BuddyPress recently had a change in its theming architecture and is now utilizing child themes. The installation process remains quite simple. We will do a feature on BuddyPress theming in the near future to cover that in more depth. This guide covers the basics of getting BuddyPress up and running.

This tutorial uses:
WPMU Version 2.8.5.2
BuddyPress Version 1.1.2

Install WPMU.

Go to your Plugins menu in the dashboard of your installation, click “Add New.” Search for and download BuddyPress

Activate the plugin: Plugins >> Installed

Open up your FTP client and navigate to wp-content/plugins/buddypress/bp-themes/ . You will need to move these two directories: “bp-default” and “bp-sn-parent” to the wp-content/themes folder.

Activate the default BuddyPress theme by going to Site Admin > Themes in your dashboard. Select “Yes” next to “BuddyPress Default Theme”. Then you can activate the theme by going to Appearance > Themes. You should now see it listed there and just click activate.

Congratulations, you now have BuddyPress fully installed and activated!

BuddyPress Installation Screencast:

Painless, right?

How do you set up Forums?

This used to be a huge pain in the ass, but now it’s a one click install. My jaw dropped when I first heard about this, because you can spend an entire evening pulling your hair out over a bbPress integration. Your life just got one million times better. Adding a bbPress to your installation is so easy. Yes, anyone can do it:

Go to Dashboard > BuddyPress > Forums Setup. Click the button to install a new forum or integrate an existing forum.

What to do next?

Check out your Buddypress options at: Dashboard > BuddyPress. From here you will be able to select options pertinent to wordpress profile syncing, avatar uploads, admin bar, member permissions, and profile fields. You can also select components of the plugin that you’d like to enable or disable, depending on the needs of your community.

Your page is going to look a little empty because you need to add widgets to your front page. Go to Appearance > Widgets and drag and drop the BuddyPress widgets where you want them. Click save on each and refresh your homepage to see the changes.

How do I Uninstall BuddyPress?

Maybe you installed BuddyPress but decided against it and want to completely remove it from your installation. There is no simple Uninstall button. You will need to follow these steps to make sure that all the files are removed and there is no trace of it left in the database:

Step 1. Change your site’s theme to a non-buddypress theme.
Step 2. Deactive the BuddyPress plugin
Step 3. Remove the plugin files.
Step 4. Remove the BuddyPress themes you added to the wp-content directory
Step 5. Remove the wp_bp_* tables from the database. You can find all of these tables using phpmyadmin and then just check them and click drop. Or you can drop them by running queries similar to this:
DROP TABLE bp_activity_sitewide ;
DROP TABLE bp_activity_user_activity ;
DROP TABLE bp_activity_user_activity_cached ;
DROP TABLE bp_friends ;
DROP TABLE bp_groups ;
…and so on for all the BuddyPress tables.

How can I set up BuddyPress Locally?

There are some simple steps outlined at the buddypress.org website, along with a screencast:
http://codex.buddypress.org/getting-started/setting-up-a-new-installation/

Where can I find plugins to extend BuddyPress?

http://buddypress.org/extend/plugins/
http://premium.wpmudev.org
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q=buddypress

How do I install a BuddyPress Theme?

A quick tutorial can be found here:
http://wpmu.org/how-to-install-buddypress-themes/

Where can I go for troubleshooting my installation?

Common BuddyPress Issues and Errors:
http://webdevstudios.com/blog/how-to-install-buddypress-and-common-troubleshooting-tips/

bbPress Forums:
http://bbpress.org/forums

BuddyPress Forums:
http://buddypress.org/forums

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I was checking out the Commercial theme listings at WordPress.org the other day and was pretty pleased to read what must amount to the clearest, most definitive and straightforward overview of what it means to sell WP (and, by definition, WPMU, BuddyPress and bbPress stuff too):

“While our directory is full of fantastic themes, sometimes people want to use something that they know has support behind it, and don’t mind paying for that. Contrary to popular belief, GPL doesn’t say that everything must be zero-cost, just that when you receive the software or theme that it not restrict your freedoms in how you use it.”*

As I said, it was nice to see .org acknowledging not only that it’s totally OK to sell themes (and by definition plugins and so on) and pointing out one of the major reasons why people choose to use Premium themes – provided of course they are GPL. And that, in fact, by releasing these plugins as GPL we are supporting “open source, WordPress, and its GPL license”.

