How to set up registration on buddypress. Adding menus and widgets for navigation


An interactive blog is much more exciting than a blog where only the blog author speaks. A conversation between two people or a discussion among many readers may interest more readers. They can take on different points of view in one place, meet other people who have similar interests and learn about discussions.

With WordPress, it's easy for blogs to get feedback, that is, the exchange that characterizes the beginning of a discussion. Two plugins ( BuddyPress and bbPress) Can do a good job for WordPress blogs and websites. BuddyPress is a plugin to add and bbPress will help you add forums. Both plugins are created by the WordPress team, so they are tightly integrated with WordPress.

1 - BuddyPress

Most components are enabled by default. However, components for friendships, private messages, site monitoring, and user groups will be included if you need them.

Pages Tab

Once you're done selecting the components you need for your community, go to the Pages tab to customize the pages BuddyPress will use. Three are already made for you (members page, activity page and user groups). You will need to create two more for registration and activity. Use Page Options in the Panel WordPress management and select pages for each function. Save your settings when you're done.

Onget Options

The third tab is for options and you can enable/disable the options you don't want to use. By using BuddyPress on the following pages, designated to display relevant content to your site.

If you have several sites on a network, you can activate the plugin across the entire network or only on certain sites. And by activating the multi-blog feature, the central data will be used to display content across all BuddyPress sites.

Themes and Extensions for BuddyPress

BuddyPress works with most . However, if networking between users is important to you, you may want to choose a theme that is compatible with it.

2 - bbPress

bbPress is adding a forum to its blog. This plugin is also a product created by " Automatic" It is easy to install and use.

By default, all forums will be on the site. This means that any member of the group will have access to the forum.

Once you've created new forums, go to Settings > Forums. Select options to customize forums and allow or deny user privileges. Allow or disable anonymous posting and assign visitors various roles in the forum as participant, moderator, key administrator or block any user. You can also allow users to mark topics as favorites, subscribe to forums and topics, embed media libraries by topic and reply, view replies and topics, or search the blog.

Row also short numbers are available to help you organize the forum the way you want.

BuddyPress Just like there are a number of impressive themes that work well with bbPress.

bbPress also offers hundreds of extensions that can add functionality. A few random ones are listed here:

  • bbPress Moderation- Adds the ability to approve new topics and replies to bbPress. This helps reduce spam by changing the subject's status from "pending" to "approved".
  • GD bbPress Attachments- Allows readers to download topic attachments and responses through the library. File size may be limited, and images may be presented in vignettes. It is also compatible with BuddyPress. The pro version offers improved applications and additional widgets that can be used.
  • bbPress Votes- Allows users to vote up or down on a topic or replies on bbPress. This plugin also works with BuddyPress.

BuddyPress and bbPress integration

Communities you add to your blog with BuddyPress can allow members to discuss in a forum created within the community. You can have many forums within one community network. For forums operating in public networks, you should use BuddyPress and bbPress together.

As mentioned earlier, forums can be viewed by any member of any group. To restrict access and organize forums and communities on your blog, you must:

  • Assign forums to a parent group.
  • Allow bbPress to have groups.

Once you have installed, enabled and configured the two plugins, visit the bbPress options to create a forum for a group or parents on all forums used by BuddyPress. Set the attribute in the Categories field and publish.

Go to bbPress settings, perform BuddyPress integration, and enter the name of the BuddyPress forum you just created. Saving settings. When creating new groups, you must enable each group to create its own forum.

If you don't have existing groups, go to " Groups>Add Follow the setup instructions new group. Be sure to check the box that allows the group to have a forum. For existing groups, see Settings under Group Forums and check the box to allow each group to create forums. Save all changes.

The group menu now displays a Forum option which will allow the admin or members to use it to create new forums on various topics.

That's it, I hope this helps you understand how to integrate bbPress and BuddyPress together.

You may have come across BuddyPress before without even knowing it. Have you ever visited Kobe Bryant's website? Or to the Daily Telegraph community site? They all use BuddyPress. The University of British Columbia uses BuddyPress to implement a powerful learning website. If you've ever been stuck choosing knitting needles and yarn, check out Feel The Yarn - it's also powered by BuddyPress.

