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BuddyPress 1.5 is Out

Brajesh Singh — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 08:35:11 +0000

The new major release of BuddyPress, which is codenamed “Lombardi” is out today. It has been over an year since there were any major release and the new release is worth the wait.

The new release contains a lot of improvements and fixes. The main features at a glance will be:-

Main features:-

BuddyPress components are associated to pages, giving you the flexibility to choose your own url.
Basic Oembed support inbuilt
Streamlined API for developers(cool!)
Updated and Improved Bp default theme(with responsive layout, means It will support the various mobile devices)
Awesome Installation/upgrade wizard
and many more.

Let us look at the list of major changes.

Customizable URL:-

The earlier version of BuddyPress supported customizing slugs. You could use one of those BP_COMPONENT_SLUG to customize it. In BuddyPress 1.5, It is no more required(and mostly deprecated). You can change the urls to anything and any level deep from the WordPress Dashboard->Edit Page as shown below. So, Creating the social network as a sub section of wordpress has been made too easy.

Here is the Pages screen of my Fresh Install.

And you can change slug from the page edit screen

Or even Organize the Components in Hierarchical url like yoursite.com/social/members or so using the page attirbute.

So, what does it means to you ? It is one of the many changes which gives you a lot of flexibility. The only issue you will find is you will need to create a page and associate when using a custom component utilizing root page.

Oembed Support:

The credit goes to @r-a-y for getting this functionality in BP 1.5. yes, now you can post the media from any of the Oembed supported sites. Here is an example

Registration Page:-

No avatar Upload on The registration page. It is a welcome change as it has been causing a lot of troubles earlier.

Bp Default Theme:-

Responsive layout for mobile devices
Multiple widgetized sidebar( 1 sidebar and 4 in footer)
WordPress custom menu support
cooler activity stream
custom background

Installation/Upgrade Wizard:-

I best most of you have already seen it. Still here is a screenshot. Now you will have a nicelooking wizard to guide you step by step when you activate BuddyPress.

For Developers:-

If you are a developer, Bp 1.5 brings a lot of things for you. Specially look at the BP_Core_Component class which does all the needed for your plugins. It has never been so easy to write new plugins.

You can look at the complete list of changes here

http://codex.buddypress.org/releases/version-1-5/

What It means for Us at BuddyDev.

Since BuddyPress 1.5 is stable now, we feel it the right time to put new plugins. We will have many releases in the coming days. As of the older plugins, all of our plugins (except global forum and BP Chat) has been tested and is compatible with BuddyPress 1.5. I will be updating the individual plugin pages with the new versions today. In the mean time you can download the plugins which required update for Bp 1.5 from here.

We will be relasing an update of our themes(BP Nicey today, BP Mag/CB pro and Cosmic Buddy by the weekend).

Happy social networking and do not forget to thank the core team of BuddyPress here

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Test Our Plugins with BuddyPress 1.5

Brajesh Singh — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:02:57 +0000

As the shiney new release of BuddyPress is imminent, I have been updating/rewriting our plugins to make it compatible with the BuddyPress. Since this Release of BuddyPress treats the components a little different, It was a tedious job to update the plugin(as we have a lot of plugins here).

Today, I am publishing the list of updated plugins here. Also, we will use this page to keep track of all the plugins being updated.

Please Check this page for download links.

Where to Get The current runk version of BuddyPress:-

Make sure you have the current trunk. You can get it from http://svn.buddypress.org/trunk/ using your subversion client . In case of unix linke operating system, you can checkout it like this.


svn checkout http://svn.buddypress.org/trunk/

or you can download the zip archive from the bottom of this page http://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk

Install and configure BuddyPress as normal. Once you are done with the BuddyPress, download the plugins from the above page.

After activating the plugins, make sure to create pages if it asks and assign it to the plugin on BuddyPress->Pages screens(Branded login and Stealth mode will need you to create pages).

Download Links:-

http://buddydev.com/buddypress-1-5-compatibility/

Please report any issue you find. I will be updating the Compatibility page daily with the new updates. hoping to start putting the free plugins from today itself. Have a great time testing the plugins. Please do not forget to leave yor feedback here

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Apologies for the Downtime Today

Brajesh Singh — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:04:05 +0000

My sincere apologies to you all for the downtime today. We had one of the longest downtime ever. Around 10 AM PST today, one of the data center of KnownHost(our web host) had an outage which lasted for around 6 Hours. We had a downtime of around 6 hours(from 10 AM PST to 4:30 PM PST). It is one of the longest downtime we ever had.