Especially so, as it allows me segue to not ‘whether it’s ok’ for people to sell plugins and themes for WordPress – but why, in fact, it freaking rocks out, because you’d better believe me, premium plugins and themes are the future of WordPress.

Why is that, I hear you ask, well, let me fill you in…

WordPress ‘aint just for your blog any more

Sure, when WP started out, the idea that it was for much more than a regular blog was a bit of a big deal, you got attention for saying it was killing Dreamweaver or similar (well, at least I did ;)

WordPress now powers major cultural, commercial and political sites, in a big way, and the people who run those sites categorically do not want to be at the mercy of someone who, most likely in their free time, may or may not choose to support, maintain or assist with the functionality they are using.

Premium themes and plugins offer guaranteed maintenance, support, upgrades and extended features… that’s just something people want, you just can’t deny it, and you can’t stop people wanting it either.

Voluntarily supported plugins and themes are all good for people pursuing a hobby, but when it gets bigger than that, more is required… and few are the organizations that will want to hire a FT WP developer, talking of which…

Developers have to eat too…

I am sick to the hind teeth with this assumption that WordPress plugin and theme developers should be perfectly happy to give up their evenings and weekends, or row with their work over the legitimacy of sharing, and that that should be what drives WP.

Sure, this was largely the case when WP kicked off, and people were finding their own personal uses for it, but if you want a platform like WordPress to grow as it has done you simply cannot ignore the commercial side of things.

Matt, to his credit in my opinion and to WP’s great benefit, has never lost sight of the commercial imperative and WP is now supported not by (or hardly by) people doing it just out of love but but an 8 figure valued, venture capital backed, commercially motivated organization.

Which is great.

And is exactly what all plugin and theme developers who want to succeed need to take note of, let’s make a living, heck, let’s make some money…

… but not by client work!

Because it’s too damn hard, too damn unreliable, too damn tricky to get and too damn un-extensible (if that’s even a word :)

What I mean is take your earnings learnings from ‘mattic… they make their money out of (I’m guessing here in terms of order):

1. Advertising on wp.com – It just grows and grows
2. VIP hosting – Basically recurring hosting
3. WordPress.com upgrades – You got it, no extra effort required to sell 1 or 10,000
4. Miscellaneous stuff like Akismet, TalkPress etc.

Which is exactly how plugin and theme authors should be able to work, because it rocks out, because it’ll attract the best and the cleverest and because it’s an extensible, sustainable and manageable future that will bring about the most improvements in WordPress.

Improvements which, IMHO, will far transcend the current functionality available to WordPress.

Systems need to be in place where plugin and theme developers can concentrate on what they are good at – writing, developing and supporting great plugins and themes – and make a damn good living from that too.

And, do you know what’s even better, I have proof that I’m right, that those systems work, and, most importantly (keep on reading :) that it’s time you reconsidered throwing in the towel because boy do we have something for you.

This isn’t guess-work, it’s already working

You can disagree with me on anything I’ve previously said, but you can’t disagree with me over these statistics.

The Thesis theme affiliate program paid out over $100,000 before 2009! – That means before this year had even started, they’d made over USD$300k from selling just one theme!

Our WPMU DEV Premium site is an very successful example of how you can provide premium plugins (and themes) – I ‘aint going to go into specific numbers, but suffice to say that our members support forums now have many more posts in them than the regular MU forums!!!

And this has allowed us to develop and actively support over 100 plugins, themes and videos for WPMU and BuddyPress… and people actually thank us for it, a lot.

Why do they thank us, well, I think it’s because

WordPress users genuinely want premium plugins and themes

I remember someone boasting about the number of WordPress job queries on elance or a similar site, WordPress users want custom development, but they don’t necessarily want to (or they cant afford to) hire people to do it for them, yet alone in-house talent.

It’s crazy really, I mean if you want a Windows app you don’t go out and hire someone to write it, you find one that’s been developed and then buy it.

Sites like WPMU DEV Premium give users hundreds of thousands of $s worth of development, not to mention the expertise and support, for a very affordable fee.

There’s nothing wrong with that!

But how on earth, as a plugin author, do you get started with this?

That’s where WP Plugins comes in

It’s time that someone backed a premium plugin marketplace, and that’s what we intend to do with WP Plugins.

