buddypress and the future of wordpress plugins

and the Future of WordPress Plugins

by Mark Jaquith

markjaquith.comcoveredwebservices.com

@markjaquith

Saturday, September 26, 2009

BP 1.1 FTW

Saturday, September 26, 2009

What is BuddyPress?

•a WordPress MU plugin

•a “social layer”

•extensible

•fond of eating its own dog food

•under your control

Saturday, September 26, 2009

What it can do• Extended

Profiles

• Private Messaging

• Friends

• Blogs

• Groups

• Wire

• Activity Streams

• Forums

• Status updates

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Cafeteria Style

• Use only what you want

• Could just use it for extended profiles

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Installation•Install WPMU (2.8.4a currently)

•Use plugin installer to install BuddyPress

•Set up themes

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Theme SetupFor WPMU 2.8.x:

Add the themes to your themes dir:

$ cd wp-content/themes/$ ln -s ../plugins/buddypress/bp-themes/bp-sn-parent bp-sn-parent$ ln -s ../plugins/buddypress/bp-themes/bp-default bp-default

Future versions of WPMU (2.9+) will skip this step by allowing BP to tell WPMU about its default themes.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Theme SetupEnable your BP theme in WPMU Site Admin, for the main blog

Activate the BP Members theme for the site's main blog

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Core Files Theme Files

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Pretty URLs http://bp.site/members/mark/skills/edit/buddypress/seattle

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Pretty URLs http://bp.site/members/mark/skills/edit/buddypress/seattle

$bp['current_component']

$bp['current_action']

$bp['action_variables'][0]

$bp['action_variables'][1]

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Adding Menusbp_core_new_nav_item( array( 'name' => __('Item Name', 'i18n-domain'), 'slug' => 'item-slug', 'position' => 50, 'show_for_displayed_user' => true, 'screen_function' => 'item_handler', 'default_subnav_slug' => 'index', 'item_css_id' => 'your-css-id' ));

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Adding Submenus

bp_core_new_subnav_item( array( 'name' => __( 'Child', 'i18n-domain' ), 'slug' => 'child-slug', 'parent_url' => $bp->loggedin_user->domain . '/item-slug', 'parent_slug' => 'item-slug', 'screen_function' => 'child_handler_function' ));

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Handlers

function handler_function() { // Logic here bp_core_load_template( 'item-name/index' ); // Loads item-name/index.php}

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Custom components

• Download the BP Skeleton Component

• Learn by doing

Saturday, September 26, 2009

BuddyPress 1.1

•Consolidated WP/BP themes

•Crazy-simple bbPress install

•Groups API

•more...

Saturday, September 26, 2009

bbPress

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Theme Architecture

•No more dual themes

•BP themes are WP child themes

Saturday, September 26, 2009

WP/WPMU Merge

•2010

•Will make BuddyPress available on any WordPress install

•Consolidation of developer resources

Saturday, September 26, 2009

BP Consulting•Nascent market

•Rapidly expanding demand

•Premium prices

•???

•Profit

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Plugins Today•Often single author

•High rate of abandonment

•Highly variable quality

•Unendorsed

•Multiple competing solutions

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Canonical Plugins

•Multi-author

•High quality

•Supported

•Implicit endorsement

Saturday, September 26, 2009