In reality, BuddyPress is just a regular plugin designed for WordPress. After BuddyPress activation the site is completely transformed - it becomes beautiful social environment, in which users can find new friends, share materials with them, and maintain their contacts and connections.

BuddyPress allows users to create profiles, groups and forums, publish messages, and establish contacts with different people. If you are interested in history, BuddyPress plugin was purchased by Automattic from its developer Andy Peatling in March 2008. This was done to add capabilities social networks to WordPress multisites. The first release came out in May 2009, and since then a small team of developers led by John James Jacoby has continued what Peatling started. Latest on this moment BuddyPress version 1.7.1 was released in April.

What features does BuddyPress have?

In general, BuddyPress has a set of features that you can transfer to your site by simply checking the necessary boxes. Here are some of them:

  • Advanced Profiles. Members of your site can use fully editable profile fields to describe themselves.
  • Account settings. Allows your users to change their account and notification settings directly from their profiles.
  • Connect with friends. Site members can use this option to create a friends list, similar to popular social networks.
  • Private messages. Allow community members to communicate directly with each other.
  • Activity. Output of global activity, personal activity and activity in groups, supplemented by tree-like commenting, direct posting, selected materials and @mentions.
  • Group of users. Allows members to create groups where they can share information on a related topic.
  • Action tracking. Activity tracking for new posts and comments on the site.

Why should I use BuddyPress?

BuddyPress was designed to bring people together. In this context it may be useful for:

  • Universities interested in creating social networks for their students;
  • Companies wishing to provide their employees with means for internal communication;
  • Sports teams and various interest clubs;

BuddyPress is constantly evolving. Since version 1.0, BuddyPress has undergone many changes. Hundreds of different developers, designers and active community members have spent thousands of hours perfecting the plugin.

The plugin can be easily customized. The latest version of the plugin is fully compatible with any WordPress theme. You can choose which social opportunities you need on the site.

If you want to fine-tune your social network in detail, you can use additional plugins, which I will discuss later.

Launching and Setting Up BuddyPress

Getting started with BuddyPress is as easy as installing and activating any plugin. Before you start working with BP, make sure that your hosting meets some minimum requirements:

  • Working build of WordPress
  • PHP version 5.2.4 and higher
  • MySQL 5.0 and higher
  • Mod_rewrite Apache plugin
  • WordPress must be installed manually, i.e. via s/FTP, file manager And similar methods, but not through hosting scripts (fantastico, softalicious, etc.), which can cause problems when working with BuddyPress.
  • BuddyPress does not work with builds where WP is installed in a subfolder.

With version 1.7, the plugin installation process has changed slightly. Previously, you had to make numerous settings in step by step wizard installations. Now everything has become a little different:

Go to the console, select the Plugins > Add New section. In the search we find the BuddyPress plugin, and then install it. Installation will take a minute. After installation, click on the Activate Plugin link.

In principle, the installation is complete.

Okay, almost done. After activation, you will receive a standard BP build, in which only the two most popular features will be activated: advanced profiles and activity.

Go to the very bottom of the Getting Started page and click on the Go to the BuddyPress Settings page link to set up your social network.

Go to Settings > BuddyPress > Pages to create pages where new users of your site will register and activate their accounts.

Don't forget to go to Settings > General and select Anyone can register to open registration on the site.

Users will log into your site through the www.yourwebsite.com/wp-login.php page.

You can add any settings you want.

If all features are enabled, logged in users will be able to change their profiles, add avatars, edit information about themselves, change their account, view other members' profiles, send private messages, and create groups that other people can join.

Forums

To create forums in BuddyPress, a separate bbPress plugin is used. It is installed similarly to BuddyPress itself:

  1. Find bbPress in the library.
  2. Install the plugin.
  3. Activate the plugin.

The welcome screen appears. Scroll to the bottom and click Go to Forum Settings. Here you can already choose what settings you require for your forums.

Plugins

There are many different plugins that can help you significantly simplify your work with BuddyPress and make your site an attractive space for users to interact with. There are plugins for creating wiki encyclopedias, live chats, servicing events in groups, organizing members, creating group mailings, etc.