Launched as of today, we’re offering WordPress plugin authors all the tools they need to sell their plugins in the same way we do at WPMU DEV Premium, giving them the opportunity to get by on more than donations and be properly rewarded for their work.

All plugin authors need to do is:

1. Create a user account
2. Describe and upload your plugin
3. Set a price
4. If you wish… support it in the (automatically created) plugins forum

That’s the lot, it’s completely free, and the only fee is a flat 10% of any sales, to cover the hosting, development, support and ongoing management and development of the site.

You get to decide whether you want to offer simple downloads (for one payment) and/or ongoing upgrades and support (for a subscription).

Believe me, I think you’ll get more out of the subscription!!! But it’s up to you :)

We’ll host and develop the site (and features available on it) based on plugin authors requests and feedback and vet initial plugin code to make sure it’s up to scratch.

We’ll advertise your plugins through adsense, on wordpress related blogs and through other advertising networks, provide you with affiliate tools you can use to promote your own plugins and work our darndest to make sure you are a success.

And in doing so, I reckon we’ll be supporting WordPress in the best way we can.

So check out WP Plugins today, and sign up as a plugin author!

Or, even better, grab one of the premium plugins already on there :)

And be part of the future of WordPress.

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So, consider this my last ‘we’re getting picked on by Matt / Certain members of Automattic‘ post / flame / troll whatever you want to call it :)

But the fact of the matter is that just ‘not liking’ us has gone from disapproval to actively trying to damage us over the last few weeks, I mean the whole ‘getting rid of MU’ because of us was bad enough already, but just recently it’s started to get concrete… and I felt I just had to share it with you, to get it off my chest:

1. WPMUDEV.org (a free, GPL, plugins hosted site) is removed from the WordPress codex by Matt, without explanation.

2. Edublogs.org – the earliest surviving (and second largest by all accounts) WordPress MU site is removed from the mu.wordpress.org page (I asked Matt for comment, he just ignored me):

3. You now can’t leave a comment in the regular MU forums recommending one of our WPMU DEV Premium plugins (although other people get to spruce their paid downloads as much as they want!) without it getting deleted (unfortunately I can’t *prove* this, you’ll just have to take my word for it)

4. Despite the fact that we fulfill all the criteria and then some, we’re simply not allowed on the Commercial Themes directory. We don’t get any response from them, zero, zilch.

I even wrote one of those stoopid Haikus… sheesh I feel like such a Twatt!

5. We submitted a core security patch to BuddyPress the other day, privately, not making a big deal of it (like we could have) and forcing the latest release… we didn’t even get a mention :/

And, believe me, there’s  heap of other stuff, it’s just been building and building over time :(

So, all in all, we can take a hint, we’re not only not wanted, Matt actually wants to take the time to aggressively pursue us.

Despite the fact that he’s such an important person on the web, and is leading such a top company.

And despite the fact that we’re playing within the rules of the GPL, doing the ‘right thing’ wherever possible, providing valuable services to thousands and thousands of people (who seem to like what we provide for them!), promoting WordPress and ‘giving back’ left right and center.

As we have been for years, and years and years!

I mean, have we honestly done anything to deserve this kind of treatment?

But then again, what can you do?

Get over it I guess… hence I’m done with this whole bitching and complaining thing, and at least things are now 100% clear.

Now we just need to get on with doing what we do well, helping our customers out and building a great business regardless of the obstacles that get thrown is our way by the very people that you’d hope we could work well with, and stop playing these stupid games of personal politics.

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A few months back when we decided it was time to give WPMU.org (that’s this site) a facelift, we also decided that we needed to take Twitter seriously.

Unfortunately we didn’t have the ‘WPMU’ twitter feed…. so we plunged in with the oh so catchy WPMUORG name and started Tweeting away.

And, as you can see to the side of this post, we decided to get a cute background image too.. which I kinda like :)

And we did some other things too, namely we:

• Dedicated a good amount of ‘company time’ to Tweeting
• Started using the most excellent Tweet Spinner (I can’t recommend them highly enough, well worth $15 per month!)
• Started actively monitoring many many Twitter search feeds (for WPMU, WordPress MU etc.) to see if we could help people out with WPMU issues
• Set up Twitter Tools to work with this blog

And, after that, took it up a notch by:

• Actually hiring someone to manage tweets (Hi Sarah :)
• Adding in ‘Tweet This’ links at the bottom of each post
• Running a Twitter related competition (add us to your list and win a prize)

And what, you may ask were the net results?