Anyway, everything happens for a good reason and I learned my lesson too. Using vps is not enough. We will go for some redundancy in next couple of weeks using linode.com and I hope, we won’t have any such issue in future.

Since our website was down, I updated it on twitter. Please make sure you are connected with us on Twitter to help us server you better and keep you informed in future.

Please join us on Twitter at @buddydev.

I highly appreciate your support and patience. We regret the inconvenience caused due to this outage and I and my team are looking forward to serve you better in future.

Thanks

Brajesh

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Just keeping you all updated

Brajesh Singh — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 13:26:27 +0000

Hi All, I am sure if you are a regular visitor, you might have seen my silence for the last 1-2 week. I just thought to let you all know the reasons and clarify that I am back again after a 1-week break from the work.

For the last two weeks, I was going through high blood pressure problems causing me a lot of complications, and I was not able to work. The doctor advised me to take break and get some rest/relax. So I refrained from the blog/replying to your comments(though I kept looking at them) and spent my time reading the books(obviously technical one:) ). I hope, It is ok sometimes to take a break.

It has been a quiet week and not much activity here(other than replying the forum posts). So, Here are my current priorities. Just listing here, so you know, what is coming ahead.

Going top reply comments today
work on the plugin updates
Putting some new theme online
and a couple more new plugins

Here is the order in which I will be updating the plugins

Bp Chat: will need 3-4 more days and will have stable version.
Blog Categories for Groups plugin
Limit Groups Per user plugin update
Limit Blogs per user plugin update
Pretty gallery plugin update
Some addition to gallery plugin

A couple of new plugins too will come.

Other than the above, we have a couple of themes scheduled which we could not release because of my own absence from work. I hope that we will be able to publish at least 2 themes by Sunday.

Thanks for your understanding and patience. Please keep visiting the site for the updates and yes, I will be actively replying your comments again

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BP Gallery: Update Status

Brajesh Singh — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 22:20:00 +0000

Hi All,
Hope you all are doing well as always. As promised earlier, the gallery had to be released in the last week of October, but I could not make that. Sorry for that. This post is here to keep you updated about the gallery.

Other than what we already have in gallery currently, the new release will have the following enhancement/additional features:-

Delete Audio from Play List
Delete Video from Playlist
Comment on video playlist page
Comment on audio playlist page(When a video is played, the comments are loaded for that video/audio and user can comment further)
Square Thumbnails support
Original Image can be preserved now(Choice is made by site admins)
You can create any number of thumbnails(using media meta)
Fix for the upload space showing incorrectly in single user WordPress
Alternative uploader for html5/non flash based device
New filters for allowing size limitations based on roles/individual user
Gallery API to create new Media types easily with gallery(*say pdf documents and so on)
Gallery API to attach gallery to any other component
Group Admin Can enable/disable gallery tab(using group extension for this, we may have issues on some install)
Post to Activity can be automated/or posted as done now
All the widgets are re-written for better compatibility
Improved shortcodes
Embedding of gallery media in other places possible.
Improved My galleries page to list the group galleries too
Fixing css conflict with wordpress gallery
Upload from Anywhere(* this is still not fully functional)
Reading meta from Audio
Reading meta from Video
Improved privacy(fixing the bugs)
Adding External media(currently youtube/flickr supported but I have small issues with playing youtube videos in flowoplayer and also youtub tos does not allow playing it in another player, so just thinking about more options. )
Tagging(no face recognition in core though you will be able to tag a portion of image using the Notes/annotation script, the plugin for automatic face detection with OpenCV will come later)
Code simplification for uploading
Removed the notice plugin
A lot of documentation for gallery is coming to allow you do many more things
Still working on on the following:-
- Standalone Galleries
- Sharing of media among the galleries(may be group and personal)
- RSS feed for the media items
- Rating (will be a plugin itself)
- Decoupling the uploader completely
- Decoupling the video player/audio player completely
- RTSP Support(* may not be able to complete it in this release)
- Remote Storage(* may not be available in 1.0 release)
- Upload By email(this feature may come with this version, not too sure about it)
- Better Caching
- Some template changes(for column etc)
- Lightbox viewer plugin for galleries(on profile/groups etc)

There are a few things which I could not work in this release like nested galleries, FFMpeg support(though It will be coming this month if my local linux sever works, I have put the appropriate filters to make it work as external plugin with gallery).