You can find the necessary plugins in the official catalog on BuddyPress.org.

Unfortunately, one of known issues all BuddyPress sites – active spam. Before installing BP, be sure to install some kind of antispam plugin.

Themes for BuddyPress

Before version 1.7, finding topics for BP was a bit of a problem. Previously, you had to install a special theme for BP, and then shell out some money to make it compatible with WordPress.

Those days are gone because BuddyPress now works with any WP theme.

However, it is worth remembering that there are still themes developed directly for BP, which have some specific functionality and styling. In some cases they may be preferable.

The Future of BuddyPress

At last count, the number BuddyPress installations in the world was 1,476,531. Without a doubt, this number will grow rapidly in the context latest changes– read: adding theme compatibility – in version 1.7.

In versions 1.8 and 1.9, you can expect a special API that will allow you to use BuddyPress content on different platforms, including on mobile phones and tablets.

17.08.2018

Hello! Ilya Zhuravlev is in touch, today I will sort it out super pluginBuddyPress, which is designed to create a social network. Yes, these are not just words, you can create your own social network! And I’ll just help you and tell you how to do it. After a little digging into the plugin, I realized that it is very simple and cool, respect to the developers, it’s really cool. Not everyone manages to fully understand this plugin, because not everyone is ready to devote their time to studying the plugin, but there’s nothing special to study here, everything is just like twice two. Plugin features:

Plugin on In Russian, everything is simple and clear!

The plugin automatically creates the necessary and already configured pages!

Activity feed where displayed records of all social network participants.

All users will be able to upload their profile photos and covers for groups.

Can be customized registration page, select which fields should be displayed.

In general, everything is there like in a full-fledged social network!

You can install the plugin directly from the WordPress admin panel. Go to the tab: Plugins - Add new, enter the name of the plugin in the search form, press Enter, install and activate the plugin.

After installing and activating the plugin, you will be taken to the page: Welcome to BuddyPress. Here you can read information about the plugin.

Note that: BuddyPress looks and performs significantly better with the Twenty Thirteen and expected Twenty Sixteen themes. But, of course, the plugin can be used on any wordpress topic.

Plugin settings

To configure the plugin, go to the page: Settings - BuddyPress.

Components, here you can enable or disable features for your social network. Be sure to read the designation of all functions to better understand the capabilities of your social network. We recommend enabling all features to provide the best possible experience for your users. After enabling the features - Save settings.

Pages, here you can configure required pages for your social network. When activating the plugin, all the necessary pages should have been created automatically. Check that they correspond to the pages specified in these settings. You can change the name of the pages; I’ll tell you about each page a little later. Save your settings.

Settings, Here you can configure the basic settings of your social network. The settings are quite simple and clear, so I don’t see the point in describing them. Read the description for each parameter and you will understand everything, there is nothing complicated here. I recommend checking all the boxes.

Pages

You should have 5 main pages created for normal functioning your social network. Make sure that pages appear in your theme's menu, on page Appearance— Menu. You can specify any page as home page, on the page: Settings - Reading.

Activity, on the Activity or Activity Feed page, the latest published posts from the entire social network will be displayed. Here you can publish posts that all users of the social network will see.

Users, On the Users page, you can view users using a search filter or simply search. If you select a filter - Activity, then all active users who are currently on the site will be shown.

Groups, the Groups page will display all created groups. Here you can also search for groups using a filter. Tabs are displayed here for - Create a group, to go to the page - My groups, and All groups.

Registration, On the Registration page, any user can register and create their account. You can either add a registration page to the menu or use the login and registration widget. If you use a widget, then the Registration page must be removed from the menu so that it is not displayed in the menu, but is present on the site. Registration fields can be customized, I’ll talk about this a little later. By default, the necessary, standard fields for registration are configured. When checking your registration, do not forget to log out of your account.

Activity

In the WordPress admin panel, on the Activity page, will be displayed Last messages and notifications about social network activity. For example, if someone has changed their profile picture, a notification about this will appear on this page, etc. You can use the filter and see specific actions that were made on the social network.

Groups

In the WordPress admin panel, on the Groups page, all created groups on the social network will be displayed. You will be able to view and edit groups. To create a new group, click on the button at the top - Add.

