing you will notice that the horizontal on the top of the admin page has disappeared. The controversial feature is now an optional plugin.

This upgrade goes yet further in polishing and un-cluttering the administrative interface. Plugin management is much improved and can be handled through the backend rather than the prior ftp for mu plugins and the backend for the wp plugins.

I’m going to start from scratch on my WPMu/BuddyPress installation soon and look forward to renewing my BuddyPress and Elgg comparisons.

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WPMu 2.7.1 beta 1 released

April 6, 2009 in Blogging, Social Networking, buddypress, open source | 4 comments

WordPressMu version 2.7.1 beta1 is now available. Released on April 2, this marks an important landmark for its companion BuddyPress.

BuddyPress has rested on RC1 waiting for changes to the core WordPress Mu application. According to core developer Andy Peatling’s blog post of February 11, the release of BuddyPress stable has been predicated upon the release of a new version of WPMu that includes integrated site-wide plugin support.

Whether this version includes such a feature is not entirely clear, but a survey of the changes from trunk at r1648 to branches/2.7 at r1715 reveals six plug-in related files that have been created or changed. The inclusion of wp-admin/wpmu-sitewide-plugins.php makes me optimistic.

WPMu developer Donncha indicated that the current beta version is pretty stable. My experience with WPMu is that the time between beta and release is typically on the order of days or a couple weeks.

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Site Touts BuddyPress for K12

April 3, 2009 in Social Networking, Technology, buddypress | 4 comments

While visiting the BuddyPress site for fresh news, I encountered a blog post entitled BuddyPress in K12 Education. It appears that BuddyPress is being piloted by the Dearborn, Michigan school district. It’s always great to hear about Open Source adoptions by public K12 ! I could see deploying components of BuddyPress in our school’s existing WPMu installation.

I was disappointed, however, to see that two of the key plugins for making this possible are for pay: Site-wide Privacy Settings and Content Monitoring. It seems to me that privacy settings for blogs should be a basic functionality for Social Networking platforms. I hope that BuddyPress will integrate some form of access/privacy settings that will make it appropriate for K12 in the near term!

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Private BuddyPress communities?

February 19, 2009 in RSS, Social Networking, Technology, buddypress, open source | 4 comments

I’ve been examining both Elgg and BuddyPress for use as a social networking platform in the K12 setting. One of things necessary for our school (and probably many others) is that unmoderated content be private.

About three months ago, BuddyPress developer, Andy Peatling, responded on the BuddyPress forum that the initial release of the software would be would be for open networks and that after the release the plan is to introduce privacy settings.

About a month ago,  user josswinn began testing dsader’s More Privacy Options plugin for WPMU, and posted his experiences in both the BP and WPMU forums. By putting More Privacy Options in the mu-plugins folder, blogs can be set to one of five levels of privacy. If an admin sets the primary blog to  “visible only to registered members,” the BuddyPress portion of the installation is locked down nicely.

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This also effectively blocks registration which is desirable for our purposes. Apparently another plugin called Members Only functions similarly, but without the numerous privacy options.

While the pages are blocked, RSS feeds are another issue. In spite hacking dsader’s More Privacy plugin as recommended on these forum posts, I found myself able to access  RSS feeds to material that should have been blocked. Josswin reports the same with Member’s Only as well. I tried using Clifton H. Griffin III’s Disable RSS, but that did not work either.

The More Privacy Options plugin seems to block RSS feeds fine on my other WPMU installation. I am puzzled by the difference. The only solution I see at this point is to delete or rename key RSS files within WPMU. It will be interesting to see if a resolution appears. Otherwise, it might be best to wait until there are privacy settings within BuddyPress itself.

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FOSS social networking update for Feb 14

February 13, 2009 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, buddypress, open source | 1 comment

This February is a busy month in the world of open source Social Networking software. As mentioned before, BuddyPress is scheduled for release and Curverider is slated to release Elgg Version 1.5.