The major change is in the change of structure for gallery code. It is organized now. The new gallery will have many more capability for developers who want to customize it/extend it without changing the core gallery files. You can do almost everything with it. Also, the new gallery is much faster than the older one with the code updates.

Release date: I am still working on it and have missed last weeks deadline, there are a few features which I feel they must go in this release but have got some troubles implementing them. So the release I plan to do anytime soon(In a week time from now, may be this Sunday, may not be, will depend on the features implemented). Please allow me a few more days until I am satisfied with the changes. yes, I am trying to buy I a little more time here.

If any of you have got Phillip’s TinyMCe plugin for bp-gallery, please point me as his site is down at the moment and the plugin with me is very old one. I will try to enhance and put the plugin to allow embedding the media/gallery embed in the post editor. Please be a little bit more patient(I know you all have been enough patient), this gallery release is the last time I am missing deadlines, no further plugin/theme deadline will be missed after this. The aim of this new site design that you see is to enhance my own productivity and timing.

And last thing, To all my Indian subcontinent friends viewing this page, wish you all a very very happy and prosperous Diwali, though I will be missing home for the first time in several years on this Diwali but Looking forward to it

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Coming Updates

Brajesh Singh — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 12:03:31 +0000

Hi All,

: Just changed the database to remote host. It seems to be working. Now before upgrade waiting for DNS propagation. We will have a downtime of around 2 hours after the DNS propagates(at least on My system and I am able to access the new host by name.)

It’s the festive seasons here in India and I am sure you all are having a good time enjoying life and working on your social networks.

Some of you may be knowing that I was in the process of redesigning Buddydev.com but never got enough time to complete that. Last few weeks proved good for me and I got a chance to get back to work. It was one of the reason I could not spend enough time here on answering comment/plugin updates. I am sure, you might have noticed my recent little activity here. So, today, I thought, I must let you all know the status of our work.

The new site design is almost ready and I plan to put the new interface by Monday(11th October). Currently we have a few major issues at buddydev.com, the most important is different versions of plugins are scattered through the forums and blog posts making it uneasy for our users, so the new interface handles it in an elegant way. Another major change will be visibility/readability of posts. And of course, we will have docs section of each plugin with this update. Another major change is using group/external integrated bbpress forum in some unique way, group forum will act as the archive of forum posts related to a plugin while we will be using the external bbpress as we do currently.

In the new design, using wordpress custom post type, I have done my best to organize the things and It will certainly help is organizing the things. The good news is, while working on the new buddydev I wrote around 4-5 new plugins, these are

Associate existing forum to groups:- will allow you to asociate any existing forum to group or change one group forum to another group forum
Easy mark spammer, an ajax based mark spammer plugin
Store email to DB:- Allows you to store the contact messages in database, It should be useful for those whose server do not send mails properly(buddydev.com has long trouble with contact form)
Membership Plugin:- Highly flexible membership plugin for creating a membership based site(I have rewrote the one I use On Buddydev.com with a lot of new enhancements)

and a few more.

I am still not sure which of them I am going to release on the Monday, but this month the remaining 20 days are going to be fun as I will be releasing atleast 10 new plugins).

Further, The BP-Gallery and Bp-Chat will have major updates this month, Bp-gallery will be stable by month end and chat will be sooner than that. Once our new site design is up, you can see the daily changes and updated status for each and every plugin from the plugin page itself.

Happy social networking and please make sure to check on Monday evening for the new update and new plugins.

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Opensource Vs Code Stealing

Brajesh Singh — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:56:42 +0000

My apologies to buddydev members for putting such a post, but It’s getting over me now, so let it be public.

I am forced to write this post as I found a few people copying our code in the name of opensource. I am not going to make the things public at the moment, but if the things keep happening, I will be forced to that very soon in the near future.

What I hate to say that open source is not about code stealing. It is about code sharing. If you are taking codes from someone else give credit to them. Check the core of WordPress and see how good they are at giving the credit. WordPress is a live example of a thriving opensource project and If you check codes, whenever they are using anyone’s code/idea they have given due credit.

Then why the kids working on plugins forget to give the credit back?

I am not here to go about opensource being free vs Paid, as that is the most humiliating misunderstanding of Opensource(specially GPL2) which people have.