Well, let me tell you… they have been pretty good.. check this out:

Yep, that’s right, our largest referring source is now Twitter!

After only a few months of (relatively) simple work!

Sure, as you can see, they don’t hang around as long as from other sites… but they are Twitter users, that’s understandable, and 3:08 is pretty decent all the same, and all in all you certainly can’t shake a stick at it.

Now, one of the reasons I thought I’d write this up is that it ‘confirms’ (to a degree) this RWW post on Twitter / Facebook brand recognition.

Especially this:

So, let me tell you this.

People do and will follow brands on Twitter – it’s worth investing your time and effort into it – and you will see results!

Which brings me back to that article, and the question ‘Where to from here’?

Well, the following, I think, answers that question pretty well:

At the moment we’re all about:

• Information
• Helping
• Chat

But I think we need to be much much more about:

• Exclusive deals and offers

And I reckon the same is probably true for any brand out there using Twitter… so we’ll give that a go, and let you know how we manage.

And of course, if you want to find out the results… of course the best thing you can probably do is follow WPMU.ORG on Twitter :)

Looking forward to any other ideas / thoughts.

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Download WPMU from http://mu.wordpress.org/download/ and unpack it.

If you want your WPMU installation in a subdirectory then rename the “wordpress-mu” folder to whatever you want. Upload the entire folder to your server. If you want your installation directly on the root then don’t worry about the folder. Simply upload all of the files inside (not the directory itself) to your server.

Create a MySQL database for WordPress MU on your web server, as well as a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it. (The screencast below has more detailed instructions on how to do this.)

Navigate to index.php at your domain and you will be presented with the install script:

http://example.com/index.php { Root Installation }
http://example.com/subdirectory/index.php { Subdirectory Installation }

You will see something like this:

Delete your .htaccess file and change permissions on the public_html and wp-content directories. If you’re using FileZilla for FireFTP or similar, just right click on the folders and check all the boxes to change to 777.

Select whether you want the blog addresses for the install to be subdomains or subdirectories. If you want subdomains you will need to ask your host to enable Wildcard DNS records for your site. Subdirectories do not require this. You won’t be able to change your choice later so do a little research to see what will be best for you.

Fill in your database name, username, and database password, as requested. You’ll probably want to leave database host as it is. Fill in your server address without any ‘www’s. Name your blog site and add your email.

If all goes well, you should see this happy screen reminding you to reset your directory permissions to 755:

Copy the password it generates for you and login. Immediately change your password to something better that you’ll remember.

You’re finished! Your site should be fully installed now. It will display the default theme and will look something like this:

At some point you’ll want to go to Site Admin >> Options and enable blog and user registrations. You may also want to test out creating a new blog by clicking on Site Admin >> Blogs >> Add a Blog. That will help you determine if your wildcard DNS is working, if you selected that option. Install a theme (please don’t be a ghost town installation!), add plugins, and start building your community. Once you get the hang of installing WPMU, you’ll be able to do it in under five minutes. I’ve created this short screencast that will essentially hold your hand for the entire process.

Our next Easy Install tutorial will cover how to get started with BuddyPress. Installing WPMU should now be the least of your worries. Bookmark this guide in case you need it again.

Extra Resources:

I’ve left out most of the troubleshooting instructions. If something goes sour with your database, PHP configuration, mod_rewrite, or other things that ought to be working, it probably means you have crappy hosting. You can find tips for fixing these things here:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WPMU

Need help deciding between a Subdomain or a Subdirectory Installation? Check out some SEO info here:
http://www.gottaquirk.com/2009/05/27/subdomains-vs-subdirectories-part-2/

Another Excellent Installation Screencast:
http://wpmudev.org/getting-started-with-wpmu/

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Great Post from Aaron Wall, including an image that… I reckon.. pretty much says it all.

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Essentially it allows you to check out the BuddyPress Fun, BuddyPress Community and BuddyPress Corporate themes – and of course we’ll be adding new ones there as they drop.

BuddyPress Premium Themes Rock Out

For added effect, check out our custom BuddyPress theme switcher in the right of each theme… ahhh, remind me of the old WP Theme switcher days! We’ll release that too shortly.