After clicking the Add button, you will see a page for creating a new group. Enter the name and description of the group, click on the button - Create a group and continue.

Next, in Settings you can specify the group type, public, private or hidden. You can specify which members of this group will be able to invite other users. Click on the button - Next step.

Next, you can upload your group's profile picture, which will be displayed as a profile picture. Drag the image into a special selected window, adjust the area of ​​the image and click on the Crop button.

After adding a profile picture, click on the button - Next step.

On last page, read the notification and click on the button - Finish.

That's it, the group is ready! On the group page, you can manage the group by clicking on the Manage button, configure the group, change images, view users, etc.

Users

On the page: Users - Registration management, you will be able to view registered users. Users who have not yet verified their account will also be displayed here.

Profile fields

On the Profile Fields page, you will be able to change the fields that appear on the Registration page. You can change the location of fields by simply dragging the field with the mouse. You can specify a required field or not, except for the required ones by default. You can customize the visibility of fields for specific users. You can select the field type, etc.

You can add new fields if you want, for example, on the account creation page to display any additional fields, phone number, city, age, gender, etc. All newly created fields will appear on the Registration and Account Creation page.

Widgets

On the Widgets page, you will have 7 new widgets for your social network.

Groups, dynamic list of groups. The widget will display active, popular and new groups.

Who's online Avatars of users who are currently online will be displayed.

Recently active displaying avatars of recently active users.

Ads, Site administrator announcements will be displayed here for all users.

Users, dynamic list of active, popular and new users.

Friends, a dynamic list of active and popular friends, shown for a specific user on his profile page.

Tools

On the page: Tools - BuddyPress, you can use tools for calculating and restoring data on your social network. It is not recommended to run multiple processes at the same time.

16.08.2018

Hello! Ilya Zhuravlev is in touch, today I will be disassembling a super plugin - BuddyPress, which is designed to create a social network. Yes, these are not just words, you can create your own social network! And I’ll just help you and tell you how to do it. After a little digging into the plugin, I realized that it is very simple and cool, respect to the developers, it’s really cool. Not everyone manages to fully understand this plugin, because not everyone is ready to devote their time to studying the plugin, but there’s nothing special to study here, everything is just like twice two. Plugin features:

Plugin in Russian, everything is simple and clear!

The plugin automatically creates the necessary and already configured pages!

Activity feed where displayed records of all social network participants.

All users will be able to upload their profile photos and covers for groups.

You can customize the registration page, select which fields should be displayed.

In general, everything is there like in a full-fledged social network!

You can install the plugin directly from the WordPress admin panel. Go to the tab: Plugins - Add new, enter the name of the plugin in the search form, press Enter, install and activate the plugin.

After installing and activating the plugin, you will be taken to the page: Welcome to BuddyPress. Here you can read information about the plugin.

Note that: BuddyPress looks and performs significantly better with the Twenty Thirteen and expected Twenty Sixteen themes. But, of course, the plugin can be used on any WordPress theme.

Plugin settings

To configure the plugin, go to the page: Settings - BuddyPress.

Components, here you can enable or disable features for your social network. Be sure to read the designation of all functions to better understand the capabilities of your social network. We recommend enabling all features to provide the best possible experience for your users. After enabling the features - Save settings.

Pages, Here you can set up the necessary pages for your social network. When activating the plugin, all the necessary pages should have been created automatically. Check that they correspond to the pages specified in these settings. You can change the name of the pages; I’ll tell you about each page a little later. Save your settings.

Settings, Here you can configure the basic settings of your social network. The settings are quite simple and clear, so I don’t see the point in describing them. Read the description for each parameter and you will understand everything, there is nothing complicated here. I recommend checking all the boxes.

Pages

You must have 5 main pages created for the normal functioning of your social network. Make sure that pages appear in your theme's menu, on the Appearance - Menus page. You can specify any page as the main page on the page: Settings - Reading.

Activity, on the Activity or Activity Feed page, the latest published posts from the entire social network will be displayed. Here you can publish posts that all users of the social network will see.

Users, On the Users page, you can view users using a search filter or simply search. If you select a filter - Activity, then all active users who are currently on the site will be shown.