Now My special request to a few and I guess they know whom I am talking to, Try to innovate, or have the guts to give the credit. I have overlooked it for a few times but do not try to be more smart, I have the proofs of you copying code . Opensource is not about stealing code. And remember, GPL does not give you the ability to steal code without giving credit back, if you are not doing so, you are breaching GPL.

If I find anything like this in future again, I am going to get after you and humiliate you publicly, I hope that will not be good for you me and the community. Changing a few prefixes in the name does not make the things different.

I did not make the things public to save your career, but If the things keep happening, I will be putting the codes with comparison and time-line to show what you have been doing.

And a request to all of the members: If you want to share the code, I don’t have objections, but if someone puts another plugin without giving the credit back, It’s a problem. I hate it, as I strongly believe in giving the credit back and that’s what opensource is all about and that’s what GPL gives the right to me.

Hope my message is going to reach to the kids trying to be smart.

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Buddypress 1.2 Is Out, Happy Social Networking time for everyone

Brajesh Singh — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:43:07 +0000

After a long period of wait, finally Buddypress 1.2 is out. And If you look at the list of features, the wait was worth it. Andy and Team has made significant improvements from the prior version. Kudos to them for bringing Buddypress to such a new level.

A lot of features like single WordPress support, the Brand new Theme and many More has been added in the new version.

Now, It is the time to start using Buddypress 1.2 and Think about your own very special Social Network.

If you have not downloaded it, download it from Buddypress’s Oficial site here http://buddypress.org/download/

Make sure to Check Andy Peatling’s post introducing Buddypress 1.2 here http://buddypress.org/blog/news/introducing-buddypress-1-2/

If you are still not sure what Buddypress is, checkout the official demo site here http://testbp.org/

I am highly excited about this release of Buddypress and my opinion, Buddypress is going to Rock the social networking in 2010.

Now, as Buddypress is stable again, My first gift is coming soon today , Do not forget to check back for a free plugin coming out today

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BuddyPress 1.2 Beta is Out, Go ahead and check out now

Brajesh Singh — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:00:15 +0000

It is the most awesome news for today. Buddypress 1.2 beta is out.

Checkout Andy’s post here

http://buddypress.org/blog/news/buddypress-1-2-beta/

It is one of the most featureful and most awaited beta of buddypress. Now, It is the time for testing it out.
Download the beta from here

http://buddypress.org/pre-release/buddypress.1.2.beta.zip

Participate in buddypress trac and help the core developers getting this to a final release. And do not forget to say, Thank You Andy, Thank you BuddyPress team

happy BuddyPressing

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What Is Upcoming In The Buddydev Premium

Brajesh Singh — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:11:53 +0000

Well,here is the list of plugins,we are going to put in next couple of days in the buddydev premium.Amost all the plugins are complete,we are writing the documentation/readme so the things are a little bit delayed,but I hope,we will have everything by the 2nd of December.

Upcoming Plugins

Bp Chat

It is a facebook style chat for your buddypress powered site.Users may chat with friends only or anyone online on the site(depends on the preferences of the user).
It will save the state of chat ,even if the page is reloaded, and many more features

Bp gallery

This is going to be the ultimate gallery component for buddypress.Just to name a few features here.
For users

Create galleries(ajax ,without page reload)
Upload Images(using ajax upload,no page reloading is required)
Drag and drop reordering of galleries
Drag and drop re ordering of Images
Image wire commenting
Image tagging(like facebook/orkut in v1.1)
Privacy features(friends only,groups only ,private or public)
Bulk Editing of galleries
Bulk editing of images
Moving images from 1 gallery to another with ease

For developers

Easily templatable(we are going to publish the template tags soon)
Use only the features you want

For Admin

Set the upload limit for users
Activate /deactivate wire commenting

BP Auto activate AutoLogin-redirect to profile

Update: This plugin is released now.
check out Here

Auto activate users accounts when the create a new account and log them in directly.Then redirect them to their profile.So it simply does following

Buddypress Signup page->Click Complete signup->User account is activated automatically->User Is Logged In ->User Is re directed to their profile

Allow Users to select blog Theme at blog signup

well It is already there available in the premium section

BP My recent Visitors

Show users ,who visited their profile recently (obviously a user of the same buddypress site).A list of most recent visitors will be shown

and the list continues….

If you join buddydev premium now before Christmas, you will get one month of Free membership. Anyone Joining on or before December 25, 2009 will get one month of membership free of cost for all the membership options.

Hurry and Join Now.

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