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1. Buddypress user gets a media menu.
2. They can upload videos, images and audio files seamlessly to their profiles. (Data will be stored on kaltura server)
3. All kaltura-data uploaded by a user will be visible to other users.
4. Data will be organized into videos, images and audio automatically.
5. Buddypress users won’t need separate Kaltura accounts to use media-rich features added by this component.
6. Only the Buddypress (Wordpess MU) admin needs a Kaltura partner ID. All user data will be associated with admin’s Kaltura partner account.
7. A local database at the buddypress installation keeps track of which users are uploading which files, which further deals with data-separation on a per member basis.

They’ve got a Live Demo up over HERE.

Download the media component HERE.

Activate it:

1. Unzip the folder. Inside you will find two directories: “rt-bp-kaltura-plugin” and “rt-bp-kaltura-theme”
2. Upload the plugin directory to: wp-content/plugins
3. Upload the theme directory to: wp-content/bp-themes/bp-members
4. Activate the plugin: Dashboard >> Plugins
5. Enter your Kaltura account in the settings: Dashboard >> Settings >> Kaltura Settings

I added it to one of my sites just to test it and I had zero issues. Sometimes you get a plugin with fantastic functionality but the interface looks like crap. Not so with this one – it’s perfect right out of the box!

The rtCamp team who developed this plugin is also working on privacy controls, album support, commenting, and caching support. A big thank you goes out to them for creating this much-needed component! Can’t wait to see how it evolves!

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Modify Your .htaccess File:

Get Apache working for you and kick them out at the door!

# BEGIN ANTISPAMBLOG REGISTRATION
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-signup\.php*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*yourdomain.com.* [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$
RewriteRule (.*) http://get-the-heck-out.com/ [R=301,L]
# END ANTISPAMBLOG REGISTRATION

Here’s what you do. Paste that into your .htacess file and modify “yourdomain.com” to match yours. Then change the “get-the-heck-out.com” link to wherever you want to send those nasty robots. How does it work? It grabs any post requests that come through your wp-signup.php and kicks them right out if it hasn’t been sent from a web page on your WPMU site or if it has an empty user agent string. Thank you again to D’arcy Norman for this tip!

Block IP Addresses:

Check your server logs to find out where they’re coming from and block their IP addresses in your .htaccess file:

order allow,deny
deny from 192.168.44.201
deny from 224.39.163.12
deny from 172.16.7.92
allow from all

or block a range of IP addresses:

order allow,deny
deny from 192.168.
deny from 10.0.0.
allow from all

Oh yeah and while you’re in there, if they’re hotlinking your images, here’s how you throw down:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://.*lame-bandwidth-theft\.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* – [F]

That will give a 403 Forbidden error to anyone trying to hotlink your images on lame-bandwidth-theft.com.

Plugins you can use:

WP Hashcash
This plugin is for WPMU. It gets rid of comment spam and has been modified to work on the signup page.

NoSpamNX
NoSpamNX will automatically add additional form fields which are hidden to the user when interacting with your site’s signup or comment forms. The additional fields are used to identify and block the spambots. You can mark them as spam, block them, put them in a queue for moderation or blacklist them.

Invisible Defender
Similar to NoSpamNX, this plugin adds additional fields with CSS to protect registration, login and comment forms . It performs checks for spambots and returns a 403 Forbidden error to them.

Terms of Service
This plugin can significantly reduce the number of splogs you get. It forces the user to have to tick the checkbox in agreement of terms of service before they can continue.

This is a good start. The bots are constantly learning and adapting their tactics to get past your best defenses. Please share any other methods you’ve used to banish splogs and we’ll all work together to continue issuing them death warrants.

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Sarah, not writing about WPMU

Sarah Gooding is a User Interface Designer/Developer with 11 years of experience, specialising in open source content management systems and social networking architecture.

She and her husband, Marion Gooding, operate Untame.net, a boutique digital marketing firm that offers full-service marketing initiatives from print collateral to enterprise class e-commerce websites.

And it’s a pleasure to have her writing and tweeting for WPMU.org – please feel free to drop a comment or two by one of her excellent posts and generally enjoy much improved WPMU ideas, tips, help and other stuff from now on :)

Some of Sarah’s work so far includes:

• WPMU for Entrepreneurs Part I and Part II
• 5 Useful Hacks and Code Snippets for BuddyPress and WPMU
• WPMU Eye Candy

Welcome Sarah!

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