Wordpress and Buddypress

[Paul Evans]

Has anyone done a Buddypress + Wordpress (not WPMU!) install yet? More
to the point, is it possible yet - or do we have to wait for Wordpress
3.0?

I'm thinking of doing it for a hyperlocal website (I already have a
bog-standard Wordpress install up and running for this).

[Alastair Tibbitt]

Hi Paul,

Yes it is possible. I've tried it, and actually I quite like it,
although I've not implemented it. I quite like the level of 'social'
ness that it provides. The main blog + groups/discussion forums and user
profiles, is pretty good. However to get it right, and looking good it
would take a lot of tweaking and a bit of learning on my part, so I've
not invested in it beyond installing it and having a look at it all works.

I'm wary of moving everyone to a new platform until I'm certain it's
flexible enough for what I want. At the moment, we mix and match between
two sites on Squarespace and Ning. I've got my eye on the latest version
of Wordpress, and I just had a chance to try out Drupal Gardens which is
worth considering and evolving fast. I probably won't make any decision
until the next version of Squarespace is released. It looks to me like
the world of CMS's of various kinds is going to get pretty interesting
over the next 12 months.

Best wishes,

Al

[Mark Walker]

hello al

the wordpress and buddypress combo was discussed on the excellent e-mint community/yahoogroup [see http://www.emint.org.uk/

Here is the question that prompted it:

"I'm creating a forum for a mental health charity. I had almost made up my mind to choose vBulletin, but now have had a recommendation of BuddyPress. Does anyone have a view on BuddyPress?"

And here are two useful comments:

= =

My main question: what features do you need and want? 

I know VB is VERY powerful, but BuddyPress is more like FB or Twitter.

Also - it may require WP MU, but MU is being merged into WP core with
version 3, so there may be some issues soon.

Another idea if you're looking at wp - is gforums at cost is $29 and demo is
here: http://thegforums.com/forum/. These are more like a forum like VB.

= = 

We considered BuddyPress for the Genderfork community forums as
Genderfork is based on WordPress. Conclusion? Network oriented (to me
it had a Ning like feel, but Ning has some better community features),
and at least then (close to a year ago) buggy too, too buggy for us to
deploy in such a large community.

I wouldn't use BuddyPress unless you intend your people to be bloggers
blogging either on your site or elsewhere and the community is already
the blogging or social networking type of people - that really seems
to be what it's focused on.

= = 

just thought this may help?

Mark

PS this is a useful network already so big thanks to the TAL posse for setting it up

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[Philip John]

I've used the MU/BuddyPress combination before and have in fact
implemented them for clients (and also building another one as we
type).

It's still a very young system and so there are niggles but even at
this stage it is very powerful and will only get better, especially
with MU bundled with v3.0. Expect more and more developers to get
involved in extending MU and BuddyPress.