BuddyPress released BuddyPress RC1 yestereday. Andy Peating decided to go with a release candidate rather than the full planned release because of a new development with WordPressMu.WPMU developers are planning to add site-wide plugin management that will allow admins to enable and disable site-wide plugins within a few weeks. This will also allow automatic plugin updates. BuddyPress aside, this is big improvement for WPMU.

Meanwhile, Curverider is committing revisions of the trunk SVN code at a dizzying pace. The trunk has undergone 235 revisions since the first of the year. A peak of the version.php file now puts the version at 1.4. Having checked the latest Elgg incarnation, I am pleased to see that groups can now be deleted. There is also a new media embed tool.

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The developers also seem to be working on fixing group access controls. While working with the latest SVN, I saw that group permissions have very recently changed.

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Earlier incarnations allowed group creators to toggle access to membership and content, although it didn’t work properly.

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Now access to group content is controlled item by item when it is created.

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I am not sure whether or not Curverider is done with their changes to group access and membership, but it appears that the controls now in place do indeed work.

At this point, I will hold off on comparisons between the two platforms until Elgg releases 1.5 as it is changing quickly. BuddyPress, on the other hand, will probably experience few changes between the RC1 and final release.

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Elgg & BuddyPress: Groups

February 12, 2009 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, buddypress, open source | 6 comments

Elgg and BuddyPress are two free and open source social networking platforms. Both allow users to set up and configure groups. While the process of setting up groups and the results appear different, they have many similarities.

Elgg puts all the group configuration options on one page.

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Of note, you may make the group membership Public or Private and set access to Public, Logged in, Private, friends collections, or any other groups. You may enable Pages (the collaborative writing tool), a forum, and a file repository.

BuddyPress, on the other hand, brings you though a number of short steps. In the first step, you are prompted to name and write a description of the group. The second part allows you to configure the group settings.

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Next, you upload a group avatar. The final step is the Invite Friends pane.

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One important distinction between these two platforms are the access and membership control options. With BP one has 3 radio button options appearing on the Group Setting pane. Elgg, on the other hand, is somewhat more granular. Membership may be toggled Public or Private, while you more options for access.

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More options appear if you have made Collections of Friends.

An Elgg group page with no content appears as below. It features a forum, pages for collaborative writing, and a file repository which can also function as a rudimentary gallery. Other features are available depending upon which modules are installed in the Elgg site. The page below is from a site with most of the plugins from the Elgg core developers. If the messageboard mod is enabled, it appears in the groups. Other plugins such as Kevin Jardine’s Event Calendar are also configured to show up in groups. Note that you also have an option to invite friends to the group.

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A basic BuddyPress group is shown below. By default, it features a forum and the wire. I understand there is a gallery in the works, but it has not yet been released as beta along with the other BuddyPress Components. Like Elgg, BuddyPress does have add ons, some of which, I am sure, will impact and augments BP groups.

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If you scratch the surface, BP and Elgg groups are very similar. BP’s Active Forum Topics functions much like Elgg’s Latest Discussion. Elgg’s Messageboard and BP’s Wire appear to function similarly. Both have member lists displaying icons, as wells as, group forums.

The differences include Elgg’s finer granularity of access control. Elgg groups also have more options at the moment with Pages and a file repository. BuddyPress developers plan to release a gallery component in the future. I know that group features in Elgg can be extended through plugins, and I assume the same is true for BuddyPress. Elgg, having been released for several months, appears to have the upper hand in modification options. I would expect to see more BP mods once it has been formally released.

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BuddyPress pauses for WPMU 2.7

January 25, 2009 in Elgg, Technology, buddypress, open source, wordpress | 1 comment

BuddyPress developers have postponed release dates for the second beta and the subsequent final release waiting for the launch of WordPressMu 2.7. The second beta was originally scheduled for January 26, while the final was slated for February 9.

WPMU developer Donncha O Caoimh released WPMU 2.7 beta January 22 revision 1627 on the SVN repository. While he reports that there are still plenty of open tickets, I have found 2.7 beta very stable and relatively issue free. I am using this version for my test BuddyPress installation and our school’s WPMU blog site.

