BuddyPress For Dummies
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Product Description
Get your buddies together with BuddyPress and create your own social community
Got a cause, a hobby, or some other obsession you can't wait to share with a like-minded community? BuddyPress is the buddy you need to get that community started. Here's how to get BuddyPress up and running on your WordPress Web site and use its free tools and themes to host a social network devoted to your pet projects, right on your site.
Full court press — start by obtaining a Web hosting provider and installing WordPress, then install and configure BuddyPress
It's your domain — register your domain name and use FTP to transfer necessary files
Member options — explore BuddyPress features for creating profiles, avatars, and community friendships
Growing with the group — integrate members' blogs, set up member groups, and add discussion forums with BuddyPress
Custom Buddy — expand BuddyPress themes, personalize them with CSS, and learn how to create your own
It's on the wire — promote community interaction through wire postings for individuals or groups
Gather the gang — integrate Twitter®, Facebook®, Flickr®, YouTube®, and other social media into your community
Go farther — discover third-party plugins that add more options
Open the book and find:
Cool things you can do with a BuddyPress site
Requirements for a hosting environment
Where to find and download free themes
What you can do with widgets
Ways for members to create and manage their own forums
How member avatars are used
Tips on using member group features
Ten BuddyPress sites to check out
Details
- ISBN13: 9780470568019
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
About Andy
Rating
Lisa Sabin-Wilson literally wrote the book on WordPress. I’ve read and used both editions of her “WordPress For Dummies” and pre-ordered the third edition today.
WordPress, if not the leading blogging application, is certainly a contender for the title. To use WordPress is to love it and Sabin-Wilson’s book makes WordPress accessible to all.
BuddyPress is a new product, free like WordPress, but intended to allow users to create their own “social community” on their website. This book is already behind the curve in some ways because BuddyPress is very much a work in progress. Sabin-Wilson’s book came out just a couple of weeks ago. During the time she wrote it and before it hit the streets, you needed to have WordPress MU (Multi-User) installed as the base for BuddyPress. As of a week or so ago, this is no longer the case: BuddyPress will now run on the single user version of WordPress. This change, in a way, means adjusting many of the instructions contained in the book, but it Is nothing a reasonably experienced person won’t be able to deal with.
What does BuddyPress do for you? Well, the author explains that quickly and clearly: with BuddyPress, you can build a community with members having their own blogs, tracking of activities, discussion forums and more. Feature like this have been available in part through services like Yahoo! Groups and Ning. But now you can run them on your own server and customize them to your tastes.
That’s the real power of BuddyPress – you can tweak it meet your needs and expectations.
And Lisa Sabin-Wilson shows you how.
Much of the book will seem familiar to “WordPress For Dummies” readers because, clearly, much of it was adapted from it. By the way, if you are new to WordPress, get and read “WordPress For Dummies” first. The education will serve you well as you approach BuddyPress.
Sabin-Wilson writes clearly. The only problem I foresee is that all the instructions are based on using WordPress MU (Multi-User) which may lead to confusion on some points, but I feel certain that the author will post errata to cover these differences.
BuddyPress may be overkill for most individuals – you can get many of the same features by using Ning or other web services. On the other hand, organizations and groups may readily appreciate the power of BuddyPress. Lisa Sabin-Wilson makes it easy to find out because she has essentially provided the “how to” manual on getting BuddyPress up and running with a minimum of hassle.
Jerry