Groups, the Groups page will display all created groups. Here you can also search for groups using a filter. Tabs are displayed here for - Create a group, to go to the page - My groups, and All groups.

Registration, On the Registration page, any user can register and create their account. You can either add a registration page to the menu or use the login and registration widget. If you use a widget, then the Registration page must be removed from the menu so that it is not displayed in the menu, but is present on the site. Registration fields can be customized, I’ll talk about this a little later. By default, the necessary, standard fields for registration are configured. When checking your registration, be sure to log out of your account.

Activity

In the WordPress admin panel, on the Activity page, the latest messages and notifications about activity on the social network will be displayed. For example, if someone has changed their profile picture, a notification about this will appear on this page, etc. You can use the filter and see specific actions that were made on the social network.

Groups

In the WordPress admin panel, on the Groups page, all created groups on the social network will be displayed. You will be able to view and edit groups. To create a new group, click on the button at the top - Add.

After clicking the Add button, you will see a page for creating a new group. Enter the name and description of the group, click on the button - Create a group and continue.

Next, in Settings you can specify the group type, public, private or hidden. You can specify which members of this group will be able to invite other users. Click on the button - Next step.

Next, you can upload your group's profile picture, which will be displayed as a profile picture. Drag the image into a special selected window, adjust the area of ​​the image and click on the Crop button.

After adding a profile picture, click on the button - Next step.

On the last page, read the notice and click on the button - Finish.

That's it, the group is ready! On the group page, you can manage the group by clicking on the Manage button, configure the group, change images, view users, etc.

Users

On the page: Users - Registration management, you will be able to view registered users. Users who have not yet verified their account will also be displayed here.

Profile fields

On the Profile Fields page, you will be able to change the fields that appear on the Registration page. You can change the location of fields by simply dragging the field with the mouse. You can specify a required field or not, except for the required ones by default. You can customize the visibility of fields for specific users. You can select the field type, etc.

You can add new fields if you want, for example, on the account creation page to display any additional fields, phone number, city, age, gender, etc. All newly created fields will appear on the Registration and Account Creation page.

Widgets

On the Widgets page, you will have 7 new widgets for your social network.

Groups, dynamic list of groups. The widget will display active, popular and new groups.

Who's online Avatars of users who are currently online will be displayed.

Recently active displaying avatars of recently active users.

Ads, Site administrator announcements will be displayed here for all users.

Users, dynamic list of active, popular and new users.

Friends, a dynamic list of active and popular friends, shown for a specific user on his profile page.

Tools

On the page: Tools - BuddyPress, you can use tools for calculating and restoring data on your social network. It is not recommended to run multiple processes at the same time.

Turning your WordPress site into a community with BuddyPress has never been easier, thanks to improvements to latest versions this wonderful social plugin.

BuddyPress works great with a huge amount free and paid themes, and BuddyPress components also look great in responsive themes.

If you want to turn your site into a community of users and add social networking capabilities to it, free plugin BuddyPress makes this possible. In this article, I will show you how to install and configure BuddyPress on your website. You'll learn how to create pages for BuddyPress, how to add them to your menu and widgets, and how to test your site using test data.

If you want to know more about BuddyPress, you can use the official BP website; We also offer a lot of different articles about BuddyPress.

Installing BuddyPress

The first thing you will need to do is install the BuddyPress plugin. I'll be installing it on a fresh build of WordPress, but you can install it on an existing site.

In your WordPress admin panel, go to Plugins > Add New and you will see BuddyPress in the list of available plugins. Click on the Install button, then Activate, and the plugin will be installed on your site.

You will immediately see the BuddyPress welcome screen:

BuddyPress Configuration

There are three aspects to setting up BuddyPress:

  • Selecting the required components
  • Creating Pages
  • Change settings

You should start with the selection of components, as this will affect other parameters.

Activating BuddyPress components

To select the components you want to use, either click the Set Up Components link on the Welcome screen, or go to Settings > BuddyPress and activate the Components tab.

