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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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Introducing BuddyPress Live Notification Plugin: A facebook like notification plugin for BuddyPress

Brajesh Singh — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 22:39:16 +0000

BuddyPress Live Notification plugins adds a facebook like notification system for your BuddyPress based social network. It shows the new notifications to the user in real time just like facebook does. It is exactly same as facebook notification you are familiar with. So, Here I present the same for you to use on your very own social network.

It works in real time, updates itself in real time and notifies in real time. Whether you Send/receive a message or comment on someone’s activity or add someone as friend, It will notify in real time if the user is online.
Here is a screenshot:-

The credit goes to Gossy Ukanwoke for the idea of facebook like notification. This plugin is best used with the Activity comment notifier plugin(as you will have real time notification if someone comments on your activity post).

Features:-

Live notification
The notification can be anything (like adding friend/receiving message/ groups request/friend request or anything which BuddyPress considers as notification). It is exactly same as Facebook Notification.
The Notifier will show the notices of new notification as well as update the notification in adminbar automatically.
The notification will be shown even if you are logged in the backend(wordpress admin)
If you have the activity comment Notifier Plugin, It will notify when someone even comments on your updates

Screenshots:-

Live Notification Message:-

Live Update of Notification bar:-

Hope it will make your sites to become more social and should help with the user participation.

Download & Installation:-

http://buddydev.com/plugins/buddypress-live-notification/

Credits:- @Gossy for the bringing the idea. http://code.google.com/p/achtung-ui/ for the jquery plugin to show notification in growl like message..

Looking forward to hear your comments and suggestions.

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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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Theme Updates for Buddypress 1.2

Brajesh Singh — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:55:51 +0000

Hi all

I am glad to inform you, today I am updating both the themes, bp-nicey and cosmic buddy for buddypress 1.2. So, I hope to make it available today/tonight or early tomorrow. This is just to keep you all informed. Be sure to check back late evening/tomorrow morning.

have a nice weekend.

Thanks

Brajesh

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Mailing problems on Buddydev.com, Please Use the emails in this post for mailing us

Brajesh Singh — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 00:10:07 +0000

hi All

Recently I have noticed our contact form is not functioning well, and mail sent via contact form is not delivered. Though this issue is sporadic, bit It is continueing for last few days. Apologies for the inconvenience.

We are in contact with our host, and may move to some other host, if the things does not go better by Mid Feb, In the mean time , please use following email addresses to contact us

support[ a t ]buddydev.com

I will update here as soon as the mailing thing is back to work. You may leave a comment, and I will get back to you, cause I keep checking the Dashboard regularly.

Once again, my sincere apologies for the inconvenience.

And An important notice too, There seems to hundreds of spam account here on buddydev.com, I will do a review of all these accounts coming week, so please make sure you have at least 1 line in your about field and/or you have a gravatar.

Regards

Brajesh

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Bp-gallery status and current snapshots

Brajesh Singh — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:07:10 +0000

Update:6th Feb 2010
BP-Gallery beta is released today.Please checkout for more here
http://buddydev.com/buddypress/bp-gallery-beta-available-now-download-test-and-enjoy/
Hi all, I know you have been waiting for this gallery for a long, and My bad I missed the deadlines horribly.
This post is to keep you all updated with the progress. Here are the screenshots from my current test setup(where I am using bp default template of bp 1.1.3).

Well, let us start with the things.
I will post here with an example of image gallery creation. Please remember, I am not done with the User interface yet, it is the only thing, blocking the gallery from public release and I am working hard on it. You will notice a few glitches in the UI here.

So Let us starts, I am logged as admin and when I go to my profile, I see the gallery link in my userbar menu. When you click on that gallery menu, It will bring the following screen

Because I don’t have a Photo gallery so It says, There is not photo gallery and I click on create gallery button. It will bring a gallery creating screen using ajax as shown below.

You get here options to create a photo gallery/video gallery/audio gallery as shown below

and you can set the status of gallery as Public, private,friends only(the privacy option and the galley type option will depend on the current Owner object(in current case, It is user, gallery can be associated with event/group too)).

You can create as many gallery as your admin allows/space allows(I will show it later).
Now we go to the single gallery(though you can upload media from gallery home, I prefer the other way).
here is what you get.

And you can upload as many medias as you want here.

Once you are done with the upload, the media(I refer media as media can be image,videos/audios/other docs) will appear in the gallery you uploaded.
each gallery has its own pretty permalink like example.com/members/admin/gallery/my-galleries/test-image-gallery

Here is what you get once the media is uploaded to your newly created gallery.

If the gallery/media is public, It is recorded in your activity stream/sitewide activity stream.

And here is sitewide activity stream

When a user is logged in and is at his/her Gallery’s home page, they can see the allocated space and used space as below

There are many more things, like the media wire posts to show here, but I think, I have posted enough image to make this post lengthy, so no more images for now.

Current Status

As you have already seen,

Gallery is being created, media can be added to any gallery. You can bulk upload media. If you are bulk uploading images, image title is generated from exif or iptc meta as available for the image(if none then from the image file name).

Media can be uploaded from local computer or can be from web and all others what ever I had mentioned in my previous post.

Why delayed :-

I am stuck with the user interface. I know It is important to release it asap but a better user interface from usability point of view will matter a lot and the current interface needs improvement.

So when expected :-

I am doing my best to put it online as soon as I can (man, you remember 2 days ago, I had a 24 hour work day only because of this gallery and then and went to sleep for another 24 hour ).

It can be anytime today/tomorrow/day after tomorrow, let me get a little bit satisfied with the interface.

NOTE: For anyone, who want to join BuddyDev premium for accessing gallery, my sincere request, please wait, let this gallery come out and be released to public, then join, please do not join for the gallery before it is available on this site.

update Gallery is available as beta. checkout here http://buddydev.com/buddypress/bp-gallery-beta-available-now-download-test-and-enjoy/
For all existing members, you will will get 15 days added to your existing subscription as a small compensation for the delayed gallery(I know, the time can not be compensated but I am trying to do which is under my control).

If you have any questions, please let me know in comments, I am here to help.

Thanks

Brajesh

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