creating community with buddypress
DESCRIPTION
Lisa Sabin-Wilson's talk at WordCamp New York 11/2009 on creating a community with BuddyPress and WordPress MUTRANSCRIPT
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.
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
BuddyPress is NOT Facebook(in a box or otherwise)
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
BuddyPress Components
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Extended Profiles
Members within your community sharing information about themselves by filling out profile fields that have been created by the
site administrator.
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Set Up Profile Fields
User Registration Page profile fields for users to fill out
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Results of Profile FieldsPopulate Member Profile Pages
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
FriendsMeet new people and add friends within the social community
through the Friends feature in BuddyPress.
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with 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.
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Private Messaging Feature
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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.
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
The Wire Feature
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Activity Streams
• Aggregation of different types of activity throughout the community.– Individual activity streams– Site-wide activity streams– Group activity streams
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Activity Stream Feature
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Blog Tracking Feature
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Status Updates Feature
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Group Examples
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Andy Peatling“BP Jedi Masters”
A group for master level BuddyPress
developers and gurus
Group Examples
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Mark Jaquith“BP Consultants”
A group for people providing BuddyPress consultation services
Group Examples
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Matt Mullenweg“Total Newbie”
A group for newbies wanting to learn more
about BuddyPress
BP Jedi Masters BP Consultants Total Newbies
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
WPMU BuddyPress Members Group Creation
BuddyPress Group Features
BP Jedi masters
Forums
Wire
BP Consultants
Forums
Wire
Total Newbie
Forums
Wire
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Group Forums powered by bbPress
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Topic listings can be filtered by:• Newest• Most Popular• Unreplied• My Topics
Individual Group Forum Page
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Directories
• Searchable and Filterable community-wide directories– Groups– Blogs– Members– Forums
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Directories Feature - Members
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Directories Feature - Forums
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Site Wide Activity Streaming
• What is happening right now in your community?
• Searchable• Filterable– Status Updates– New Friendships– Blog Posts/Comments– Group Creation/Discussion
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
BuddyPress Specific WidgetsCan be used on all member blogs
• Members, Groups, Blogs• Welcome Widget• Who is Online• Members: Newest, Active, Popular• Recently Active Members
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Widget Examples Members & Groups
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
Toggle Member and Groups display by:• Newest• Active• Popular
How are sites using BuddyPress??
• Creating/growing communities• Extending social network involvement• Networks of Blogs
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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.
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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.
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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.
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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.
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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 ); */
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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!
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
November 14, 2009Lisa Sabin-Wilson
Creating Community with BuddyPress
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