By default, some components will already be selected for you:

Depending on what exactly you need to organize your community, you can choose the following items:

  • Extended Profiles: Modifies user profiles and customizes available fields
  • Account Settings: Allows users to edit their account.
  • Friend Connections: Allows users to connect with each other.
  • Private Messaging: Allows users to send private messages
  • Activity Streams: displays an activity stream on the site with direct posting to the frontend, tree-like comments, mentions and email notifications.
  • Notifications: Your users will be able to receive notifications about last activity in the way they choose for themselves.
  • User Groups: Allows you to create user groups
  • Site Tracking: allows you to track events on the site (posts and comments)
  • BuddyPress Core: You cannot cancel this component, without it BuddyPress will not work
  • Community Members: Again, without this component BuddyPress will not work.

You can choose any of these components for your site, or add them later if you decide to expand your community.

I will select all the components for this tutorial because I want to demonstrate them all to you. You can select only the ones you require. After you do this, click on the Save Settings button.

Setting up pages

The next step is setting up the pages that BuddyPress will use. Before moving to the Pages tab, you will need to create several pages: for registration and activation.

Note: If your community is private and people cannot register accounts (you add users manually), you can skip this step.

IN WordPress admin go to the Pages > Add New section and create two pages, as we always do. Let's call one Registration, and the second Activation (you can give them any other names).

Once you do this, you will see all these pages in the main page list. BuddyPress has already added two other pages for you: Activity and Members. I deleted standard page Sample Page, so I have four pages at the moment.

Now that all the pages are created, you can set them up for BuddyPress.

Go to Settings > BuddyPress and click on the Pages tab.

Select pages for each function:

  • Members – select Members
  • Activity Streams – select Activity
  • User Groups – select Groups
  • Register – select Registration
  • Activate – select Activation

Click on the Save Settings button. BuddyPress will automatically use these pages to display relevant content on your site.

Setting up parameters

Now that you've selected your components and created your pages, it's time to move on to configuring your BuddyPress settings.

Click on the Settings tab

This page has a ton of options that you can enable or disable:

  • Main Settings: you can turn on/off the toolbar at the very top of the screen for registered users, set whether users can delete their accounts themselves.
  • Profile Settings: You can allow participants to upload their own images for profile, synchronize BuddyPress profiles and WordPress.
  • Groups Settings: You can allow users to create groups, set whether users can change group avatars.
  • Activity Settings: You can allow commenting on blog and forum posts in the activity feed, and automatically update the activity feed in real time.

Select the items that correspond to your site, and then click on the Save Settings button. I have selected all options.

Setting up WordPress settings

Now that BuddyPress is set up, it's time to configure WordPress options. In the future we will add a navigation menu and widgets.

In the Settings menu in the WordPress admin panel, edit the following parameters:

  • Permalinks: Make sure nice permalinks are enabled
  • Reading: we make the home page a static page, namely an Activity page. This will ensure that when users open your site, they see fresh activity. I'll leave the Posts page option unchanged since I don't have a blog on my site. If you have one, select the appropriate page.

Note: If you are adding BuddyPress to an existing site and want to keep your existing home page, you don't have to set a static page as the main one. However, make sure that the Activity page can be easily found by users.

Change the settings and save the changes.

Installing a theme

Now you need to find a theme for your website. If you're working with an existing site, you can skip this step (if you're happy with your theme).

A few years ago, you could only use a BuddyPress compatible theme, and if you wanted to install the plugin in your own topic, you would have to add additional templates To her. There is no need to do this today. Since version 1.7, BuddyPress works great with any quality topic, although there are themes whose design and layout are not very suitable for BP.

I'll use the Spacious theme, which is free and has a clean design that highlights the content your users will be creating. It also has customization options, i.e. you can customize the design for yourself.

Go to Appearance > Themes and click on Add button New. We type spacious into the search field and see the topic:

Click Install and then Activate to install and activate the theme. If you want to customize the theme, you can do so through the theme options or through the customizer.

Adding menus and widgets for navigation

Creating a Navigation Menu

If your site doesn't have a navigation menu, you'll need to create one and link it to the main area of ​​your theme.

Go to the Appearance > Menus section and click on the link: create a new menu. Give the menu a name, check the box next to Primary Navigation and save it.

If you don't find a section called BuddyPress on the left side of the site, you will need to enable it by opening the Screen Options tab at the very top of the screen and selecting BuddyPress.

