Creating Community with BuddyPress

Creating Community with

November 14, 2009@LisaSabinWilson

November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson

Creating Community with BuddyPress

User, meet BuddyPress

• What is BuddyPress…and what it isn’t• Quick tour through BuddyPress features• How sites are using BuddyPress today?• Customizing your BuddyPress site using the

included parent/child theme frameworkNovember 14, 2009

Lisa Sabin-WilsonCreating Community with BuddyPress

WordPress MU + BuddyPress

Add BuddyPress to an existing installation of WordPress MU to create a fully functional social community on your own web site.



BuddyPress is NOT Facebook(in a box or otherwise)



BuddyPress is Facebook-ish

• Facebook is global where BuddyPress is targeted in a way that you direct

• Conversations on Facebook happen in front of everyone..including your mother (have you friended her?)

• Conversations on BuddyPress happen in front of YOUR own niche social community



BuddyPress Components



Extended Profiles

Members within your community sharing information about themselves by filling out profile fields that have been created by the

site administrator.



Set Up Profile Fields

User Registration Page profile fields for users to fill out



Results of Profile FieldsPopulate Member Profile Pages



FriendsMeet new people and add friends within the social community

through the Friends feature in BuddyPress.



Private Messaging

• Send and receive private messages from your friends within the community.

• BuddyPress private messaging is like a built-in email engine for you to send and receive messages between friends.



Private Messaging Feature



The Wire

• The wire is a place where community members and/or visitors can leave comments and feedback on different content within the community:– Member profiles– Groups– Photos, links, etc.



The Wire Feature



Activity Streams

• Aggregation of different types of activity throughout the community.– Individual activity streams– Site-wide activity streams– Group activity streams



Activity Stream Feature



Blog Tracking

• When user blogs are enabled, BuddyPress tracks:– The creation of new blogs– New/recent blog comments– New/recent blog posts

• Searchable Blog Directory



Blog Tracking Feature



Status Updates

• Think Twitter.• What are you doing right now, updates on

your member profile• Gets published to the activity stream on your

profile, and in the site wide activity stream



Status Updates Feature



Groups

• Micro-communities within the larger community

• A gathering of community members in one Group

• Typical formed around a specific niche or topic• Private, Hidden and Public• Wire, News, Forums



Group Examples



Andy Peatling“BP Jedi Masters”

A group for master level BuddyPress

developers and gurus

Group Examples



Mark Jaquith“BP Consultants”

A group for people providing BuddyPress consultation services

Group Examples



Matt Mullenweg“Total Newbie”

A group for newbies wanting to learn more

about BuddyPress

BP Jedi Masters BP Consultants Total Newbies



WPMU BuddyPress Members Group Creation

BuddyPress Group Features

BP Jedi masters

Forums

Wire

BP Consultants

Forums

Wire

Total Newbie

Forums

Wire



Group Forums powered by bbPress



Forums can be enabled to allow groups to run individual discussion forums

Group forums powered by bbPress

No bbPress installation required – it’s already there when you install BuddyPress!

Forums Directory – Topic Listings



Topic listings can be filtered by:• Newest• Most Popular• Unreplied• My Topics

Individual Group Forum Page



Directories

• Searchable and Filterable community-wide directories– Groups– Blogs– Members– Forums



Directories Feature - Members



Directories Feature - Forums



Site Wide Activity Streaming

• What is happening right now in your community?

• Searchable• Filterable– Status Updates– New Friendships– Blog Posts/Comments– Group Creation/Discussion



Site Wide Activity Stream

Filter community activity by:

• Blog activity• Friendships• Group activity• Profile activity• Member status updates

Site Wide activity streams paginate, by default, after 25 listings and keeps up to 200 listings

Site Wide activity streams publishes an RSS Feed users can subscribe to:http://domain.com/activity/feed



http://domain.com/activity/feed

BuddyPress Specific WidgetsCan be used on all member blogs

• Members, Groups, Blogs• Welcome Widget• Who is Online• Members: Newest, Active, Popular• Recently Active Members



Widget Examples Members & Groups



Toggle Member and Groups display by:• Newest• Active• Popular

How are sites using BuddyPress??