WPMU represents a major overhaul of the administrator and user dashboard and backend. Overall, I find the interface increasingly intuitive and easier to use. WPMU certainly has come a long way since I began using it just over a year ago.

I hope for a February release of BuddyPress along with Elgg 1.5. It looks like a big month for free and open source social networking platforms.

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Elgg and BuddyPress compared: new user

January 22, 2009 in Elgg, Social Networking, Technology, buddypress, open source, wordpress | 7 comments

While comparing software features is important, it is also essential to consider user experience. This post is going to focus on the new user experiences for Elgg and BuddyPress working through first look at the site, the registration process, and the resultant page once one has logged in for the first time. I gave an initial overview of the differences between Elgg and BuddyPress in my previous blog post.

With BuddyPress, a visitor arrives a page that may look like this with a “sign up” link on the upper right hand side of the page.

In Elgg, a first time visitor may encounter a page like the one below. Note that the Elgg landing page has been altered using an index.php override. I feel this is a fair comparison in terms of effort with installation. As you may recall from my previous comparison, the BuddyPress installation required a certain amount of coding, so I thought it would be fair to apply comparable effort to an Elgg installation as a starting point. Note the registration link in the left column.

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Registration

Click on the register button with BuddyPress and you arrive at a page asking you to provide profile information by filling out several fields. The administrator can change or add to these fields making them optional or required. In this installation, I added a “Profession” field. Further discussion of this feature will appear in future posts.

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Next, you are given the option to create a blog or just an account.

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You then are notified to look for an activation email. Once you click on the link in the email, you are given a password.

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Elgg, on the other hand, simply asks for a display name, email address, username, and password.

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Click on Register and you are returned to the landing page with a prompt telling you that you will be getting an confirmation email. Clicking on the link in the mail returns you to the site notifying you of confirmation success. You can then log in.

Logging In

Once logged in, Elgg and BuddyPress deliver you to entirely different pages. BuddyPress brings you to your public Profile page, while Elgg delivers you to your private Dashboard.

Once you log into your new BuddyPress Account, you return to the main page with the options available to a logged in user. Note the gray menu bar on the top of the page that was not visible when not logged in.

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The first time you log into Elgg, you arrive at your dashboard page and prompted to click the edit page link highlighted below. The dashboard is visible only to the account owner.

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Once you click that, you are presented with a set of widgets that allow you to customize your dashboard. Simple darg and drop them into one of the three columns. These widgets can also be configured. On a side note, Elgg’s profile pages function much the same.

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Conclusions

BuddyPress’s and Elgg’s landing pages are strikingly different, especially if Elgg’s index.php file is not customized. No question that BuddyPress’s default theme with the widget customization is more attractive out-of-the-box. That being said, this is not very important as one can install different themes on either platform. Elgg has many free themes available and BuddyPress will have a variety of themes upon release. Discussion of this is really best left to another post.

BuddyPress’s registration page solicits much more information than the bare bones Elgg registration page asking the new user to fill in profile information and to upload an avatar before the registration process is complete. It also allows the administrator to customize the fields in the form. This could cut both ways. Some users might be put off by the steps required to register preferring to enter just enough information to get inside. On the other hand, it would be more likely that users actually provide profile information and an avatar. It requires somewhat more of a commitment to get an account. In the Elgg community site, I have found it irritating that many users have no profile information at all because it is not required. They just leave it all blank.

Elgg, delivers you to a blank dashboard page; whereas, BuddyPress delivers you to the logged in front page. Some have argued that the blank dashboard is confusing and univiting. On the other hand, it does invite immediate action to customize your account with an easy to use widget interface. With BuddyPress, you will need to explre the menu to find more options. Both Elgg and WordPress require a certain amount of exploration once logged in as not everything is immediately obvious.

I will continue to post about the features and user experiences in future posts. Hopefully, these posts will help individuals choose the best platform for their needs. Beyond that, perhaps developers can learn by examining the different interfaces.

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