Now add BuddyPress pages and your regular pages V navigation menu. I have added the following pages:

  • Activity (with Messages and Notifications as second level links)
  • Friends
  • Groups
  • Profile (with Settings as a second level link)
  • Log Out
  • Log In
  • Registration

All of these items except the last one are taken from the BuddyPress list on the left: the Registration link is taken from the Pages list. I changed the link text for Registration to Join to make it clearer.

Now click Save Menu to save the menu.

This is what the site will look like with new topic and menu:

Then I'll add some widgets to display activity and help users navigate the site:

Adding widgets

I will be adding widgets to the sidebar and widget areas in the header, as well as 4 widget areas in the footer. If you're using a different theme, you most likely have different widget areas. It's also worth noting that the widgets you have available depend on the components activated at the very beginning.

Add the following widgets to the sidebar widget area:

  • BuddyPress Log In
  • BuddyPress Sitewide Notices
  • BuddyPress Friends

Add a Search widget to your header widget area if your theme has one. If not, you can add this widget to your sidebar.

This is what my widget areas look like:

  • BuddyPress Who's Online
  • BuddyPress Recently Active Members
  • BuddyPress Groups

Finally, let's add a text widget to the fourth widget area with some text about the community and a link to the registration page:

Now my site looks like the screenshot below:

Everything is empty at the moment. Hopefully as the community grows my members will add content to it over time and the community will feel more vibrant, but for now I'll add some dummy data that will allow me to test the site.

Testing the site using fictitious data

Before you launch a BuddyPress community, especially if you make it available to the public or charge for membership, you will need to test it with dummy data.

You can use a plugin that generates such data on your site and will add content to all BuddyPress pages. Once you understand that the site is working properly, you can remove all bogus content, i.e. your users won't see it.

Go to the Plugins > Add New section and install BuddyPress Default Data.

The options listed here depend on the BuddyPress components that are installed on your site:

  • Import Users: includes dummy users for testing
  • Import user profile data: Adds profile data for users
  • Create friend connections: creates friendship connections between users (if the Friend Connections component is enabled).
  • Import activity posts: fills the activity feed (if Activity Streams is enabled).
  • Import groups: Imports groups (if User groups is enabled).

Click Import Selected Data and the plugin will automatically import the dummy data for you.

This is what my site looks like after filling it with test data:

Footer widgets also look better once the site is populated with users and groups.

If you have tested all the pages and found everything to be working fine, you can delete the test data by returning to the plugin page and clicking Clear button BuddyPress Data.

BuddyPress Site Management

Now that your website is in order, you can promote it and attract people in every possible way. What you do will depend on the nature of your community: if your site is built for a small, pre-existing group or team, this will be relatively easy; if it was created for an already existing community, then you will just need to talk about it; If you want to reach a wider audience or sell memberships, then you will need a more thoughtful marketing plan.

Once people start joining the community, you will need to complete the following tasks:

  • Keep your site up to date, including WordPress, the BuddyPress plugin, your theme, and any other plugins installed.
  • Test the site after the update so that there are no problems (first it is better to test the update on the development version of the site, and then install it on the production version).
  • Make regular backups using plugins such as Snapshot Pro
  • If necessary, moderate the community and resolve any complaints and disputes

As your community grows in size, moderation will become a very important activity. It is best to define some community standards or rules in advance by creating a page on the site for them. This may include instructions regarding spam, trolling, swearing, attacks, spam links, downloads, etc. What you include is up to you and your community, and may be added to over time.

As an administrator, you can delete user accounts if they violate the community rules, but it is best to delete certain posts and prevent any actions that violate the rules by explaining to the user exactly what they did wrong. You have to find a balance between preventing unwanted behavior and blocking everyone - if you've followed the rise of Facebook and Twitter, then you know what I'm talking about.

If you find that the metadata associated with your community is out of order after updating or restoring, you can use the BuddyPress Tools page to correct specific data:

  • Number of friends for each user
  • Number of groups for each user
  • Total number of participants
  • Restoring a user's "last activity"

Use these tools only when necessary as they make some adjustments to the database. It's best to first set the site to Maintenance and make a backup.







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