• Creating/growing communities• Extending social network involvement• Networks of Blogs



BugleNotes.com

A social community for Grads and Cadets of West Point.

The community is the focus with site wide activity streams, groups, and member listings displayed directly on the front page.

The main site blog is a click a way, as well as the Member, Groups and Forums directories.

BugleNotes.com uses the default BuddyPress child theme, hooked into the default BuddyPress parent framework.



WeEarth.comSocial community of users fostering social consciousness through art, activism and media.

Number one focus is content on the front page, with the BuddyPress community features built as more of an enhancement feature.

Allows creation of member blogs, profiles and groups.

E-Commerce piece is powered by the WP Shopp plugin

Design is a customized WordPress theme with BuddyPress theme features built in.



NourishNetwork.comFood and cooking community with an emphasis on sustainable foods and eco-friendly cooking methods.

Front page mixes main site content with member community features that pulls BuddyPress features into the front page such as:

• Site admin status updates• Site contributor status updates• Forums• Members widget

This community does have member blogs enabled, groups cannot be created by community members and the social community aspect of the site is fully guided and controlled by the site admin.

Uses a heavily customized BP child theme, using BP parent theme framework.



SportsGrants.Org

Using social media to raise money for non profit foundations worldwide like Susan B. Komen and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Integrating WordPress MU, BuddyPress and other social media like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube

Design is a modified WooTheme (Productum) – BuddyPress integrated into the WooTheme framework for their Member profiles, directories, and groups.



Customizing BuddyPress

Parent/Child theme framework:

• bp-sn-parent• bp-default

BuddyPress themes get moved from /buddypress/bp-themes/ to /wp-content/themes … for now.

STYLE changes happen in bp-default. Activate the bp-default theme.

FUNCTION changes happen with bp-sn-parent files… dropped into the bp-default folder.

bp-sn-parent

bp-default



Customize CSS and Images in bp-default/* Theme Name: BuddyPress DefaultTheme URI: http://buddypress.org/extend/themes/Description: The default theme for BuddyPress.Version: 1.1.2Author: BuddyPress.orgAuthor URI: http://buddypress.orgTags: buddypress, three-columns, white, orange, flexible-widthTemplate: bp-sn-parent*/

/* Font styles */@import url( ../bp-sn-parent/_inc/css/fonts/12px.css );

/* Layout styles for home page, internal pages and blog/directory pages */@import url( ../bp-sn-parent/_inc/css/layout/home-page/3c-right.css );@import url( ../bp-sn-parent/_inc/css/layout/internal-pages/3c-left.css );@import url( ../bp-sn-parent/_inc/css/layout/blog-dir-pages/2c-right.css );

/* Default theme admin bar styles */@import url( _inc/css/adminbar.css );

/* Default theme styles */@import url( _inc/css/screen.css );

/* Uncomment the following line and add your custom styles to '_inc/css/custom.css' *//* @import url( _inc/css/custom.css ); */



Bp-default CSS

• Template: bp-sn-parent – this tells BuddyPress that this child theme wishes to inherit all the template files from the bp-sn-parent theme

• @import url( _inc/css/custom.css ); uncomment this line and upload a custom.css

to /wp-content/themes/bp-default/_inc/css and use it to customize the CSS stying of your theme





BuddyPress Parent Theme

• Contains all template functions• Do not alter copy to the bp-default• THEN you can alter it to your hearts content

• This keeps the bp-sn-parent theme framework completely intact and keeps your theme upgrade proof!





Creating Community with

Thank you!@LisaSabinWilson

http://lisasabin-wilson.comWordPress For DummiesBuddyPress For Dummies

(both available on Amazon.com)November 14, 2009

Lisa Sabin-WilsonCreating Community with BuddyPress

http://lisasabin-wilson.com/

Technology

Creating Community with BuddyPress