The core BuddyPress team and other volunteer developers have been working hard on BuddyPress 1.3 since February of 2010. They have released 9 point releases since then and the next release will be a major update, so they will be skipping versions and releasing the next version as BuddyPress 1.5, instead of 1.3.

There has been a lot of work put into 1.5:

• 792 tickets closed
• 494 confirmed bug fixes
• 2,161 total code changes since 1.2 was released

1.5 has been officially released as beta  [read more →]

The combination of WordPress, BuddyPress and all of your plugins can sometimes lead to a slow website. What follows is the ultimate guide to speeding up your BuddyPress site. In combination, the techniques described below will dramatically improve your page load speed. Some of these methods are easy to implement while others are more difficult. Just do what you feel comfortable with.

The Basics
Stay up to date

WordPress and plugin authors regularly release updates which you can download by going into Dashboard  [read more →]

Today we updated BuddyBoss, our premium BuddyPress theme, to version 1.1.3. This update is necessary for compatibility with WordPress 3.2 and BuddyPress 1.2.9. It also brings a highly requested feature, optional widget areas for all of the BuddyPress directories (Members, Groups, Forums, Blogs, Activity), as well as several bug fixes and improvements.

There are a number of edited files in this update. If you are only concerned with WP/BP compatibility and do not want to apply the other updates, then you only  [read more →]

We highly suggest learning about and using a “child theme” to ensure easy updating of your BuddyBoss theme. As powerful and polished as the theme is today, it will only get better as time goes on and we want you to be able to take advantage of future updates.

Without a child theme, you have to edit the core theme files to makes edits to the theme. However, when we release an update to the theme you will have to figure  [read more →]

When you first install BuddyPress into your WordPress site, it only comes with the default theme.  To make your site truly our own, you may want to install a theme to enhance the look of your site and make it unique.  Below is a list of BuddyPress themes whose designs impressed us.  All of these themes are free to download and install on your site.

BuddyBase | Demo | Download

BuddyBasic is a streamlined  [read more →]

The BuddyBoss theme for BuddyPress adds a Facebook-style “Wall” to user profiles. Users can post status updates, reply on each other’s walls, and even embed videos to their Wall.

BuddyPress can be confusing out of the box. The whole “@mentions” system is unfamiliar and requires a learning curve. Your users are already comfortable with Facebook and they intuitively understand how it works. Why should BuddyPress make them relearn everything? With BuddyBoss, they don’t have to. We are  [read more →]

BuddyBoss is the most elegant and user-friendly theme to ever exist for BuddyPress. Features include Facebook-style wall posts, intuitive groups and forums integration, and a super easy signup process.

Credits go to Piotr Kaluza of Blue Hornet Studios for developing the “Wall Component”.

Buy it now for only $59.95 →

Michael spoke with Paul Gibbs about the future of BuddyPress and working as a Core Developer. Paul enjoys speaking at WordCamps, crafting code, and helping people. He provides consultancy on projects and designs custom plugins. You can contact Paul for custom work at paul@byotos.com, in #buddypress-dev on freenode, or on twitter as @pgibbs.

Michael Eisenwasser: What has it been like transitioning from a contributor to a core developer?

Paul Gibbs: It’s been huge fun! I had contributed considerable time to  [read more →]

BuddyPress is updated by an active community of developers on a regular release cycle. Today version 1.2.7 was officially released to the public and is now available for download. This is a maintenance release and is recommended for all users.

Before upgrading your BuddyPress website, make sure to back up your database and files, and deactivate all BuddyPress-dependent plugins. If you are not doing regular backups of your database yet, I recommend installing WordPress Database Backup. Then navigate to Tools > Backup  [read more →]

If you have Activity enabled on your BuddyPress site, you will notice that Activity is the default landing page for user profiles. However for many sites it makes more sense to keep the public Profile page as the user landing page. It’s actually pretty simple to implement. We just need to reorder the tabs so Profile comes before Activity, and set Profile as the default tab.

If you don’t have one already, create a file in your plugins folder called bp-custom.php. Don’t  [read more →]